Hello! Back from Sandos Playacar, July 6- 13th trip with my husband, 4 year and 2 year old daughters, my mother, sister and her husband. This review will only cover things that a parent might want to know. You can get the gist of the place by reading the other reviews.
1. Food was never an issue, tons of child friendly stuff. Go to the main Festival buffet, and sit in the Italian buffet section. There is always pasta and pizza available, it is also air conditioned.
2. For lunch you can go to the little buffet which is right off the beach past the first pool. You can go in your bathing suits. Perfect for lunch with the kids.
3. Ice cream machines are everywhere with child size cones.
4. The crib you get is a portable crib, bring your own sheets, pillow, etc. Watch it isn't broken, and little kids fingers can get caught. Mine did.
5. No bathtub in the Beach section. My 2 yr old is scared of showers for some reason, and this was tough on us.
6. Floors are extrememly hard marble. If you fall you could be hurt. My 2 yr old fell of the bed playing, and I was scared to death, but she was fine.
7. Gift shop has NO baby supplies. You have to go outside the resort to Wal Mart or somewhere. Not too big of a deal, as long as you know a little spanish.
8. We stayed in the Beach section, room 1302. My mom stayed in the Riviera section. Our room was small , and was incredibly stressful whenever we were in there. The riviera junior suite rooms are beautiful and gigantic. Wish so bad we had stayed there instead. The price .you pay is that you have to take the golf cart a lot. My kids loved the golf cart. I never waited more than 5 minutes to get on one. There is a big jacuzzi bath in these rooms. Couch, coffee table, coffee maker. All around the much better choice for a family. I would have rather dealt with the minor trek to the front than stay were we did.
9. There is a fashion show one night that the kids can be in. Check with the kids club. Also a disney show that the kids can be in. So extremely cute.
10. 4 year old went to the kids club for about an hour and then had enough. It looked like fun though, and the girls in charge were really, really nice.

There are probably a million more things I could say, but I would go back with my kids in a heartbeat. It was a fabulous vacation, and I was sad to leave despite the stress of vacationing with little kids. Moms, you know what I mean!!
Please feel free to ask me any questions you like!
- Wendy

My boyfriend and I were looking for a fun vacation that wouldn't break the bank... and we found it! We got a deal through Travelzoo/Bookit.com for this brand new resort on the Mexican Riviera. So we booked it and arrived on July 7th.

Room: Our room was fantastic! It overlooked the pool and had air conditioning plus a fan. It was spotless... just as it was each time the maid visited. Since it was all inclusive, everything in the mini bar was free as was room service (which was QUITE tasty)! We got a bunch of American/English TV channels which was nice, thought watching TV was not our top priority (ahem...beach!).

Restaurants: There were so many restaurants to choose from! All were buffet style except for three where you had to make reservations. Just a note on that... you could only make dinner reservations from 8:00-11:00 am and you had to do it at the beginning of the week. By the time we got around to it they were all booked, so we didn't get to try any. But, the buffets were pretty good. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst. There was always a large variety and the service was outstanding.

The Resort: The entire resort was very beautiful and was practically spotless! We saw other resorts while we were there and they paled in comparison. Everything was first class and the walk from our resort to the beach was landscaped very well. If you didn't want to walk, however, there was a speedy little club car going back and forth from the beach lobby to our lobby. That was very convenient. The people at the front desk were also very helpful and friendly. They gave great reccomendations for eating outside of the resort and helped with any problems or questions we had.

The Beach: The beach was beautiful, but we were a tad bit dissapointed that it was roped off because of all of the windsurfers and jet skiers. We couldn't swim out but about 150 ft. or so. Plus, the water was a little cloudy (the year before we went to Puerto Aventuras and the water was crystal clear and you could snorkel right off of the beach). But, we never had trouble finding a beach chair and they brought you drinks and even a cheeseburger if you asked!

Excursions: We would reccomend Hidden Worlds and Jungle Crossing. Hidden Worlds has a neat thing called a Skycycle where you bicycle OVER the canopy in a jungle. It was fantastic! Jungle Crossing was an absolute blast! We went Four wheeling, snorkeled in two Cenote, kayaked, and snorkeled on a reef in the ocean. It included a FABULOUS home-cooked Mexican meal and a snack. It was definitely worth it!

