TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Highlights: • Beautiful property. The pool area is fantastic and being surrounded by the jungle and animals was incredible. That was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. • Great food. Every meal we had was great. Especially loved the Italian restaurant and smoke house. • Wonderful staff. The team throughout the hotel was kind, attentive, and welcoming. • Fun activities. The on-site activities were a great addition and added a lot of fun to the stay. A small suggestion: • Music quiz: We loved the music quiz and had a great time the first night we attended. The staff hosting it were excellent and the songs were fun. Because we enjoyed it so much, we came back two nights later expecting a new set of songs, but it was the exact same playlist. If the quiz runs multiple times in the same week, it would be great if the songs rotated so guests can participate again without already knowing the answers. A couple areas that could be improved: • Arrival experience: After a long travel day and investing a lot in a stay, guests hope for a warm, relaxed welcome. When we arrived, we were invited to attend a 90-minute informational breakfast the next morning. While it’s understandable to offer this to guests, the interaction felt quite pressured when we declined. There were comments implying that not attending would hurt the concierge personally, which created a sense of guilt for saying no. I want to emphasize that the concierge herself was kind, and it seemed likely she may be under pressure from management to promote this. However, guests should be able to decline without feeling pushed or made uncomfortable. • $300 Iberostar credit: The advertising around the $300 credit was confusing and felt misleading. Initially it sounds like a $300 credit you can use at places like the spa. In reality, it works like coupons where you must spend $100 in order to receive $25 off. This means you need to keep spending money to use the credits, which is very different from what many guests might assume when they hear “$300 credit.” Greater transparency around this would make the experience feel much more straightforward and fair. Aside from those points, the resort itself is fantastic and we enjoyed our stay. However, the arrival pressure around the breakfast presentation and the way the $300 credit is advertised both left us feeling uncomfortable. As someone who works in tourism and hospitality, those aspects felt a bit at odds with the otherwise high-quality experience the resort provides. If those two things were addressed with a more transparent and relaxed approach, this would easily be a nearly perfect stay and a place I would enthusiastically recommend to others.

Second visit to Iberostar Tucan Waves/ Iberostar Quetzal THE BAD: SEAWEED - wall/shelf of 2 foot high and extending 8 -10 feet into the water. From the first day arrived. Water not accessible for many days. However, a tractor did eventually come clear it. I know it is not the resort that created the problem, but, they have means to clear it fast as it is a regular occurance. RESTAURANTS: Trouble booking for groups for dinner. Email enquiry was brutal upsell. $32 US to sit us together in restaurant! Although restaurant have space for over 100 ppl. and were less than half full each time we went. No area for a group gathering...unless you pay BIG $$$ Also HUGE (similar) cost to get a platter of fruit or ANYTHING service to beach. I have never seen this before at 4+ stars LATE NIGHT BUFFET - YUCK!!! Dead fries, stale food, no variety. ROOM SERVICE: NO room service as advertised. Although i was told AFTER that they would have send a plate to me when I was sick. IF i asked for 'special consideration'. UPSELLING BASICS: EVERYTHING!!! This level of a resort should have a lot more PREMIUM services available without the guest feeling put upon To get a SEAT with a table of bar service at FIRESHOW was $270 US (apparently that got you a bottle of booze and a table to sit your drinks on. ) It was sectioned off as VIP. You could get a nice chair far away from show for free. The photos should be complimentary for a basic photo, wine by the bottle or at least a better quality wine, etc etc ALCOHOL: -CORONA-Another area was a $65 US upcharge to sit in a designated PRIVATE area in order to get CORONA and "other" PREMIUM ALCOHOL! SO, to sit with my group, I could not get Corona...excepy at supermarkets sold for the same as all the rest -WINE: at restaurants/bars (if possible) a choice of BAD wine. OR BUY a bottle. You got an ice bucket with it! LOL they did not leave a bottle at the table for the group...just the people who BOUGHT bottles. Other wise you waited for a top up. -ROOM BAR FRIDGE - NOT COLD...as per all the friends who told us as well. . "stocked" w 2 Dos equis, 2 soda, 2 coke. No ice bucket although could get ice. Large Glass bottle of refillable water (too big to bring to put in pool bag or beach). Had to wait for room cleaning to rqst more. -Phone in Room...not working. Was fixed quickly. -Non-alcoholic beer were special request at the bar near beach. WE had 3 people who were non-drinkers and they wanted non-alcoholic beer. We let