Having been to Cancun dozens of times since its inauguration in 1976 (first with children, later adding grandchildren, but most often just with my wife of 50 years) and having been to at least 8 different hotels (Camino Real now called Dreams and unfortunately owned by Apple Vacations, Hyatt Regency, Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach, Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Riu Palace Las Americas, Ritz Carlton, Moon Palace), decided to try the renovated Club Med for 5 nights, just in case ( May 18-22, 2008).

Conclusion--Excellent !!!

Club Med came to Cancun in its early stages and was able to use its cunning ability and foresight to obtain one of the best locations in the whole area (the best belongs to the Dreams, because the once Camino Real was also among the first in Cancun). It has the largest beach of any hotel we have known in Mexico, the Caribbean and the US -- one for swimming, the other for snorkeling and water sports. The swimming beach is like a large pool or lagoon, with clean clear water and no waves most of the time. The snorkeling beach is also big and very peaceful but not as comfortable for swimming. It is protected by a reef with plenty to see and enjoy.

Having been to the Club Med in Ixtapa twice some 15 years ago, we knew what to expect but got much more. Club Med is for people who like beaches, good food european style (not the kind you get at most hotel chains) and a happy informal atmosphere overall. Especially good for families and adults who are not fastidious, pretentious nor pompous. This is a case where quality and value are not synonymous to expensive and luxury.

We had an ocean front room with everything one should expect and be satisfied with in a beach resort--large enough, very good cooling system, large and good sturdy bed, adequate bathroom with separate toilet area, refrigerator to keep cool drinks, sufficient space for clothing, a safe, internet access at a reasonable cost, ironing facility, a very good curtain to keep the light out in the early morning and television entertainment that will not prevent guests from enjoying the hotel facilities by retaining them in their rooms. My only complaint would be that the TV lacked a news channel adequate for those of us not living in Europe or Mexico.

The food was much better than most of the all-inclusive and more expensive hotels we have visited in Mexico and the Caribbean, both in taste and presentation, as well as in variety and quantity. The same holds true for the alcohol drinks (several varieties of tequilas 100% agave, scotch and bourbon whiskeys, rums, gins and vodkas) including liqueurs and wines. Unfortunately, however, we did not find the included wines of good quality, although we also did not hear or see anyone complaining. Nor did we.

Our sole negative observation or "complaint" is that the beach area lacks sufficient trees to provide natural shade and add to the beauty of the environment, while the number of palapas and umbrellas is absolutely inadequate and would not suffice during high season when the hotel is over 80% full (during our stay it was probably 30% full). Many more palm trees should be planted throughout the area, with supports to withstand the daily strong winds and occasional hurricanes. This same remark and recommendation is applicable to every hotel in Cancun, including the Dreams which also has wide open spaces.

I will not attempt to contradict any of the negative comments I have read from recent guests, since I'm sure some may actually be factually accurate. However, I did find some rather strange and perhaps even extreme. To compare the toilet area to a cramped closet and the bed to an army bunk seems a gross misrepresentation. The same would apply to complaints about the noise at night from guests whose rooms were in the two nearby buildings. We were in the first and closest building (and room) to the pool (Tourquoise) and only once, when a party took place in the pool area after the nightly show, did we indeed suffer noise until around 11:30 pm. But that was the only time and it was really not unbearable nor prolonged.

Finally, we found all the hotel personnel, and we mean all, very attentive, courteous, friendly and efficient. Tipping was not necessary, although certainly deserved in many cases.

We expect to visit other Club Med locations soon and will also comment about them.

We are providing photos of our room and of the beach area to show its size and the lack of trees and natural shade.

Just returned yesterday from a 7 day stay. We traveled with our 2 boys 13 and 10. In 7 days we ate with our kids only 3 times - they wanted to be with their friends and Passworld GO's (BIANCA & STEPHANIE YOU GUYS ARE GREAT-THANK YOU) and loved their new-found freedom. (Our 10 year old said he was 11 to hang with the 11-13 year olds and he fit right in). There was plenty to keep them entertained and our 10 year old was a trapeze expert by the 2nd day. We felt (somewhat) comfortable letting them stay out till 11. The security is awesome. They sailed and kayaked (very safe) and played ping pong constantly. They met great kids that made us feel even more comfortable when they were "out and about".

