Barcelo Maya Colonial - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

11449 reviews

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  Great Week at Barcelo!

  My family just returned from a weeklong stay at Barcelo and stayed at the Colonial. We had a wonderful trip and would definitely recommend it to any family wanting a Mexico vacation with tons to do at the resort. Beach: such a beautiful beach/ocean. There are some rocky areas but plenty of pure sand areas as well to get into the ocean. Walking on the pier is fun to see fish swimming around. If you go in front of the Palace and snorkel there are sea turtles that swim around so that is a must do and a highlight of our trip! Pools: love how big and spacious the pools are. Even when it was busy you never felt overcrowded. The pool bars can get busy at times, and it did seem like they were understaffed at times with only 1-2 people working on each side of the bars but for the most part they were quick. Our kids loved the kids pool at Tropical and had fun going down all the slides! The kids pool at the Palace was also super cool and entertaining for them. Food: outside of the à la carte restaurants it was all buffets, but the quality of food was good. Breakfast had the made to order egg station, lunch/dinner always had a made to order pasta or taco stations which was nice to get a fresh dish. We walked over and did the Caribe dinner buffet 1 night and it was nice to try a different place and fun that you have access to all 4 resorts. The snack bars also had freshly made burgers which were awesome. Our favorite snack bar was Captain Morgan at Caribe. A nice surprise was the Strikers the sports bar (included in your stay – it’s in the mall) which had a smaller buffet, but it felt like you were offsite and trying a different resort. We did the Japanese twice, seafood once and Italian once. All 3 were good and would recommend trying to use all your reservations if you can because the quality of food is good. Allergies: our daughter has a severe egg allergy, and every restaurant did a great job accommodating it. When we checked in, we went to guest services right away and they make a printout that describes the allergy, and you just show that to your servers when you arrive at your restaurant. We always appreciate the caution they take, and we always felt safe with the dish they made for her. Just give yourself an extra 15-30 mins for them to make it separate. Kids Club: one of the highlights of our kids (10 & 7) vacation was the Kids Club at Colonial. Ours kids had a blast with Zaira Huitul, Lulu Canche, Susana Ovando and Sarahi Martinez and looked forward to returning every day to do activities with them. One afternoon they took the kids to do mini golf, and other days they had fun with coloring contests, making flags, playing games like musical chairs and more. Rooms: they were basic but clean so no complaints. Fridge is stocked with beer, sodas, and water! Tips and tricks: Shopping - We never had to leave the resort because everything was right there! There’s even a Mexican market with ~100 vendors where you can buy souvenirs located past the chapel between the lobby and mall. Our daughter got her hair braided at this market so we didn’t have to go into town for this. A la carte restaurants - right when we checked in, we went to guest services to book our a la carte restaurants. Even when booking right away and staying for a week it was a challenge to get decent times but if you want any chance at one you must book right away. Pool/Beach chairs – the resort is lacking chairs so if you want a decent spot, you must claim a chair right when you wake up or else it’s going to be hard to find one. They could easily double their chairs. Mini Golf – our family had a blast doing the mini golf course which is located at the sports bar (Strikers). It’s free if you do it before 7PM.

  Mar 31, 2025
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  Best pools and beach for family, but everything else is not worth going!

  This place has some of the prettiest beaches and pools, but everything else is not worth going. The pool waitress was awesome but everybody else was aweful. If you're in one building and they book it full you will not get reservation, but the other building can get reservations. Everything we asked for was no. Been to Cancun area many times, the worst. It is sad, because the grounds are awesome. They Blamed everything on over booking. I would diffidently not go back to this resort.

  Mar 31, 2025
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  Beautiful Grounds & Amenities

  this place is massive. the location is amazing and the grounds are beautiful. the beach and the pools are great. the beach/pool chair situation is insane and you have to wake up with the sunrise to get a chair for the day. swimming with the turtles was a highlight and it was just right from the beach at the resort. the buffet food is sub par but if you can get dinner reservations at the many restaurants it breaks up the buffet choices. the restaurants have good food. the drinks were good and the pool service was good too. the mini golf is super fun. our older kids enjoyed the clubs and strikers bar. if you get a superior room, beware that you could either get 1 king bed and a cot or 2 double beds and a cot. this is not very clear when booking, it is at the hotel's choosing and availability. the front desk staff are not too helpful but the rest of the staff was great. overall, we had fun and enjoyed our vacation.

  Mar 31, 2025
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  Interesting and fun

  Overall the resort was beautiful. Unfortunately we were left to figure out a lot of things on our own. There is a bus service (big red one) that will take you from place to place in the resort. Which would have been great to know Day one instead of figuring it out day 3. The food at each place was pretty similar so going from place to place to try the other buffets is really not necessary. The food was tasty though. The staff overall were nice and kind some were much more helpful than others. It seemed like an answer was different from one person to the next on a lot of things so just keep asking people to get things figured out. Our room was not cleaned daily and this was an issue for us but was not an issue for the people we went on vacation with. Weather was great, pool experience/entertainment was awesome! Those people brought the energy and fun!

  Mar 31, 2025
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  No chairs

  No pool or beach chairs available after 7am everyday we were there. Had to be at the beach or pool by 7am every morning or you had nowhere to sit the entire day. Been here numerous times and never had a shortage of chairs. Actually saw people get out of their chairs to go to pool bar or swim in the pool and people would take their chairs and leave their belongings on the ground.. if you’re going to overbook the hotel at least provide enough chairs so everyone has a place to sit.

  Mar 31, 2025