them know this repeatedly. Each day...they had very limited quantities (2-4) and we had to REQUEST AGAIN. BUT, the response was positive and fast! -No wait staff/servers/bar service at beach. Staff was available for quick clearing, but, not serving. Bar was far away. LOTS OF ICE THERE THOUGH. MANY MANY TRIPS TO STAY HYDRATED. -Beach buffet restaurant. Food seemed old Esp pasta. VERY limited menu. HAD TABLES outside in sectioned off area AND APPROX 75 SEATS...BUT, COULD NOT order FOOD OUTSIDE or bring it outside. YOU COULD ORDER DRINKS AND DRINK OUTSIDE. So weird, no where to EAT outside except on your beach chair if you got tacos like fast food fries, burgers, hotdogs, ice cream etc. (my understanding) -SMOKEHOUSE (advertised as "Steakhouse" but, that changes when you go). REALLY BIZARRE ALMOST HOSTILE STAFF. Will notttt allow you to join a table once they are seated. A FLAT NO...YOU CAN NOT JOIN YOUR FRIENDS/FAMILY. If you go alone, you are almost chastised and you are aware of an incredible effort to accommodate you. Manager is called repeatedly if u ask a question. It was almost empty :( Also, my phone died while waiting for friends to join me...could not warn them. BARTENDER FLATLY REFUSED WHEN THERE WERE 6 FREE OUTLETS AND GREETER SAID I COULD NOT USE AN OUTLET ON THE WALL. Still shaking my head... -ADULT POOL - We Arrived Friday, made several attempts to go in water...SMELLED like urine, then a tonne of chlorine next day. Monday evg We spoke w staff. They responded and checked back with us. You could tell it was refreshed by Wednesday because it was COLD! Yayyy. We did not care as long as it was clean. Bathrooms were not easy or fast to access REALLY made it hard to get out, upstairs and around back for toilets. Good bartender. -SECURITY: CONSTANT ONSLAUGHT OF SELLERS OF EVERYTHING POSSIBLE ON THE BEACH. EVERY 5 MINUTES. ---- Phone cases, jewellery, shawls, hair braids, excursions, UPSELL for shows, souvenirs...etc etc Most resorts make it known to locals NOT to harass their customers. WAY more sellers than staff! Late night beach security. Lots of them. -PHOTO SALES: prices not clear. PUSHY then HARD sell -TIMESHARES: offered FREE MASSAGE or Money Credits etc if u sign up for a quick INFORMATION SESSION about the resort! It is really to sell the NEW resort. Tells you all the GOOD stuff you are missing if you owned. Told them that the resort is CLOSING IN MAY. -Karaoke lasts only 1/2 hour at Bar(S) AT 9 PM - 9:30 then everything closes down. -SPA...healing room out of order, shower out of order -Beach very dark at night. Security patrolled to keep you off beach. -Most 4-5 star resorts offer shuttles to town -NO CLUB STYLE DANCE WITH PARTNER OR FRIENDS, ONLY 'SIMON SAYS' TYPE LINE DANCING AT SHOW W SAME MUSIC EVERY NIGHT EVEN AT FIRESHOW -Big Karaoke Night. PLEASE put screen where singer does not have to turn back on to people to see it. THE GOOD: -Beach TACOS were good. -Ice cream was good -room was CLEAN -showers were good size -ANIMALS were delightful -Entire premises were clean -STAFF were excellent for entertainment. -Lots of fun for kids. Shows, Theme nights, volley ball -Coffee BARS on each side was fun! -Tea in SPA, Spa hydrotherapy, SAUNA! -Friendly/helpful STAFF -FOOD-Great variety. FRESH. Wonderful fruit. Loved Mexican Night!!! Great desserts esp at Mediterranean. Turkey, Lamb, Omelets, etc etc etc -Great BARTENDERS w good variety of drink knowledge -MASSAGE on Beach was great! -SPA was clean -Staff responded quickly to my slipped disc on day one! -Pool manager responded quickly to our concern about pool water -FOAM PARTY / Beer drinking contest was wonderful! -I was given a complimentary bottle of wine in my room for my birthday - an HB pillow was left in my room on my birthday -Place to hang wet clothes was good too -Safe in room worked. Felt good to have this -Karaoke was fantastic. Crowd pleaser! NEED SCREEN FOR SINGERS though!!! THE UGLY: SEE SEPARATE REVIEW ABOUT SEXUAL HARRASSMENT/BULLYING

Ok here’s my review and please take with a grain of salt, knowing that vacationing with kids is just parenting just in another place so it’s not always perfect. Also I am a fairly simple person in terms of taste but I can be picky about things. This is my 4th time in Mexico, first time at this resort and first time bringing my children to Mexico. First of all, the resort grounds are gorgeous. The animals and jungle setting are why we chose this resort. We like the smaller feel of the resort and easy ability to walk from the room to the pool and restaurants. My kids are 3, 7 and 9 and get whiny easily so getting around was quite easy. Second, the staff are all very kind and friendly. Very professional and they work very hard to keep the entire resort running well and keep the grounds immaculate. We made sure to tip our housekeeping and the servers at the non buffet restaurants. And a couple dollars here and there for the ice cream and beach side drinks. Overall the resort was kept very clean. We booked 7 days, flying in Tuesday and leaving the following Tuesday. We did not attend many shows because they were a bit too late for us. We are generally in bed by 8-9. We watched the grand finale show at Xcaret which was incredible