My husband and I had not had this much "alone time" since before we had kids and we are so glad they came with us since everyone had a great vacation. There was never a problem getting chairs on the beach, or a drink, and the feeling of just relaxing and not having to worry about the kids or anything was priceless!

We tried the 2 menu only restaurants and wish we hadn't - since we ended up at the buffet immediately after we left. My entre' of garlic shrimp had 4 medium shrimp - that was it. Tiny portions and just OK tasting. Though the view of being "on the beach" can't be beat - but just go for a drink and then back to the buffet. The food choices are excellent. After being there a week I am glad to say I did not gain a pound. The fresh fruit, grilled fish and chicken, sushi, healthy cereal and salad bar were great - and I was always satisfied.

We met some great people that we hope to keep in touch with - John and Linda - you guys were the best!

The staff were all very nice, but surprising did not speak much English. More than once they were unable to answer a very easy question in English. This included our Reception hostess when we arrived.

Our 2 connecting rooms were fine and although we had our air conditioning turned all the way down, it was still hard to sleep at night. So, the next day we took a taxi to Walmart and purchased 2 fans which solved the purpose. Mind you it took $40 in taxi fees to buy the $34 fans, but at least we were all comfortable after that. We almost brought our own, thinking Club Med would have some, but they did not. So, if you need a fan to sleep - bring your own. We couldn't bring them home (too big) so we gave them to our taxi driver when we left.

All in all it was a great vacation and being our first All Inclusive, we do think this was the way to go.

The only excursion we took was the Jeep Adventure Tour and it was PERFECT. We saw Ruins, Zip-Lined in the jungle, swam in an underground cave AND had a great lunch in Puerto Morales. We topped it off with a visit to the local zoo where we held crocodiles, snakes, fed monkeys, etc. It was a great time.

Took the wife and two teenage daughters to Club Med Cancun for four nights from May 19 to the 23rd. Most of the reviews here are right on. Beach was great, GOs awesome, food was pretty good. We enjoyed all the activities. I would echo previous comments about the buffet dinners being better than the specialty restaurants.

All in all, it was a great vacation and we were happy with our choice of Club Med for our first time to Cancun.

I spent a week at the Club Med from 18-25 May 2008 with my 12-year old daughter and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I’ll try to describe the main aspects of the club below for future visitors.

The Club Med experience.

Club Meds are very different from all other all-inclusive resorts. They place enormous emphasis on high quality activities and facilitating socializing. There are essentially three types of people at the club – the guests (called GMs - gracious members or, in French, gentile members), the activity staff (called GOs - gracious organizers) and the local staff. The GOs are international hires – mostly 20-30 year olds who run all activities, often work at the bar, run the kiddie club, eat in the buffet restaurant with the guests and facilitate socializing. In Cancun, the GOs came from about 20 countries – the largest contingents were from Brazil, Canada and Mexico, but there were also some from Israel, Switzerland, Belgium, Uruguay, USA, Japan Morocco and elsewhere. The local staff are those who do the other jobs – room cleaning, dishwashing, lower-level cooks (the head cooks are almost invariably from France), etc. Club Meds are outstanding if you enjoy partaking in some activities, enjoy meeting new people and, in the “family Club Meds” like Cancun, if you have kids. If you are looking for a couch potato vacation with a partner and don’t want to do anything but lie on the beach and have romantic one-on-one meals at the restaurant, the Club Med would be fine for you but you will be paying a good deal for activities that you don’t use – your money would probably be better spent at a different type of resort.

The site and the location in Cancun.

The Cancun Club Med is located at the far southern end of the hotel strip. I heard that it was one of the first three hotels to be built in Cancun and they clearly got the best place in the area. The Club is on a large strip of land shaped roughly like a “U” with the ocean on the outside and a lagoon on the inside of the U. It is a large park-like area with buildings only 2-3 stories high – very different from the denser hotels found elsewhere in Cancun. The way the land is shaped, waves break about 50 meters out from the swimming beach and the ocean was calm every day in front of the club – green and sometimes yellow flags, while 200 meters away at the chi-chi Sun Palace, their beach was cramped, their views far worse and they had red flags every single day we were there, meaning that swimming was forbidden. From what I’ve read, the side of Cancun that has the most beautiful ocean colors is on the Caribbean Sea coast – unlike the “top of the seven” (the northern beaches: look at a map of the area) - and the it also tends to have less sea lice(microscopic jelly fish) during the bad season, at the cost of having much rougher surf. The only place on the Caribbean side where you can swim every day, however, is the Club Med. The view from the Club is fantastic – probably the best in all of Cancun – and the water color is unreal. When we were there the club was abit over half full and there were ample comfortable seats in the shade – no need at all to get up early to “reserve” your chair. The beach area was also pretty large – uncrowded compared to most other places we saw.

