When I saw a post in my newsfeed about the "Disney of Mexico," I was of course intrigued. Hotel Xcaret Mexico is not really affiliated with or even like Disney. But the reason it was referred to as the Disney of Mexico is because of its all-fun inclusive concept. The hotel is run by Grupo Xcaret, which also runs a series of parks in Mexico, including Xcaret, Xel-Há, Xplor, Xplor Fuego, Xavage, Xoximilco, Xenses and the Xenotes tour (more on these later). When you stay at Hotel Xcaret Mexico, in additional to premium dining and drinks, you get access and transportation to all of its park, plus some additional tours included with your stay. You can even take the Xailing vessel over to Isla Mujeres. Since the little vacationista just got her passport, I booked her first international trip to Mexico!
PRE-ARRIVAL: There are certain dining experiences and activities that you should book prior to your trip because they require reservations and book up fast. This can be done by emailing dxguestservice@hotelxcaret.com 1 month prior to your arrival with the reservations you would like. For dining, the following required reservations:
Ha (additional $) - Adults only restaurant with a chef that is the first Mexican chef to receive a Michelin star
Teatro del Rio - 5 course dinner show
Xin-Gao - Asian restaurant. You will have to specify sushi, teppanyaki, or fusion for your reservation
Sunday Brunch at Las Cuevas (additional $) - the craziest Sunday brunch I've ever been to; I even made a YouTube video especially for it
The activities that you will need reservations for include:
Xenotes tour - full day cenotes tour that is very popular and books up fast
Xel Ha - snorkeling park that ends up being an all-day event if you stick with the hotel transportation (we were told 9:30am pickup and 6:30pm return)
Xavage - adventure park with rafting, ropes course, etc. (also a full-day event)
Xoximilco - a Mexican fiesta on a gondola
There are also additional tours like Xichen, Coba and Tulum that you can book that we didn't look into because they were a bit further out
To make a reservation, I just included my reservation number and then listed out the date, time (for dining), activity, # of adults/children for each item that I wanted to book. I sent this in right before midnight 1 month prior to our arrival and heard back the next day regarding my request. I did have to move a few things around based on the response (e.g. teppanyaki only had seatings at 6, 8, and 10pm) but that was easy enough. For anything that requires an additional cost, they will send you a link to pay.
ARRIVAL IN CANCUN: We arrived late night at the Cancun airport. Grabbed our bags, cleared a very long customs line, and then went outside to the bus area. Avoid talking to anyone on the way and just look for the big black Xcaret bus (and the staff wearing pink shirts).
After a short wait to get everyone loaded, we were on our way. The ride from the airport to hotel was about an hour (Hotel Xcaret is in the Playa Del Carmen area). We checked in while the little vacationista slept.
They took our bags and walked us to our rooms. We had booked a garden swim up suite, while Grandma and Grandpa Vacationista were in a garden suite. The rooms were pretty much identical except that you could go straight into the pool from our deck.
The room has a fridge with sodas, beer, water, juices. You also have a bunch of snacks like potato chips and gummy candies in the room. They come around and replenish these every day. You also get a little gift each night (usually some kind of candy item in a little basket).
THE HOTEL: The hotel is huge and beautiful. They boast sustainability and eco-integrating architecture, which is evident while you walk around the grounds. We spent a lot of time just exploring the hotel. You can snorkel in the rivers (bring a wetsuit in the winter, the water was cold in November!), hang out at the beach, swim in the infinity pool, kayak...so many possibilities!
DINING: Overall, I thought the dining at the hotel was very good and there are a lot of options.
ROOM SERVICE: Our first meal was room service because we arrived late in the evening and the restaurants weren't open. It took about an hour to deliver and was just okay, but is included with your stay. Tacos were better than chicken wings, and you can order wine!
The little vacationista and I also ordered room service on our last night because we were being lazy.
Breakfast: If you're looking for a buffet for breakfast, Mercado de la Merced and Chibali would be your options. We did check out the buffet at Chibali a few times and always ended up back at Mercado. Mercado has an omelet station, pastry station, fruit station, dessert station, Mexican station, crepe station, ice cream station, etc. for breakfast.
The sit down options for breakfast would be La Trajiniera (next to the infinity pool but we never tried for breakfast) and the vegan Bio restaurant, which gets excellent reviews. Bio gets very crowded and there was always a huge wait so we never got to try it. If you do make the trek down there (even if you don't eat there), get some of their fresh squeezed orange juice to go because it was delicious.
Lunch: Buffet options at lunch are Mercado de la Merced (don't think we tried for lunch) and La Trajiniera (next to the infinity pool). La Trajiniera is mostly seafood but they have a build your own ceviche bar. Pro tip: you can order a wood-fired pizza there during lunch for the kiddos, it just takes some extra time (you'll need to just tell the waiter).
