Amy from Foster City, California had this to say:

"We booked this resort because the booking agent advised it was really nice ... It turned out to be not so ... Unfortunately we paid a lot for 4 of us for a week ($3000!!!) as we booked it the wrong time ... The worst things about this resort: Little we knew that even next to the kids swimming area there are smoking allowed!!! The whole hotel was full of smoke as most of the guest smoked. The grounds were really nice, but cozy as it is a relatively small resort. The activities are fun, the kids club is good only for ages 7 & up, as they don't tend to the smaller ones (although it is 'advertised'). The other gross thing about this hotel is its beach. They try to clean it up every morning, but: if you dare to swim, to need to swim across a weed and PLASTIC belt of water. Yes, plastic shreds!!! It was pretty bad and DISGUSTING!!! I don't think we'll ever return to this hotel. January 13, 2009"

Posted: Tue, Jan 13, 2009

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A Recent Traveler from Scranton, PA had this to say:

"We stayed here two years in a row. The first year we were in the platinum club, a waste of money, you get pretty much the same thing as just all inclusive, It was great. The rooms are nice, the staff excellent, the food pretty good and a lot of it 24 hours a day. They have lots of activities for the kids and a beautiful pool. The beach is nice in front of the hotel, go down the beach and it is covered with trash. The second year they had construction starting at 9am. It was loud and totally obstructed the ocean view we had the year before. They have a couple of outside shows during the week, they are excellent. They inside activities at the bar area the rest of the nights are usually not for kids. We went on a tour the second year to Chechen Itza. It was a long bumpy ride and there are lots of venders trying to rip you off with trashy merchandise. Watch out. I got so sick on the bumpy bus ride by the time we headed back to the hotel, I was throwing up the entire ride home (four hours) Don't get suckered into a time share presentation. They promise free tickets to tours. Believe me, you earn your free tickets. They keep you all day, you have no way of getting back to your hotel except from them and they push very hard. They will take you from room to room with each person pushing harder. You are their hostage until they take you back to your hotel. Walk right by those people that try to grab you at the airport and don't look back. I would not recommend going into town without the staff, a daily bike ride. It is a little scary. It is a beautiful hotel and the staff is amazing. Just don't believe everything you are told you will get. "

Posted: Wed, Oct 01, 2008

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Heidi from Auckland, NZ had this to say:

"I loved it! Everything was amazing!"

Posted: Fri, Aug 22, 2008

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• Would Return or Recommend:Yes

Bruce from Fairbanks, AK had this to say:

"My family (myself, wife, boys ages 7+9) stayed at the El Cid from Feb 15 - Feb 23. We liked the hotel quite a bit. Things that were good about the hotel: The pool, diving cliff, waterslide, activities were all great and entertained the family for many days. The hotel rooms are spacious, clean and very comfortable. The housekeeping services were very good. Intermittently they would forget soap / towels / etc - but a call to the front desk always fixed problems right away. This is a new resort and the grounds were immaculate. The restaurants were pretty good. It's an all-inclusive resort so you won't be experiencing fine dining for 3 meals a day. However, the quality, presentation and variety of foods was outstanding. The bars served outstanding drinks - just ask for any liquor and they will give it to you. They used bottled water for everything so you can eat whatever you want and there is no worry about getting sick. Just don't drink / brush your teeth with the tap water and you'll be fine. The beach was nice. There is seaweed on the beach but the hotel employees work hard to clean it up constantly. Things that were bad: There aren't enough beach palapas and/or pool chairs available for the number of guests at this hotel. If you stay here during the high season and want to sit by the pool or beach - just know that you have to be up and placing your stuff on a chair by 0630 or you are out of luck. The Platinum Club is a complete rip off. In essence we paid about $1400 extra for this "service". Here is what you really get for the extra money: - Guaranteed Ocean View room (this is a plus) - Fruit basket on check in (a plate with fruit - not such a big deal as this is an all-inclusive hotel) - Butler service (saw the guy twice the entire 8 days - I suppose if you're the type of person who is going to have some guy running around like a monkey getting stuff for you, this might be worth it) - Late check out (not likely unless the hotel is empty - they wouldn't let us stay an extra hour - if the hotel isn't busy they would let you check out late whether or not you were Platinum) - Use of "Platinum Club room" - (who cares?) - "Guaranteed reservation at specialty restaurants" - (Yeah, you can get guaranteed reservations if you call 2 days in advance like everyone else - if not - tough luck. Platinum club doesn't help you with reservations one iota. When the hotel is busy, getting reservations is very difficult) - Reservation of Palapa Huts on the Beach - (This is the only reason I paid for the Platinum Club. Who wants to get up at 0600 on vacation? Out of 8 days, they only reserved a Palapa for us on 1 of the days. The other 7 days various "issues" occurred: - They "forgot" - They reserved a hut but no chairs - how cool is that? - They stated that we didn't give them enough notice for our guaranteed palapa reservations (20 hours isn't enough I guess) I must have seen 12 irate families during my time there attempting to contact management about the problems specifically with the "Platinum Club". The management was less than responsive. When I requested to speak with the manager, I was told to go back to my room and wait for him to call me sometime during the day to set up an appointment. Oooh boy, that's just how I want to spend my time on vacation - waiting for a call! So here's the deal - the hotel is nice, kid friendly, plenty to do during the day. Just don't pay extra for the fraudulent Platinum Club and make sure you get up by 0600 to get a seat somewhere and you'll have a good time. However, we will go someplace else next year in Cancun. By the way - don't talk to the people in the airport at the exits who represent themselves as transportation officials - they are timeshare jackals."