so we didn’t feel we missed too much at the resort, except the fire show which was on the Tuesday night that we left ( we had an early flight). They said it is usually on Monday, but there was a wedding so it was moved to Tuesday. We did one excursion, which was xcaret and that was amazing. It was a very long day and a lot of walking for my kids, so we were happy we brought a wagon but unfortunately did not get to see everything. We got back around 10, so it was annoying we had to wait until 11 for the late night snack bar to open since we had a lunch at xcaret but not dinner (since only lunch is included in the package). Overall, I did not have strong feelings about the food one way or another. It was fine for us. When we arrived, we made the dinner reservation for the Italian restaurant, but the Japanese restaurant had no spots available for the whole week for 5 people so that was annoying. I enjoyed the Italian and Mediterranean restaurants more than the buffet for dinner. The smokehouse was good, it was just way too much food for us, and I hate wasting food. Would have loved chips and guac / salsa at the beach snack bar. The app made it easy to see which restaurants were open when. My 9 year old daughter did get very sick the day after we arrived. She was vomiting and such and ended up spending a day and a half in bed so that was a huge bummer. It’s hard to know if it was from norovirus or food poisoning, as the symptoms are quite similar. I will say no one else got sick like she did, although my husband and I both had upset stomachs on and off. I do think they could have had more hand sanitizer stations at the buffets and restaurants. We went on a cruise a couple years ago, and I appreciated they had hand washing stations right at the entrance of the restaurants/buffets so it was more encouraged and enforced to prevent illness. The staff was very kind about my daughter being sick, and offered to bring food to the room and called to check on her. Since the buffets do not have A/C, I was a little more paranoid about another one of us getting sick from the buffet food due to it being hard to maintain cooler temps. The biggest downside to me was the rooms. This is where I am going to get picky. As a family of 5, we had to book 2 connecting rooms which on the Tucan side are in building 14. We got room 1443 and 1444. The rooms were very basic and older / outdated. They do not have enough outlets- there are none on the bedside so I wish I would have brought an outlet extender to charge my phone. I hope in the renovations they add in outlets on the sides of the beds. The view from the balcony was not great because the grass roof was hanging quite low. It made the room a bit dark. The howler monkeys sounded to be directly above our room and were quite loud. We didn’t love hearing this in the morning. While I loved seeing the spider monkeys in the trees and it was cool to have the howler monkeys, knowing that they were in cages right above us was a little bit unfortunate to hear them make the noises as they were locked up. I don’t think it would be bad if we could see them in the trees. I know the staff is working to rehome them and waiting on permits but it’s taking a long time. They were very accommodating to offer us to switch rooms. And after my daughter was sick, I thought it would be a good fresh start for us. The second set of rooms were 1423 and 1424, directly below the first set. We did not hear the monkeys as loud and the view from the balcony was much better. It was nice to not have an extra set of stairs to go up. This room did not have black out curtains like the previous rooms, and the balcony light was on until 1 am so the curtains would have been nice. Room 1424 had a very musty smell that bothered me, and none of the other rooms had this smell. I think it was the HVAC. My husband did not want to switch rooms again halfway through our trip so we just dealt with it. It also did not have a shower head, but staff was quick to install one when I notified them. The shampoo dispenser was missing so they had a bottle of shampoo. The lights on the bedside were flickering and stopped working, so I think the building could use an electrical update in total. Also I was unable to get the echo dot we brought to connect to the WiFi (to listen to music/podcasts at night for my kids). Again, very picky and small details but all of these little things add up. None of this is the fault of any of the staff - they were quick to try and address the issue but it really needs to be the Iberostar company making sure the facilities are in good working order. I know they are closing for renovations so I hope they address all of this. The room was clean though and housekeeping did a great job. Pool was very large and nice, water was warm. I was surprised there was no hot tub. Also the pool is long, so a long way to walk around to get to the other side. Another resort I’ve been to had a bridge going across. One end is more quiet, whereas the activities are held at the other end. The kid pool area is best for young kids, 4 and under. A larger water slide would have been really nice for older kids. But we will have to look for this at the next resort we