The trip was wonderful! Seeing and playing in the beautiful crystal blue waters of the Caribbean was the highlight of our trip and staying at the Iberostar Maya was icing on the cake. The service was incredible. The staff were friendly and bent over backwards to make our stay more enjoyable.
The food was good, especially the breakfast at the restaurant closest to the lobby. Every morning the friendly chef would prepare our made to order omelet right in front of us! The lunch was okay. More European type food was offered and the American food (pizza, hamburgers, ...) was not very flavorful. The dinners were wonderful, especially the Steakhouse and the Japanese restaurants, (which was also entertaining with the chef preparing the Japanese dinner at our table). We also ate dinner at the Seafood Restaurant and the French Gourmet Restaurant which were equally as good.
We took advantage of ordering room service since it was included at no extra cost. The room service menu was limited though, (not a big selection), and both times that we ordered room service it took over one hour to receive our order.
The mini-fridge was stocked with beer, soft drinks and water bottles for us to enjoy, which was great! The only disadvantage was that there were no snack foods to eat in the room, (such as chips, nuts, cookies, popcorn, crackers...) and there was no place on the property to get those items, no snack bars, except the hotel gift shop where we could purchase those items. The kids would come back from the beach and would be ready for a snack.
There were two ice cream shops that were on the property and they were good, but sometimes you want something other than sweet ice cream.
The open bars for soft drinks, mixed drinks, and beer were great. We were disappointed in the wine selection (or lack there of) offered at the Iberostar. They only offered one white wine and one red wine (both from Mexico and were not very good), if you wanted better wines, you had to pay extra.
The pools were beautiful and the beach was great! Since it is a big resort with a lot of guests, we did have to put our beach towels out early in the morning in order to get 4 lounge chairs together. (We made the mistake of not doing this the first day.)
We did not go to any of the evening shows. We chose to stay at the beach as long as possible and have a late dinner and come back and watch a family movie together in one of our rooms.
The rooms were spacious with a sunken sitting area and the bathrooms were big too, with a separate shower and bathtub and double sinks. The beds were a little flat and old (definitely not the Heavenly Beds from the Westin!). The resort did meet our request of having side by side rooms, so our kids were right next door.
All in all, it was a good vacation. I would recommend the Iberostar Maya, especially to families with elementary and middle school children that would go as a group of families vacationin
Pros: Kids paradise
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