Posted: Mon, Apr 28, 2008

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Rosa from Minneapolis, MN had this to say:

"The hotel in itself is nice and the rooms are very contemporary, but it was hard to have privacy in the bathroom and shower having those beautiful glass doors. This is great if you go there with no children. We got a partial view of the ocean and pool which was very nice. The service is not very good. I think people are overworked and not in the mood to provide a good service. The entertainment is boring too. The prehispanic show was good; the others were just ok. People were bored just sitting there looking at dancers. There were a few good contests in the pool, but not many people participated. The entertainment team is new and need to get people more involved in activities. The food was basically the same the entire week with the exception of the specialty restaurants. We only went to the Mediterranean restaurant and the food was better than the regular food offered for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food in the open restaurants was just ok, not very tasty, and people would walk around the buffet with almost empty plates. I heard a lot of people saying "this is the same food we had for breakfast or dinner last night" They were right. There was a lot of pork and seafood dishes too, which we could not tried and other people too were complaining about it too. My youngest daughter has been having stomachaches since last Wednesday; we have never gotten sick in Mexico before; obviously the cleaniness and handling of the food might not be as good as in other resorts. We're going to the doctor this afternoon. I have never been to Puerto Morelos before, where the hotel is situated. We were dropped off first and I was so disappointed to see that the road to the hotel was not even paved yet and the surroundings look very poor. All the people in the van were asking if this was the right way to get to the hotel. I think in a few years this part of the City will improve, but righ now is not a very good first impression. One good thing is that we were always able to find pool and beach chairs to sit on. That tells you that the hotel was not full, probably half capacity and even then, the service was poor. The worst was actually the front desk staff; not very helpful and not very happy either. They probably get a lot of complaints. The hotel is trying hard to get guests to attend a time share meeting and let me tell you that they are persistant from the minute you arrive and they don't allow you to get to your room without first them talking to you. Very annoying when you just want to start enjoying your vacation. I think the hotel is not defined who they want to target: time share holders or people just wanting to spend a good vacation. We were not told about all the services provided in the hotel like the spa (which was actually very good, we enjoyed our full body massage and hydrotherapy), exercise room etc. If you decided to attend the time share meeting then a rep would take you for a tour of the hotel. Friday night I requested bell boy service at 6:30 a.m. next morning to help us out with our luggages, but no one ever came since the bell boy's work schedule starts at 7:00 a.m. We learned this at the time of check out. The front desk person never thanked us for or asked how was our stay, he just gave us our print out and turned to the another person behind the counter and started talking to her. We were obviously not very impressed"

Posted: Wed, Apr 09, 2008

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Bill Barker from Grass Valley, CA had this to say:

"We arrived early from another hotel.(11:00am) The hotel told us that check in was at 3 pm. but they would try to get us in earlier. We wondered around the resort getting acquainted with the layout and locations of activities. We were given a pager to hold onto and that they would let us know when our room was ready. We checked back in around 2 pm in hopes of reminding them we were still waiting. One gentleman said he would check on the status of our room and get back to us. We never saw him again. Finally at 3 pm we checked with the receptionist who saw me walking through the door, then had a disturbed look on her face, then proceeded to pick up the phone and call someone. After she hung up, she stated our room was just about done being cleaned and it would only be another 10 minutes. 1 hour and 10 minutes later they took us to see two different rooms and for us to pick which one we would like. The first wasn't even the same type of room we booked, the second was the right type.........but we later found out several things either didn't work or were missing altogether. The sliding glass door handle was broken and made it difficult to go out onto the patio. The TV didn't have a remote. There wasn't a close closet pole in the closet, only one bracket on one side, but no second bracket and no pole. There wasn't a DVD as mentioned for amenities and we later found that the Jacuzzi tub didn't work and that they were aware of it, yet still placed us in that room. The food was good but not great. Pasta and fish were the main dishes every day with some turkey. Hamburgers and hot dogs are offered every meal. The menu consisted of the same thing daily pretty much. The resort was nice, the people were friendly and helpful, especially our Butler Victor. He provided us with repairs to the sliding glass door, a close closet pole, but never any hangers. He got us a remote for the tv and a DVD player. All in all, we didn't feel the Platinum service upgrade was worth the money, especially when we had such a late check in and the amenities were sub-standard. Also, if you like your privacy when on the JOHN, sorry, frosted glass, you can still see in somewhat."

Posted: Wed, Jan 09, 2008

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Bill from had this to say:



Posted: Wed, Jan 09, 2008

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KAJ from Minneapolis, MN had this to say:

"Was booked into a room that timeshare staff were constantly trying to show. We awoke to people trying to use keys and kicking the door trying to get in . Room had broken tile and we were out of the room (at our own expense) for a full day while they repaired it. High pressure timeshare sales and the resort staff did not have time to direct you to activities until you agreed to sit through a presentation. Found that the pool was nice and food was plentiful. Great diving reef but very difficult to obtain clear answers to direct questions."

Posted: Thu, Jan 03, 2008

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