All-in-all it was a fabulous resort and a fabulous vacation. We would reccomend it to all of our friends! If you go, be sure to take a cab ($5) or walk to 5th Ave. on Playa Del Carmen. It was a fun experience with great restaurants (Playasia).

Our family went to the Sandos Playacar for the second time in four years. (It was previously known as the Gala Resort). Here is the "good", "bad", and recommendations from our viewpoint.

The Good:
* If you are taking kids below the teenage years, it's great. Between the hotel's orchestrated pool and beach games, pool tables, kids club, swimming pool, pottery painting, bike rentals, scuba demos, and nighttime theatre shows, they are very entertained.

* The Sandos staff couldn't be more accomodating. English isn't usually a challenge, but you'll need to put a little effort into it. :)

* The food...HUGE improvement over our visit in 2004. Definitely recommend putting a plan together for getting reservations at the sit-down restaurants. Space is limited each day. You are only able to make reservations for the present day (good luck) and one day into the future. You can make the reservations in the "old lobby" or the "new lobby". Line starts forming at 7am and reservations start at 8am. Send your earliest riser. Our favorites were the Gaucho (Steakhouse) and the French restaurants. The Asian is nice too, but our kids are little and sushi isn't a staple for them yet.

* New Section of Rooms. This would be what they call the 8000 and 9000 block of rooms. They are exceptional. If you stay there, the walk is NOT terrible to the "old part" where all the activities take place. You will have a wonderful pool, actually two in these section, but if you have kids, they'll want the pool games in the "old part" near the beach.

The Bad:
* We chose to book the Hacienda Junior suites because we had 2 adults and 3 kids. Stayed there in 2004 without a problem. This trip the bugs in my bed literally ate me alive! After two nights I complained with a 5am visit to the lobby. They were able to put us into the new section after the 3rd night in the Haciendas. Too many folks arriving to make it immediate. They did give me a can of mosquito spray for my third and final night. Believe it! So I recommend you take the 8-9000 block and take the little walk you will have to the beach rather than feed the bugs all night long.

* We were suckered into the offering when we arrived of booking some time to "explore what other Sandos properties were available around the world". "It's not a timeshare or vacation club" they will tell you. If you sit through the 90 min presentation, tthey will be glad to give you T-shirts, bottle of tequila, 2 day car rental for $20, and a beach bag. So let me give you the punchline...it IS A VACATION CLUB, they will take MORE than 90 minutes, have a revolving door of folks who will try to change your mind when you say NO for the 16th time, and the cost to buy in is a mere $37,500 for a two bedroom!! You think we would learn!

* Car Rental onsite "Buster Car Rental" - AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!! So we sat through the 90+++ min presentation for the car rental. It's onsite so it will be easy, right? WRONG!!! We asked for a softside Jeep for a Wednesday 8am pickup at the lobby. 8am went to 8:30am then 9:30am, then to 11:30am.... but they were willing to give me a bigger, more expensive car right away. The old man there was completely RUDE and didn't want to deal with women. You can complain to the actual SANDOS folks, and they will sympathize with you, and even call their manager who call the Buster car rental manager. At the end of the day, find another alternative. The Sandos folks said they were ejecting them soon as a business partner because of all the complaints.

* Buying GASOLINE. Oh my gosh what a scam!!!! First of all, thanks to Buster Car rental we got an car with an empty tank of gas...just fumes. My girlfriend warned me about the gas station and they got us anyway! Doh! So here is what happened. We pulled up and my husband gets out. No less than three guys started to swarm around him...chatting him up. He asks for 200 pesos of gas, or $20 USD. Two guys keep him busy talking while the third starts pumping gas. A few dollars into it he types in on the key pad "200 pesos" and voila he is done and we have 1/4 tank of gas. I watched this with my very own eyes from inside the car. I'm the foreigner, so I didn't challenge him. The next day when we stopped, my husband got out and so did I. I parked my butt on the back bumper, refused to say a word to any of them and didn't take my eye off the gauge. I RECOMMEND YOU DO THE SAME! AMAZING how much $20 buys you in gas when they don't cheat you.


Recommendations when visiting:

* If you plan to take tours outside of the resort and go on your own, you can save yourself money be bringing a softside cooler and a box of zipper sandwich bags. You paid for it, why not take a few sandwiches with you on your excursion? We did. At breakfast they put our a good array of bread, cheese and luncheon meats. I would make sandwiches and bring them to the breakfast table and put them in ziploc bags which I subsequently through into the softside cooler. Cut up fruit is another good choice. There are ice machines in the 8000/9000 block are on every other floor. We filled bigger ziplocs with ice, took sodas out of the refrigerator in the room and we were ready to go.