Farther down (south) the ocean-side, there is a snorkelling area - the only good place to snorkel in all of Cancun - and, farther still, a sailing beach area. In the lagoon there is water-skiing with crocodiles – I am not making this up. We saw a about 2 meter (7 ft long) crocodile in the lagoon and they make you sign a waiver stating that you will not sue the Club if anything bad happens to you. However, they also state that, in 30 years, no one has ever been attacked by a crocodile – they are very scared of the boat motors. And the activity staff often water-skis there too, so we did it and felt safe.

The Club Med is located about as far from the action in Cancun as you can get and still be in town – bars, restaurants, night clubs are all quite a ways farther north. (That said, the Club Med food and drinks are excellent, and they have a very nice open air beachside night club right there – little need to venture out.) If you do want to visit Cancun, you have two options: taxi (fairly expensive) or public bus. For the bus, you can walk out to the regular entrance to the Club Med and catch a bus there, but it only comes by about every half hour or so. Alternatively, you can walk up the beach to the next resort (the Westin), cut through to the road – in all maybe a 10 minute walk - and you will see a bus stop where buses leave about every 5-10 minutes. Bus fare is cheap but you will need Mexican pesos. Myself, I did not care much for Cancun – it struck me as being an artificial creation made mostly for American tourists – a wall of multistory mostly soulless resorts, with a few interspaced suburban-style malls and, farther away, a mostly uninteresting fairly recently constructed town. (This was also the view of several Mexicans with whom I spoke who work at the club.) If we go back to the area, it would be for the beauty of the site & sea, and for the Club Med – otherwise by my tastes there are a lot of nicer places to visit in Mexico.

Activities.

If you get bored at the Club Med, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Organized activities targeting different ages of children and also adults include: two types of sailing, water-skiing, trapeze & trampoline, tennis, soccer, beach volleyball, water aerobics, Pilates, salsa lessons, Yoga, box and step exercises, etc. And, if that is not enough, there is swimming in the gorgeous ocean, very good live music almost every evening with drinks and appetizers (one group reminded me of the Gypsy Kings, and others were: a Cuban band, a Mariachi band, and an old rock band), a very nice spa (extra $), several half-day or day outings (Chichen Itza… - extra $), shows every night and the night club afterwards. There is one half-day outing on Wednesday, I believe, that is free – to Cancun proper and nearby ruins – ask at the reception. Their trapeze setup is professional quality and run by a mostly Brazilian set of gymnasts. We saw two trapeze demonstrations, one of which had a visiting gymnast who previously worked for the Cirque du Soleil and apparently is one of six people in the world who can regularly do triple flips and be caught by a person on another trapeze. Real neat. My daughter especially enjoyed learning to sail, water-ski, improve her trapeze moves and seeing the spectacular circus-trapeze performances, hanging out at the kids club, eating with new friends and playing in the pool; I played in a mixed doubles tennis tournament, did water aerobics, laid out on some neat canapé beds by the pool, frolicked in the water, had abit too much to drink, enjoyed the early evening music and hors d'oeuvres and eating dinner with new friends. And together, my daughter and I made use of less than half the activities offered by the club. Of note – while this club caters to families, its large size and range of activities means that adults are not encumbered by hoards of kids – couples without kids too can enjoy themselves (I met many in this situation, including honeymooners).

Food and drink.

The main buffet restaurant has 6 different dining rooms with very different décor, and two a la carte restaurants (Tapas and Mexican) – these last ones were open on alternative days when we were there, as the club was only half full. Compared to essentially all other all inclusive resorts, Club Meds excel in terms of food. The buffet had a lot of choices, changed significantly from day to day (and from lunch to dinner), and the desserts especially were excellent. There was also a Japanese corner with a Japanese chef every evening. The food had a strong French flavour, although there were too a good deal of Mexican and Italian dishes. The large majority of people with whom I talked thought the food to be excellent (one couple said it was far better than a 5-star Iberostar that they had recently visited).