Sit-down options during lunch include Chibali (next to the kids club so think food that kids would eat), Bio (didn't try but most of the reviews we read were about the excellent breakfast), and Las Playas. Highly recommend checking out Las Playas.
Dinner: Lots of dinner options, most of which we didn't even try. I'll start with a la carte. Ha (fancy adults-only), Cantina Los Faroles, Teatro del Rio (dinner show), Bio, and Las Playas are all open for dinner and we didn't try any of these for dinner. Our first full day, we tried the fusion at Xin-Gao. The food was good, but we were still hungry and ended up at the buffet after. We saw others do the same thing so we weren't the only ones.
They also have teppanyaki and sushi options at Xin-Gao. Teppanyaki looked like a standard teppanyaki. Sushi you could order when you did fusion so that's why we ended up doing fusion.
Another evening we tried Las Cuevas. This is their Brazilian steakhouse type restaurant in the cave. I think I was so disgusted by food by the time we ate here that I didn't even bother taking any pictures.
Now for buffets. Mercado de la Merced is open for dinner, and it was a favorite. Their tacos are fantastic (get the crackling ribeye and crackling pork), they have a grilling station where you pick your seafood and they grill it for you, I can't remember what else but just go.
SUNDAY BRUNCH AT LAS CUEVAS: Do not miss the Sunday brunch at Las Cuevas. There's a surcharge and you have to make reservations ahead of time, but we spent a good 4 hours here, and I made an entire YouTube video just for it. I mean, can you really go wrong when they cut and serve an entire bluefin tuna in front of you?
OTHER: So I've been really down on Chibali in my review. But, we went here every day... because this is the site of the candy store! There's a candy buffet and cotton candy, and the little vacationista loved it. You can also get freshly made milkshakes here.
There are also little pop-up stations all around the hotel. By the entrance, you can grab popsicles each time you come back from an excursion (lime was our favorite). There's horchata in the mornings right outside Mercado. There was a fresh coconut station by the infinity pool. We also saw a hamburger station over by the main pool, and heard about the taco cart. So many different options, you definitely won't be hungry!
EXCURSIONS: We finally made it to excursions (funny it took this long because I didn't think I had much to write when I started this post). We signed up for a lot of excursions, but we ended up canceling a bunch of them to just hang around the hotel.
There's a bus that runs throughout the day that goes to Xcaret, Xenses, and Xplor. You can hop on and off and don't really need to plan these in advance. Just check with the concierge on opening hours (e.g. Xenses isn't open on Sundays). Because these are so close, these are the ones we ended up doing.
XCARET: Xcaret Park is like a mix of a lot of different things. There's a Mexican culture section, zoo section, snorkeling section, you can float down a river...bring water shoes because it can get pretty rocky. Our favorite activity was the stingray encounter. We just booked it at the counter when we got to the park. First you meet a stingray and then you spend some time snorkeling with them.
Buffets at Xcaret Park are also included.
Xenses: Xenses is an interesting park that shouldn't take you more than half a day. When you walk in, you enter a section called the Pinwheel. You find a bunch of different illusion type things that you can take pics with.
You'll need to leave your stuff in a locker, and then you can either go into the Town or the Xensatorium. We didn't go into the Town because you have to walk through a waterfall to get in and we didn't have swimwear (oops!), but we have heard of people getting motion sickness in the Town (just google it). There are a few other water activities you can do in the Town section.
The Xensatorium is the other area of the park. This part is really meant to get you to use your different senses. We also didn't go through the Xensatorium (okay, maybe we weren't feeling adventurous), but just think about walking through the dark and feeling different things like water under your feet or walking through a "forest" of leaves. If you don't want to walk through the dark Xensatorium, you can skip that area and then walk the reverse route to see the caves. The employees just stop you when you can't go the backwards route anymore.
Xplor: Xplor is the adventure park with ATVs and zip-lines. You'll need to wear a helmet throughout the park and store your belongings in a locker. You can't bring your phone or GoPro unless it's in a hands-free pouch (no pockets!).
We started out with the ziplines. The circuit was 7 ziplines with the last ending in the water so bring your swimwear. There was a lot of climbing involved, and we probably would have been good with like 4 or 5 ziplines but, once you start, you are committed.
Next up was ATVs. It was bumpy but not too rough, unless you're sitting in the car with Mr. Vacationista. Grandma and grandpa participated in this one too and had fun.
I mentioned some of the other parks in the reservation section above, but we didn't go to those because they were either farther or not great for the 6 year old. There's also Xplor Fuego, which is basically Xplor at night.
There's a transfer back to the airport at the end of your trip, and then you're on your way back to reality. The only other thing I'll mention is there are selfie stations all around the park and hotel. You scan your Magicband-like device (Mexico of Disney?) to take the pic, then you can buy a photo package at any park (there are multi-park packages that you can buy to get all your pics) to download your pics.
That's a wrap, buen viaje mis amigos!
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