Barcelo Maya Palace - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

17936 reviews

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  Amazing bartender experience

  We had the most AMAZING bartender today. All I can say is, go find Eduardo Osorno from the adults only pool bar at the Palace. This man was mexico’s version of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, flinging glasses and drinks up in the air, doing bar tricks, and making seriously well mixed delicious drinks with care and effort. The ultimate entertainer and a seriously nice guy. I hope his employer recognizes what a gem employee they have here. Thank you to Eduardo for a great time and going out of your way with our party. We will definitely be back! Cheers from the crazy Canadians at the bar today! 😍👍🏼👍🏼

  Jan 28, 2025
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  Great Family vacation

  We had a fabulous family vacation at the Barceló Maya palace with 3 young kids it was perfect for us. I loved that everything is walkable and there are no trolley’s like other resorts. The beach, pool and water slides were amazing. Food was fabulous and we never went hungry even our picky eaters. We will be back!

  Jan 28, 2025
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  Good and just OK from recent stay at the Palace

  The Palace is part of a big complex of 6 resorts. I think this USED to be considered a "luxury" resort property but it's not that any more. It's a decent place to stay and I would recommend it to friends, especially if you're looking for a family-friendly resort. Rooms: pretty good sized, we paid extra for an oceanfront room. Warning: there are 2 "oceanfront" buildings, but one of them actually overlooks the pools, then the beach, then the ocean. BE SURE to reserve your room in the Oaxahua building, not the Michoacan. The bed was a little bouncy, especially compared to the bed at the Riviera, where we stayed the week before (it's a separate hotel but still part of the entire Barcelo resort complex). The room was clean and AC worked fine. Be aware if you keep your patio door open to get the breeze and sound of the surf, the AC shuts off and the room gets humid, meaning the tile floor gets SLIPPERY! Food: make your dinner reservations at the specialty restaurants as soon as you get there. You can make reservations at all the other hotel restaurants (except at the Riviera), but be prepared to do some walking to get to them. I can't speak about the dinner at the buffet restaurant b/c we never ate there, although I can say it was always pretty empty when we went by. The buffet was great for breakfast and lunch. Lots of food options. We liked sitting outside on the covered patio, which overlooks the ocean and had a nice breeze. Pools: the pools are numerous and huge. There are little "water parks" in some of them for the kids. These pools were always crowded, loud, and had long lines at the pool bars. The Palace also had an adult-only pool, which we went to because it was a LOT quieter than the big pools with kids. That pool also has it's own towel service and bar, so there was never any wait for drinks there. The biggest complaint I have about the Palace and our experience there was the availability of lounge chairs at the pool. We literally would go down there at 7AM, IN THE DARK, and all the pool chairs were already reserved with towels. WTF!?!? I wound up dragging a couple of lounge chairs over from one of the big pools. There are several little cabanas as another option, but I think they cost $15/day. We complained about the chair situation several times, asking them to bring more chairs over from elsewhere in the resort, but it never happened. The hotel policy supposedly is that you can't reserve a chair with a towel, but I saw MULTIPLE situations where people were actually yelling at each other for removing a towel from a chair. It happened to us too. They told us about the no reservation policy and so the first day there we just removed the towels and sat down. People immediately came over and yelled at us that the chairs were theirs. The hotel should not be putting its guests in that situation. And it is really unpleasant to have to watch that going on, day after day, even when it wasn't us getting yelled at. Beach: The beach is pretty decent. There's a mile of beach across the whole resort complex. In front of the Palace it's broad white sand with lots of palm trees. Bring water shoes, as there's lots of rocks/coral exposed in the water. For whatever reason, the beaches (and beach chairs) at the other hotels were never very occupied, but there was always a crowd in front of the Palace beach. Why would everyone from the other hotels want to crowd in there?! Other: there are covered walkways connecting all the different hotels in the resort, which was nice for us since we had two wheelchairs. It was a lot cooler than having to use the sidewalk along the beach in the sun, and was great on the couple days when it was raining. Shopping: The hotel has a little area where vendors set up, and in the center of the whole resort there's a permanent vendor village. It's the same stuff that you would see anywhere in Mexico, T shirts and shot glasses and fridge magnets, but hey, that's all most people are looking for anyway! Privilege status: I'd recommend paying a little more for the "premium" experience. You get a dedicated lounge, with folks dedicated to checking you in and out, so no waiting in line. There's also food and drinks there, and a big screen TV and couches where we watched some of the playoff games. And I think you may get better rooms too. It's the little things: our group checked out the differences between the Palace hotel and the other hotels in the resort (Tropical, Hacienda, etc.) Buildings and rooms appeared very similar in style and construction. Looks like they were all built about the same time. We checked out the buffet restaurants at each one. The Palace appeared to have a little better food than the others (which I think are a bit cheaper). By "better" I mean more and better protein options, like shrimp ceviche vs. generic fish ceviche. Salad bar had many more choices at the Palace. The Palace buffet was definitely physically bigger overall than any of the others too. But you may be able to save a little money by staying at one of the other hotels in the complex, if food is not a big deal for you. The differences between the Palace and the other hotels didn't appear to be significant. The one exception to this topic is the Riviera hotel, at the other end of the Barcelo complex from the Palace. It's much newer and way nicer than any of the other hotels including the Palace, and it's off limits to the other hotel guests. So it's not even fair to try and compare the Palace to it. It's in a whole different league.

  Jan 28, 2025
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  Love it here!

  We love it here and want to come back every year. Go to the coral grill to visit angel and Jorge. They made our trip even better!! We can’t wait to come back to visit them next year!

  Jan 28, 2025
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  anniversary trip

  My husband and I stayed at the palace last week for our anniversary; as others have said, check-in was terrible. We got there late at night, and the man who checked us in told us to find a busboy to help with our luggage and show us where our room was located. (It is a big resort.) There was no busboy around, and when we let him know, he pointed to us which direction to go in and sent us on our way to try to find it. I told the hotel that I have serious mold allergies and that we need to be in a room that is not musty. The first room was terrible and I was unable to breathe. They finally moved us and the next room was a little better but still not ideal. They said they could move us to a better room in two days, which did not work for us. The next day, I spoke to them, and they said they would try to find us a new room and to come back at three. Then, we were told to wait another half-hour a few more times. They did finally get us into a room that was marginally better; however, I suspect all of the rooms are very damp. On top of all of that, there were not any king-size beds, just the two doubles. On a good note, we got over 20,000 steps in trying to figure out the problem. We stayed at the tropical last year and did not have a problem. The food was great. We really enjoyed all of the resort's restaurants, and booking al la carte was no problem. Some of the staff was amazing. We would love to thank Petrikowski for his assistance. He made us feel like we were being heard and tried to help as much as possible. We enjoyed the beach, and we were able to get a chair on most days. Unfortunately, we won't be able to return to the palace because of the mold issues. However, we might try going back to the tropical resort because we had better luck there.

  Jan 27, 2025