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Overview
This spectacular beach front resort is nestled between an incredible half mile stretch of pristine, white sand beaches and a championship golf course designed by Robert Von Hagge. The resort is the ideal getaway for families, couples and friends, with plenty of activities to keep everyone entertained, day or night. From the Kids Club, Spa indulgences, dancing the night away at the Disco or simply lounging on the beach or poolside, Sandos Playacar Beach Resort has it all for the perfect holiday.
Exchange privileges between Sandos Caracol Eco Resort and Sandos Playacar Beach Resort. Guests of either property have access to the services and amenities of both properties. Limited day passes are available, day passes must be booked in advance, a la carte restaurants are not included in exchange, transportation between properties is not included. Additional restrictions apply, please contact hotel front desk for full details.
Other fees include
- Government of Quintana Roo environmental tax
Check in
3 p.m.
Check out
12 p.m.
Rooms
819
Inclusions
- Daily activities
- Round-trip airport transfers
- Nightly entertainment
- 24 hour room service
- All taxes
Rooms
- 1 king bed, and 1 bunk bed, or 2 queen beds, and 1 sofa bed
- Garden or Pool View
- No more than 5 guests in the room
- 1 king bed, and 1 bunk bed, or 2 queen beds, and 1 sofa bed
- Garden or Pool View
- Family section
- Minimum 1 adult, maximum 4 adults
- Maximum 3 children
- No more than 5 guests in the room
- Balcony
- Bathroom with shower only
- No less than 3 guests in the room
- 24 hour room service
- A/C
- Alarm clock
- Bathrobes
- Coffee maker
- Hair dryer
- Iron/Ironing board
- Mini-bar
- Phone
- Safe
- TV
Select Club amenities:
This section is set a few steps away from the beach, and features a private oceanfront pool, complete with afternoon cookouts and Premium drinks. Guests staying in the Select Club will also have access to their own daily breakfast buffet, an exclusive beach area with hammocks and loungers, and two Premium Bars offering WiFi, computers, Premium drinks, concierge service and more.
Amenities
- Public areas wheelchair accessible
- Wheelchair accessible rooms
Accessibility features are based on request and availability, and are not guaranteed. Please contact WestJet Vacations at 1-877-737-7001 for further information.
- Sandos Caracol Eco Resort
- Child care services available ($)
- Children’s pool
- Playground
- Pool and beachside activities
Kid's club
- Open daily
- Programmed games, crafts and activities
Teen club
- Open daily
- Programmed games, crafts and activities
- With arcade games, mocktail bar and dancefloor
- Children ages: 2 to 12
| Type | Amenities | |
|---|---|---|
| La Plaza Bar | Bar, Sports bar | |
| Riviera Lobby Bar | Bar, Lobby bar | |
| Swim-up Bar | Bar, Swim-up bar | |
| La Mision Disco | Nightclub |
Check-out time: 12 p.m.
Wi-Fi
- Lobby
- Select public areas
- Room
| Type of restaurant | Type of cuisine | Open for | Additional Information | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Festival Grand Buffet | Buffet | International | Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch | |
| Il Piemonte | À la carte | Italian | Dinner | |
| Riveria Blue Pool Snack Bar | Snack bar | International | Lunch | |
| Blue Moon | International | Snacks | ||
| Riviera Grand Buffet | Buffet | International | Breakfast | |
| Le Gourmet | À la carte | French | Dinner | |
| El Gaucho Steakhouse | À la carte | Grill/steak house | Dinner | |
| Asiana | À la carte | Asian | Dinner | |
| Fogo de Janiero | À la carte | International | Dinner | Reservations required |
| Gourmex | À la carte | Mexican | Dinner | |
| Cupcake Café | Snack bar | Coffee and Pastries | Snacks | |
| Chayita | À la carte | Mexican | Dinner, Lunch |
- Rooms: 819
- Fitness centre: on site
- Sauna steam room: on site
- Spa: on site ($)
- Spa treatments: on site ($)
- Yoga
-
All-inclusive: Included
- All meals plus snacks
- Unlimited domestic and premium drinks
Pools
- Adults only pools: 1
- Jetted pools: 1
- Kids pools: 4
- Outdoor pools: 9
Water sports
- Dive shop: on site ($)
- Motorized watersports: on site ($)
- Non-motorized watersports: on site
- Scuba diving: on site ($)
- Snorkeling: on site
- Watersports centre: on site
Other sports
- Aerobics: on site
- Bicycles: on site
- Tennis courts: on site
Other activities
- Beach activities: on site
- Daily activities: on site
- Games room: on site
- Nightly entertainment: on site
- 2 Select Club pools (for Select Club Adults Only guests)
- Concierge
- Currency exchange available ($)
- Dry cleaning available ($)
- Giftshop available ($)
- Laundry services available ($)
- Tour desk available ($)
- Wedding facilities available ($)
- Car rental desk available ($)
Family
Beach
Bike
Chayita
Cupcakes
Entertainment
Festival
Gym
Grounds
Kid's Club
Golf
Pool
Slide
Pool
Rodizio
Spa
Teen Club
Location
Reviews
Horrible customer service, bad food and filthy pool water.