I want to mention, though, that we are fairly strict vegetarians and this is the one Club Med (out of four) where we have had trouble eating well, at least at first. One of the reasons we have tended to prefer Club Meds is that we can always find a variety of good vegetarian options there. The Cancun club however in the evening tended to emphasize meat and fish, even in the composed salad dishes and often pastas, really limiting our choices. We spoke to the chef and then to the reception and village head and, after several days of poor food, things got better. I guess what I am trying to say is (1) if you love meat you will be thrilled, (2) if you have dietary restrictions the Club Meds are in general great places to go to, (3) this is probably less true of the Cancun Club Med than other Club Meds and (4) if you do have special requests/needs then fax them ahead of time to warn them and politely ask for their help, and if things don’t work out, rapidly go talk with the cook (or the reception or village head). For us, this was the one real irritation we had during our vacation.

Drinks. Like essentially all all-inclusive resorts, the free house wine is fairly basic (the rosé is better than the red; I didn’t try the white) and there are much better bottles available for sale. The very top shelf booze also required paying a supplement (Don Julio tequila for example, which could cost you easily $80 a bottle in a supermarket), but their regular stuff was already very good (tequila, whisky, martini, pastis, beer…). For real good coffee, go to the main bar – their espressos and café au laits easily rival a Starbucks in quality.

Room buildings.

There are several types of rooms at the Club Med – the basic regular one we had, deluxe rooms, and concierge suites and rooms in the Jade building. The regular rooms are not ocean front, but ours directly overlooked the lagoon and right in front of our window/balcony we saw beautiful sunsets every evening. From what I have heard and read, the best rooms are in the Jade building but only on the ocean side – it is not worth paying extra for rooms on the other (road) side. The deluxe rooms in the other buildings are slightly larger or come with an ocean view.

You can request a certain room type by faxing the Club 7-10 days prior to your arrival – they are good at trying to meet requests (check their website for the fax number). However, do not expect a better type of room unless you are willing to pay for it – they do not give free upgrades. In general, unless you are handicapped or have a stroller, avoid the ground-floor rooms which tend to be less private and noisier. Buildings with rooms are all 2-3 stories high – if you don’t mind stairs the best are on the third floor. Buildings A, B and C (Amatista, Obsidiana and Topacio) are located between the main area (pool, restaurants, bar…) and the trapeze/water-skiing and miniclub area. Building D (Turquesa) is very near the main area and apparently tends to be relatively noisy. We were in building E (Granate) – a good choice (as I recall our room number was 5207). Buildings F (Onice), G (Ambar) and H (Opalo) are abit farther away, between the main area and the tennis/sailing areas. About the farthest away, but with the best ocean front suites (for a price) is the Jade building. Again, unless you have trouble climbing steps, it is best to request an upper floor room with a view and also not road side (they have a service road that may rarely be abit noisy – when tour buses leave in the morning, for example).

After hurricane Wilma about 3 years ago the Club Med completely renovated this Club. The rooms are real neat – strong colors, very comfortable beds, a stylish shower area, and an unforgettably bright deep pink toilet area. There are flat screen TVs with a limited good choice of channels (English, French and Spanish) and we had a free cable internet hookup and a digital safe at no extra cost. Prior to being a family Club Med, this club catered to adults – mostly couples. For this reason the rooms, while real stylish, tend to be small. You could fit three people into a room but it would be tight; I believe (to be confirmed) that if you are a family of four, then Club will provide you with another room at no extra cost – they have a fair number of adjoining rooms.

In any case, as the Club Med has been going upscale on recent years, it has also gotten much more expensive (excellent food and top quality activities don’t come cheap). It is well worth your time to look at the Club Med website early on, or work through a travel agent who is real familiar with the Club Med, as they often have great sales going on. Speaking for myself, abstracting from travel we spent about $1,100 for the week for both of us – my daughter stayed (and ate and played… for free, and I did not have a single supplement).

To resume, I’d rate this Club at a 5-star level:
8 stars for the activities (nothing else out there comes close)
4.5 stars for the room (much more style than a Hilton or Sheraton, but rooms are fairly small)
2-5 stars for food & drink – 6 if you are a consummate carnivore, 2 if you are vegetarian and dislike having to talk several times to the chef to get decent food.
6 stars for fun and the ease of socializing (again, the Club Med excels here)
6 stars for the beach
5 stars for the front desk – they were very pleasant and professional.

In Cancun, I would not consider going any place else. Tom