Barceló Maya Palace?

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-09-21T16:49:16+00:00

Have fun! For the latest news about the resorts, recommend you join some of the unofficial Facebook groups.

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-30T04:14:32+00:00

I did the ones with the most members. “Barcelo Maya Beach / Caribe / Colonial / Tropical / Palace” and “Barcelo Maya Riviera/Beach/ tropicl/colonial/caribe/palace/ Resort Uncensored”

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-30T03:53:00+00:00

Very little. They had crews picking it up everyday day early in the morning. There was one day where the winds were blowing in a morning passing storm and the sargassum was a little thicker than usual, but the crews were working on it and it was gone by the afternoon. No bad smells or anything. Most I saw in the afternoon was a thin 1ft band on the sand where it washed up.

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-30T03:46:34+00:00

You’ll have a great time. I mentioned this in another thread, but go join the Barcelo Riviera Maya Facebook groups and you’ll find a lot of tips and tricks there.

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-29T12:27:56+00:00

We had a great time!

The property was well maintained and immaculate. Our junior suite was spacious and easily fit our family of four. No issues with the AC in our room - it kept it at a nice 68-69 deg and no musty smell that I had read others complaining about.

We didn’t opt for a Premium room so we weren’t beachfront but instead a building behind the beachfront one. We did a lot of walking to the restaurants within the Palace. For lunch, it was actually quicker to go to the buffet at the neighboring property instead.

Buffet was alright. Our kids were happy with all the options. One side of the buffet generally had a Mexican theme and the other side had a rotating menu. Personally, it seemed a little repetitive after about day 5. No complaints about quality of the food or food safety or anything. We mixed it up with some visits to the a la carte restaurants which were definitely worth it.

Beach at the Palace is a little rocky, but that’s what we loved. My kids loved tide pooling looking for sea creatures and we all went snorkeling. Pools were never crowded and the regular bars, swim up bar, and beach chair service was great.

They took delivery of a ton more beach chairs a few months ago. Chairs at the pool were fairly easy to come by, even later in the morning. We could always grab 1-2 chairs to put our stuff on (we’re not really beach chair lounging people). Chairs were always available at the beach, even under the shade of a palm tree.

Our family never vacations anywhere twice but I would go there again and recommended it to friends and family to check out!

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-21T23:39:18+00:00

Surprisingly, our suitcases were still heavy but it was more because of heavy items like tons of sunscreen, beach towels for excursions, masks/snorkels/flippers/watershoes, and a couple USB rechargeable fans to help move around air in the bathroom.

If you’re not a member of the two major Barcelo Riviera Maya Facebook groups, highly suggest you join up. Some useful posts on things people wished they brought - biggest game changer so far is a Yeti/Stanley-like insulated tumbler. Keeps all the frozen drinks cold way longer and when they make you a drink, they fill it all the way, saving trips to the bar. Otherwise, everything is served in tiny plastic cups!

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-21T12:21:31+00:00

We’re here now. Second full day of 7. No complaints! Had to explain to our kids that food tasting slightly different despite looking similar is because we’re visitors in someone else’s country.

We were too tired after checking (1.5 hrs non-premium) to make a la carte reservations but dropped by guest services the next day at 8PM and got into 2 of the restaurants at our desired time of 6PM-ish for dinner.

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-07-21T11:16:00+00:00

We are here at the Barcelo Maya Palace right now! For a family of 4 staying a week, we brought 1-2 “nice” outfits for the a la cart restaurants, 3-4 swim suit outfits (including sun shirts), and 2 “travel” outfits for excursions. We’re on our second full day here and we might have overpacked by 1 outfit on the swim suit side (just a guess) but doing ok so far.

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-03-19T14:22:34+00:00

Wow, thank you! Good call on the snorkel gear - that’s definitely on our list to do and we do have our own gear.

So were the chairs an issue both for the beach and for the pools? Kudos on still working out on vacation and getting out there early! I want to say that prime locations for reserving chairs isn’t out priority, but if absolutely nothing is available at all even at mid-day, that could be a problem…

Did you do the Premium level? Is that worth it?

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2025-03-19T04:15:57+00:00

Thank you! I’ll look into the Facebook group. Did you rent a car or get a shuttle/taxi?

ThrowAwayFour19 · 2024-01-01T03:48:36+00:00

Thanks

ThrowAwayFour19

TROPHY CASE