Since there's an abundant amount of reviews for this hotel, let me give you my review as a comment on what everybody else experienced.
Before I do, let me mention two things that I haven't found in other reviews:
The hotel has a policy that requires under-three-year-olds to wear swim-diapers when in the pool, regardless of how long they might have been potty-trained. This would have been a surprise to us, since our barely three-year-old had been without diapers for a year, so naturally we wouldn't have brought any. They are available at the gift shop, but probably at a price... Since our daughter is small, though, and had just turned three, and nobody ever asked us about her wearing diapers, maybe that policy is not too strictly inforced..
The second thing I want to mention is the dive base, which we found amazingly thorough! Believe me, being a PADI-base doesn't necessarily mean quality or safety, but this here does. If your last dive was more than two years ago, the have you take a refresher class (one morning, a video, small written test, two hours brush-up in the pool and a shallow dive, all for 80 $) This might be a bit of a nuisance to people who are experienced divers and just didn't get to dive within the last two years. For me it was perfect, as it showed me how much I had forgotten since I got certified or had my last dive. After that, they offer two complementary dives each day, a deep one at 9:30 am and a shallow one at 11:30 am. Service is amazing, you don't even need to carry your gear or set up your equipment (which, by the way, is also included in the price) And yes, alas, the reef is dead. Mostly.
Now back to what everybody else experienced too:
Yes, the hotel is a two hour drive from the airport, the beach is small and the spa is expensive, it is a Sesame-street- sponsoring family resort which therefore has a lot of excited kids and, well, Sesame-Street characters running around, but all these things are information available on their website and should not come as a surprise for the informed traveler, so I think they should not go into the review.
The restaurants are above average, some more so than others - we didn't go to the adult-only, the Tex-Mex was so-so at best, the buffet really good and the Italian restaurant exquisit!
Drinks were interesting, a cosmopolitan apparently consists of white Jamaica rum and cranberry juice, and rarely does a drink you ordered before contain the same stuff as the last time you had it, but they are really yummy! Kingsley even went out of his way to create us a drink in the colors of our national flag (which, since it contains black, is not THAT easy)
Child-care was great.
The X-box-room was mostly empty and all but three consoles seemed to be working fine.
The waterpark is a blast! (Hight restriction is indeed 104 cm, for the big slides, but there are medium-sized ones and kiddie ones, so everybody should be fine. Plus, I think I've seen lifeguards make exceptions.)
Deck-chairs, pool towels, seats in the restaurants and activities were amply available at all hours.
Rooms were nice and clean, no outages whatsoever, hot water at all times and with pressure! (They do have shower-heads, though, that can do massage, trickle, or normal, so in case your water pressure seems to be low, check whether your shower-head is set on trickle!)
Yes, there is wear and tear, but in our opinion not due to poor maintenance or upkeep, but simply owing to the age of the whole complex. While we were there, they were working on something all the time, though, painting etc, so they DO make an effort.
Here's the catch, now: When we were there, the hotel seems to have been only half full (ie at 50% occupancy) Due to a waitress, it was booked solid from December to March and will be again in May. She said March was "very terrible". And I can definitely see how everything would be much less smooth and agreeable, had there been double the amount of people around - and probably at a much higher price than what we paid for!
Which is why I don't give this place its full five stars, even though our experience definitely was five-star-worthy! We have traveled to LOTS of family resorts (the operative term here is FAMILY! It's not a luxury couples-only resort and doesn't strive to be so!) in Europe and the Mediterranean, and this one was by far the best!
We'd go back immediately and any time if there weren't so many other parts of the world we haven't explored and might be worth experiencing too!
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