T4254FImarcn on Jan 30, 2023
The check in and check out experience is terrible. The staff are rude and the guest services sit there and do nothing. They tell you to go wait in line for an hour at the front desk so they can sit around on their computers looking busy while the lineup gets longer and longer. I called them to try to claim a forgotten item and waited on hold 3 times for almost 3 hours total and never so much as had anyone answer the last time I actually drove from Cancun to playa on hold the whole time only to walk in at 9am to the entire bony empty and no one doing anything. I asked them why I’ve been on hold for over an hour when there is no one at guest services or the front desk and they couldn’t answer me. I had to return (from Cancun to Playa) a second time that day because they had no one in the hotel at 9am to tell me if they found my item. On the bright side the resort is beautiful but the food sucks and the pools are dirty. By the end of the day there are bandaids floating I. The pool, the floor on the patio areas are gross and sticky and the pool near the kids area is cloudy and disgusting. Overall I don’t recommend Sandos due to the horrible customer service and filthy pool water.
Screaming Kids Resort, Do NOT Risk your vacation.
BrianR_USA (Seattle, Washington) on Jan 30, 2023
I would NOT recommend it for adults under any circumstances. Even if you are adults who have kids, this resort caters to those terrible parents who let their kids run wild, even in the "adults only" area. Sandos does not try to guide experiences, like Adults Only or member-only areas. There is ZERO customer service outside of the resort stay. In fact, if Sandos responds to this review, you will have experienced a higher level of contact than we had with them before the visit. We attempted to communicate these concerns during the stay, with almost zero results. This reviews a Royal Elite membership V.I.P. (Top Tier) experience of staying with laid-back adult friends in multiple rooms. Please take that to mean it should reflect the resort's top level of experience offering and not a snobby perception. My friends and I have stayed at plenty of resorts that host children and had an enjoyable experience. Check-in and Reservation: The time it took to make reservations for Royal Elite members was measured in weeks, not hours or days, for various reasons. They do a hard sell on membership. It's not worth it, almost to the point of false advertising. Definitely, buyer beware! Arrived via Sandos provided transportation to almost no greeting. 15+ parties in the Lobby to check in, 2 desk people. One more joined after about 15 mins. Not the worst experience, but a foreshadowing of the service level. Remember that membership guests are supposed to have a separate check-in that was absent at this location. Rooms- Hacienda for Royal Elite. Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be placed on the second floor of the Haciendas. Dangerous multi-level layout, see picture, could easily step off the bed to a severe drop-off and fall onto the stone floor. Bathrooms are small even by hotel standards, and so are the second-floor balconies, maybe 3 feet wide with no privacy divider. Be prepared to meet your neighbors. Also, the room sometimes has 2 adjoining doors, so there you go for noise levels. The shower was small, with weak pressure, and the hot water was spotty. The Haciendas are billed as having a private pool, and technically they do. If you're on the first floor, you can walk out your patio door and into the pool. If you are on the second floor, you must walk out the front door, downstairs, down the main resort sidewalk, and around the building. It's a silly design. Hacienda quirky stuff: My room has a large picture of a woman staring down onto the bed. It's creepy (see pic.) There is a bullpen near some of the Haciendas. A literal bull cow pen that smells of cow manure. What the literal hell! Don't worry; even if you don't stay near it, it's on one of the main paths, and you'll get to smell it. Speaking of paths, the beautiful overgrown trails in the day are dimly lit danger zones at night. The resort does post staff at entrances, but Lodging in general: The resort is broken down into three main sections. The section farthest from the beach is designed for non-member families. It has a nice pool. The middle section is the V.I.P. Royal Elite Haciendas, previously described. The buildings closest to the beach are Adults Only resort hotel-style rooms. Poolside conversations with other guests described the rooms as small and outdated but friendly. Some rooms have an ocean view, and others have a pool view. Restaurants- First, no dining experience did not include an uncontrolled screaming child. Sandos doesn't care, and people are rude. If you want a quiet adult dining experience, you have to go outside the resort. Second, the buffets are a germ-infested nightmare. There are no sneeze guards, and food is left in the open. Parents let their kids run amuck, which is beyond annoying. Still, it should be a health code violation shutdown offense in this post-Covid world for a restaurant. Upon arrival, we downloaded the app to see about the restaurants, only to find that no restaurant had an open reservation for 6 days. This is bait and switch tactics by any reasonable standards. . It was good that we had the top-tier access level; otherwise, I doubt the staff would have found our spot at all the places. Italian place: The food was good for an Olive Garden-level quality. The staff was friendly as the rest of the resort but did nothing to address the screaming kids in the place. There's no kid's menu, and it's not set up for children. If your child can't handle it, you don't get to the nicer restaurant, be considerate of others. Steakhouse and Brazilan Steakhouse: The resort advertises that it has 2 different restaurants, a steakhouse and a traditional Brazilian. This is a complete fabrication, A.K.A., a lie! It is the same restaurant; you enter through separate doors. The staff, room, salad bar, grill, and everything are the same. The only difference is on one half of the room, they bring and slice the meat at your table, and on the other, they cut it and bring it out on a plate. Also, with no exaggeration, there was no grill ventilation, and the room was so smokey it diminished the view of those on the other side of the table. After these mediocre experiences, we opted for dinners in town, so there is no information on the other resort places. Still, no hope they would be any better. Room service, Coffee/Cupcake bar, etc., was lackluster at best. Breakfasts were also mediocre, with screaming kids, even in the Adults Only dining. Staff: There needs to be more staff, but the ones they do have are very friendly. The level of English speaking skills varies widely from person to person, but I can't speak Spanish, so what can I say about it. The Beach: The resort beach is nice, with sections divided off for different member levels, with a nice array of chairs and lounge options. Like the pools, I wouldn't count on drink service, but there is a bar pretty close. The open beach is nice, with small crashing waves, about 3-5 feet deep, until you get a decent distance out. This region talks about beach seaweed a lot, but there was a non-impactful amount at this time. Conclusion: There are so many other resort options in Playa Del Carmen there's no reason to risk your vacation in this mediocre location.
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