stay at. It did not bother me at all to not have room service or beach service. My kids loved the ice cream stand at the pool. Loved all the shaded umbrella spots and the beach towels provided are nice quality. Make sure to bring your own pool floats and life jackets for kids as they do not have any. Also recommend reserving chairs with towels early to get a good spot. The beach was nice, however the sargassum was pretty heavy during our trip so we didn’t spend too much time there. They had a tractor out every morning though and it’s no fault of the hotel so we just mostly stayed by the pool. Loved how eco friendly the resort is. I am sure it also helps to keep the place clean without plastic bottles everywhere and such. The filtered water tasted good (another thing I am picky about). Although the dispenser on our floor was not working. I think in total, 5 nights would have been better for our family as travelling with kids is tough and our family always seems to get sick. The kids had fun, but next time I think we will look for a resort that has more to do for them, like a water park area with slides. I don’t know if we could find a resort with the same vibe as this one that also has slides. I know the sandos next door has a nice waterpark area for kids although the resort is much larger and therefore more walking. In total, we paid about $6200 USD for 7 nights to stay here. I booked directly through the resort and it seemed to be the best price. For that much, I would have liked the rooms to be a bit nicer. I did really love the grounds, all the peacocks, coati, agouti, cats, iguanas, Flamingos and spider monkeys. The vibe of the resort is very relaxed and although family friendly, it was more like a resort that had kids vs a resort for kids (which I knew when I booked but reconsidered later). We did not do the star camp, as my kids are different ages and would have wanted to be together vs split up by age group. We love Mexico and the culture, beauty and kindness of the people. We will be working on our Spanish and look for a resort that is a little bit more geared towards kids on our next trip. Or maybe leave the kids at home lol. Overall 7/10.

I was assigned a room in building 19, close to the resort shops. The room didn’t have any plugs by the bed so I had to ask for an extension cord from reception. The room was decent with my balcony facing another resort. The bed was comfortable and there were two couches which were useful to me. The fridge had complimentary drinks that I didn’t use and the resort uses refillable glass bottles for their water. The shower had good pressure, but the location of the bathroom door was problematic. I found the room was quiet at night, with the only noise being the staff between the hours of 6AM-8AM. I did have an option on the second night to move to building 14, but I didn’t like the proximity to the entertainment area, and I was happy with where I was. I found the food to be very good here, and there are several resort restaurants to choose from, with minimal wait times. I really enjoyed the Tulum buffet, sitting near the edge of the restaurant while having coffee and breakfast was so soul soothing. There was always some lounge chairs open near the pool, however, the lounge chairs on the beach were nearly impossible to get unless you want to be an inconsiderate person who puts their towel on the 3-4 chairs then takes off for a couple of hours. I absolutely loved the layout of the resort, and having a jungle in the middle of it is a fantastic concept! I took in the timeshare presentation, as I had 10 days at the resort, and since I was a solo traveler, it was nice to have a couple of conversations. I found the presentation to be stress free, and it was the most positive timeshare presentation that I have ever done! I earned $70 for two hours, and overall, it was a good experience. I would recommend Iberostar Waves Tucan to family and friends, and would most certain stay here again! I value comprehensive reviews, and the time required to invest in helping others search for quality hotel stays. Please indicate if you found this review to be informative and helpful, as your “Helpful” vote enables me to remain motivated in creating future comprehensive reviews that will add value to my fellow TripAdvisor members.

My daughter and I arrived Feb 1 and left Feb 8, 2026 in 1203. We had a very enjoyable vacation and were pleased with the excellent accommodations and staff. Our room was ready when we arrived and it was newly painted and very clean. The only drawback was the view of the pool toilet room was not what we expected and certainly not a pleasing jungle view. But little time was spent in the room so we did not complain. The beach was beautiful and there were always loungers available and shade. Towel service was excellent. The jungle pathways allowed us to see many new animals. We enjoyed all the buffets and went to all of the specialty restaurants. There was always many types of food available. The food,was tasty but it is always hard to keep food hot in a buffet situation. Overall we enjoyed our vacation. Thank you to the staff and management if this resort as well as the spa staff. Thank you