* If you like to sit by the pool sipping a drink, you may want to bring your own larger, insulated cup. A friend told us to and I thought that was kind of odd. I regret not doing it. They do have waiters pool side, but they get busy. Also the kids have a soda fountain for self service so bring cups for the kids. Late in the day they are usually out of clean cups which frustrated my kids. The empty cups get picked up by the waiter, so good luck keeping the same cup all day!

* Bring Sunblock 50! It doesn't matter when in the year you go, you are going to fry. All five of us came home with deep tans using sunblock 50 each day. Save your skin, you'll be as brown as the locals when you leave regardless. No one in our family, I am proud to say, burned!

* My kids wore baseball caps in the pool when they felt hot from the sun on the face.

Anywhere you go you'll find good and bad. No resort is perfect. It helps if you can avoid the landmines! Enjoy the good and avoid the bad that we ran into!

We stayed at the Sandos from July 4-11. We enjoyed every aspect of the hotel, with the exception of the kids club. More on that later. We booked thru Funjet vacations and opted for the direct transportation, as we didn't want to do the bus this trip and thought it would be easier with the kids (ages 8 and 5). Very easy to get our luggage and get through immigration. The lines were long but seemed to move quickly. Found Lomas transporation right away and explained that we had direct, non-stop transportation. We went straight over to another Lomas guy, who found our paperwork and started walking to our van (we thought). He then passes up all of the vans and suburbans and at the end of the parking lot he directs us to a Lincoln Navigator limousine! The kids were so excited. Out of the mouth of my five year old, "SWEEEEEEEET"! Couldn't have started our vacation any better. Our kind driver stoped at the gas station right outside of the airport so that we can purchase drinks. A wonderful ride to Sandos. Now the return trip was such a different story. They wanted to pick us up four hours before our flight, and the driver was angry that we weren't ready when the other guests were. Well, they had not come to retrieve our bags and I knew that we had plenty of time to make it to the airport. I kept telling him that I had paid for direct tranportation, while the others in the van had not, so they could wait five or ten minutes for us. At one point I think he threatens to leave us there if we not in the van in three minutes. Anyway, he is not happy, but we make it there fine.

Back to arriving, we get to the hotel in our "sweet" ride, and get dropped off in the new lobby. Beautiful and no one is in line. We walk right up and check-in. The guy is very courteous. I give him my paperwork that shows that we are Sandos4U members, and he gives us silver bracelets. I didn't realize until later that everyone else has blue bracelets unless you are royal elite. So I later ask about the silver bracelet, and the concierge person said that employees will try to give you an extra perk if it is available. I like that! We were able to sit in the royal elite section by the beach, which was very nice and close to the bar. And security is right there which makes you feel safe leaving your belongings for a bit. We only used this section of the beach a couple of days when the kids were in the kids club. I didn't sit there with the kids, although you can, just to keep the environment peaceful there!

Our room was on the second floor of the 9000 building (riveira section). It was very clean and very nice. We had a king bed and a pull out sofa, and had to call for sheets for the sofa. We went to dinner and the bed was made when we came back. The room was always cleaned well. We received towel animals five of the seven days and the kids LOVED this. The only complaint that I had with the room is that the door is already cracked. I am not sure if they did it when installing it or if it had already been "kicked in". It looked like the latter. So, when we shut the door, it seemed o.k. but if you pushed it, it would still open. I didn't discover this until the second day, so we just made sure to really pull the door hard to get it to lock. Not a huge problem, but several people were in and out of the room and someone didn't shut it right and we came back to the room one day and just pushed it open. Thank goodness that security was tight and no one came in, or we didn't notice anything missing. We used the safe and never had any problems, Also, one of the "feet" for the king bed was broken and would turn in. So when we figured out the problem, we just would pick it back up. These two items were not issues for us so we didn't make a big deal about them. It just made me wonder how well these rooms will hold up if we come back later on. Oh yeah, almost forgot about the shower issues with the water leaking out. Thank goodness I had read about that on here so that I knew it was normal and I didn't need to get a new room! Make sure that you put a towel down before you get in the shower or you will have a very messy, slippery floor upon exiting. Such a waste of towels. I hope they can fix this issue. It is not bad if only one person showers. But you will need another towel down for more people. I just opted to bathe with the children in the HUGE jacuzzi tub, which was fabulous, while my husband showered. It worked fine for us. Other that, the room was great.

