? Xpu-Ha Palace, Cancun, Mexico

I'm thinking of booking a family trip to Xpu-Ha Palace
on the Riviera Maya in Mexico.
Has anyone stayed there? Any opinons?

One worry I have is that the hotel is set on
an eco-park which allows day trippers in. Once in, day
trippers seem to have access to the hotel facilities.
I would think that for some part of the day, the
hotel could be over run with people to the point that
guests would have trouble getting access to the facilities
they're paying good money for. This is a concern since
we're planning to go during peak season when everything
would tend to be more crowded to begin with.

Does anyone have any experience with this place?

Thanks in advance,
VI

On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:45:23 -0600, Chenz759 wrote:

I'm thinking of booking a family trip to Xpu-Ha Palace on the Riviera Maya
in Mexico.
Has anyone stayed there? Any opinons?


My wife and I just got back from Xpu-Ha Palace, we stayed for 6 nights
from Dec 12 to Dec 18. This was our first trip to Cancun so I don't have
much to compare it too.

We had a really great time. The staff was extremely nice and attentive to
our needs. The place was very clean and well kept which was a big plus.
Xpu-Ha is different sort of place and that's why I picked it. Every room
is a floor of a two story bungalow type building. Clusters of 5-6 of these
buildings are spread out over the whole resort.

There's a large distance between most of the facilities, but they have
little shuttles that'll ferry you around, they come by every 15 minutes or
so. We choose to walk everywhere and didn't regret it at all. There are
mangroves all around and all kinds of paths and trails that snake through
the jungle and along the ocean. I thought I'd get eaten up by mosquitos
but there weren't any, the spring/summer might be a different story. One
guide said that they do fumigate for insects though. They have an aviary,
flamingos, and other wildlife and give eco-tours every hour during the
day.

The food was good too, they have 3 restaurants and two snack bars.
Breakfast and lunch was mainly buffet style, but you could get
omletes/hamburgers/hot dogs to order. Two restaurants were for dinner
only and they were both pretty good, great ambiance and service. Room
services is 24 hours, we only ordered some small stuff once and it was
good too.

They have a nice beach area with white sands and lots of activities if you
want, or you can just kick back and enjoy the ocean. There's also
snorkeling and scuba diving (extra $60 for me). Snorkeling was very
cool, there's an inlet with lots of colorful fish just a swimming a few
feet from the surface. The estuary and inlet are fed by the ocean and
underground fresh water rivers, so they're a mix of fresh and sal****er.
Wherever the water got real blurry was where the two types of water were
mixing together. It was also neat that you could dive down several feet
and get warmer water from the rivers.

They also had a little theater that they put events on, there was a Mayan
show and a Casino night while we were there, both were good. We took a
couple of Mayan tours and I really enjoyed seeing some of the old ruins.
The resort has about 4 desks in the main lobby bar that you can book all
others kinds of activities. You can also go to any of the other Palace
resorts and eat/drink for free too. We were happy at Xpu-Ha so didn't
feel the need to go anywhere else.

There were several tour groups that came through and kind of got in our
way here and there. I didn't see any of them eating/drinking at the
restaurants, just a few people from other Palace resorts.

The place seemed a little quiet to me, the two pools were mostly empty all
day even though there were a few hot and humid days. One of the
bartenders said that they do get pretty busy in the spring but it's not
too crowded he said.

Geez, I think I wrote enough You can e-mail if you have any questions
about my experience there.

Tom

OldTome wrote:
On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:45:23 -0600, Chenz759 wrote:


I'm thinking of booking a family trip to Xpu-Ha Palace on the Riviera Maya
in Mexico.
Has anyone stayed there? Any opinons?

My wife and I just got back from Xpu-Ha Palace, we stayed for 6 nights
from Dec 12 to Dec 18. This was our first trip to Cancun so I don't have
much to compare it too.

My standard questions, single people? Nightclub? Anyone awake after
midnight? Basketball? Scuba? Snorkling?

Steven Goodman