The food was fine for us. Last time we traveled to Playa, my son got the stomach problem when we got home. So, I was really making sure that the kids only ate cooked foods. Well, that lasted for two days. After that, I forgot that we were in Mexico. Everything was fine and the food was pretty good. None of us ever got sick or had any stomach problems. The kids always found something to eat. I think that I had nachos every night for dinner! Loved the fresh guacomole, chili sauce, and cheese sauce. Hey, that is what vacation is all about, right? The kids LOVED all of the ice cream machines. They probably ate their body weight in ice cream...ha! We did dine at the Asian and Gormet restaurant. Both were very good. There is not a kids menu at these restaurants, so my daughter was able to order her first filet! What a treat. I think that we tried all of the buffets and enjoyed them all. The only problem we experienced is trying to find something to eat between four and six-thirty, when the buffets open back up for dinner. We arrived back at the hotel after snorkeling at Maroma (not worth the $ in my opinion) and didn't realize that we couldn't eat. I think that the buffet by the adults pool may stay open until five, but I wasn't in the mood to go back there after just getting settled at the main pool. Not a problem, just something to remember!

Everyone at the hotel was nice and friendly. We didn't experience any rude people. A couple of times at lunch, the waiter seemed to not notice us, but that was not a problem because we didn't mind getting up and getting our own drinks. Other workers went out of their way to help you and most always had a smile while doing it. While we didn't tip every person every time, we did tip the cleaning people daily, and then here and there during the day. We only used the golf carts to get back and forth. The drivers were great and one even sang happy birthday to my daughter in Spanish on our departure day. We ordered a birthday cake for her and they delivered it to our room. Great customer service!!!!!!!! We used room service and enjoyed that. Sometimes we wanted coffee and a snack before going down to breakfast, and some nights the kids were just too tired to go out. We really like the fact that we could just pick up the phone and order something. This is a great feature of the hotel. The manager sent us fresh fruit and a bottle of wine one day to celebrate our anniversary. Very thoughtful. The wine here is very good. Don't foget to try it. This is another feature of the hotel that stands out.

Overall, a great experience. We were disappointed with the kids club. Maybe my expectations were too high after reading reviews here! They do have outside activities for the older kids (8-12) from 11-1:00pm. Licia is in charge of this group and was awesome...thank you! But after that, it is lunch and then a movie everyday. Then a craft from 4-5:00pm and then they close. Some nights they open back up for dinner, but not sure which nights as there is no way to know. The first day we took the kids out for lunch and then brought them back at ten minutes past four and they said that they were having dinner that night but you had to register by four o'clock. I understand that these are the rules and guests have to follow them, but please make me aware of them ahead of time. The next day, we make sure to go back before four, but no dinner that night. After the second day, the kids didn't want to go back. We did utilize the kids club when it started raining two afternoons in a row. It was nice to have somewhere to bring them! They watched a movie there and my husband and I sat at the sports bar around the corner. That was a nice option! The Sandos needs to have a set schedule for the kids club and have it posted in the rooms. The resort is very family friendly and this is a big draw for them. And this is in no way faulting the workers, they were all pleasant. I think this is a hotel issue.

In closing, the beach was awesome! It is very big and deep. I was glad to see that the Iberostar next door is getting their beach back as well. But the Sandos beach is the best. The only other drawback at this resort is the little plastic cups that they use. What a waste! I can only imagine how many times that they have to wash cups everyday. Please get the bigger plastic cups that hold at least 8 ounces. These cups are a joke! Do yourself a favor and bring your own insolated cups if you are going to stay here.

I would stay here again in a heartbeat. Anything negative in my review is just minor things that the hotel could improve on. Overall, a very clean resort with very friendly workers and staff.

Almost forgot, we loved the shows at night. The kids really got a kick out of being in the Disney show on Saturday night. My son and husband went to the Michael Jackson show, while my daughter and I went back to the room. I thought it wouldn't be worth my time. I guess that I was wrong, because my 8 year old son wouldn't stop talking about it! He now wants to download these songs onto his IPod. My husband said that the guy looked just like him and did a terrific job lip syncing. So, don't miss the shows!