Sandos Caracol Eco Resort – All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

26315 reviews

• 

  Eco friendly

  Mariana was fantastic with our children teaching them about the animals at the petting zoo, feeding the pigs, bunnies, donkeys, and loved naming and planting a tree. They will remember their trip to Sandos Caracol Eco resort for many many years to come.

  Mar 28, 2025
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  Salon Service - Wedding

  This resort is absolutely beautiful ❤️!! I was here for a wedding and the salon ladies did an AMAZING job. My skin and hair have never looked more beautiful. The service was top notch and I will definitely come back to the spa before leaving. Fabiola and Julisa were my friends and my stylists.

  Mar 25, 2025
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  Don’t be impatient, you’re on holidays. You’re on Mexico time.

  First I want to say that our experience is that of two couples, a friend’s holiday. So our trip was not a family trip. This resort caters to families, and I wouldn’t recommend it for adults. We did stay in the Select Club area, which is adults-only, but basically everywhere else in the resort is packed with families. If you are looking for a quiet getaway, or something with a night life, this is the wrong resort for you. The Select Club has a separate, adult only pool, which was usually pretty quiet, until the partiers arrived. That’s just something you can’t plan for, so no fault of the resort. This area also has its own restaurant for breakfast and lunch, That said, the breakfast service is terrible. Expect to be sitting down for breakfast for an hour or more, plan for 1.5 hours . The fastest we ever got our food was 1/2 hour, and that was when we went very early in the morning and ordered immediately. There is no buffet here except fruit, yogurt and oatmeal. Other than that you must order from the menu, and wait, and wait, and wait….. In the evening this restaurant is no longer part of the Select Club, so after about 5pm you can expect the excited chatter of children lining up for the dinner a la carte. And the restaurant is RIGHT beside the pool. Look up La Jungla on the website (that’s what they call it during the day) and you will see how close the pool is. Being a Select Club member also gets you access to a private beach area with beach beds, hammocks and a separate bar and building just for members. Our bartender Victor, was great. Speaking of a la carte, all the reviews on Trip Advisor are correct. It is next to impossible to get an a la carte reservation, especially if you want the popular dinner hour times. Yes, you must stay up until midnight, use the “app” (which is actually just the website), and hope to get lucky. If you try for a very early or very late reservation, as we did, you may have luck. We were able to get a 5:30 reservation at Riveria (Mediterranean) on our friends birthday, and the food was delicious and the service fantastic. We also had an 8pm reservation at El Templo (Japanese) which was entertaining and tasty, although quite salty. The buffet options are pretty good, we liked La Toscana for dinner, but found their lunch buffet to be lacking. The international buffet at Laguna was a much better choice for lunch. Much more choice available, and this is a much larger restaurant. Our favourite breakfast spot was Las Mascaras, the Mexican restaurant. We had late night tacos at El Nido, and this was probably the worst food we had. Literally just meat on a small tortilla wrap. We asked for salsa and were given a very spicy green sauce (salsa does mean sauce in Spanish). So, pro tip: ask for Pico de Gallo. It’s very, very good, and probably what you would be expecting when you think of salsa in North America. The tortilla chips are fresh and good, so if you go to El Nido, I’d recommend tortilla chips and Pico de Gallo. We tried out the water slide pool area, which was fun and actually quieter than we expected. We also spent a morning at the Tortuga Pool, which was small, but quiet because it was raining off and on that day. The washrooms there are not great, could definitely use some service. We did not spend any time at the main pool. Our room was VERY dated. The furniture is old and scratched up and in not great condition. The room was clean-ish, as long as you didn’t look under the bed or pull out the bedside table (which we did to plug in our devices). Lots of dust. The tiles were mis-matched, they had obviously done some repairs but didn’t have the same tiles anymore. The washroom was okay, but the toilet area was super tiny. Honestly, I have no idea how a larger person would get in there. I think they would have to remove the door off the hinges. The door opens into the room with the toilet, so you kind of have to shimmy around to get the door closed. We had requested a king size bed on booking, but we got two doubles. The balcony is useless. It’s tiny and has no chairs, so all you can do is walk out, look around and go back in. Our view was of the jungle, which was pretty, and we got to see and hear birds and monkeys. Speaking of animals, there are lots of animals around! Spider monkeys, Coatis, Great-tailed grackles, Chachalalaca, turtles and more. The staff were great, very friendly, we had no complaints at all. Suggest you bring pesos from home rather than changing money at the hotel, as it’s a bit touch and go if they will have change when you need it. We tipped always, and I’m sure it was appreciated. Activities: we borrowed bikes to ride. There is only one area near the back of the resort on the way to the ruins that you are allowed to ride. You MUST have sneakers or you cannot borrow a bike. Don’t even think about water shoes as a substitute. We took part in the Sensory Experience, which was okay, not a must do. We swam in the cenote, which was really nice, peaceful except for the construction noises. They were working on the main lobby bar when we were there, so that was going on the whole time. We paid extra for the Fire Show, which included dinner . The food was very good, and we had a table inside the circle to watch the show. And everyone watched us eat, LOL. But I’d say that was money well spent. It was 2000 pesos each, or $50 USD/pp. There was a “White Party” on the beach on one of the nights, which was a lot of fun. We did not go to any of the other evening shows. We had planned to borrow kayaks but it was too windy the whole time we were there. A couple of tips: bring water shoes if you want to go in the ocean. Bring bug spray. I saw that tip and ignored it, and paid the price. Bring After Bite, or comparable in case you do get bitten. They sell something similar at the shop at the resort for $32 USD for a little tube. Same thing you would buy at Walmart for $6 CAD. Bring immodium and Pepto Bismal just in case you do get ill. My husband did have a day when he was very unwell.

  Mar 25, 2025
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  Wonderful Spring Break Stay

  So much to do! You cannot see it all! My kids said it was better than Disney (I agree). We loved hiking, the beach, sleeping in a room in the mangrove trees, the wildlife & the evening events. Building 38 overlooks a cenote with a waterfall that was so peaceful. We loved seeing the bats at dusk on the swinging bridge & our favorite pool was Las Tortugas. Mariana was our tour guide on the Jade River adventure & it was so cool. We use too much of the day to do dinner reservations but hit all of the buffets. My kids loved all of them. It is such a chill resort with so much to do. Thanks for a great experience.

  Mar 24, 2025
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  Ecological experience to remember

  Absolutely tremendous. The resort is just what it’s billed as - an ecological experience - and if that’s what you’re looking for it will not disappoint. We mostly ignored the pool activities and focused on the river, cenotes, Mayan ruins, nature walks, and copious wildlife - if this is what you enjoy you’ll never be bored. The staff guides are wonderful, patient and helpful, and always made our son feel special. The guided swim tours of the Jade River and Cenote are not to be missed - we did both several times over, and would have happily done more. I have seen that it’s difficult to book the a la carte restaurants, and I’m sure they’re worth it, but traveling with a picky kid, the buffets were easier, and we found the quality mostly pretty good. Honestly, the best food on the resort is the Santo Taco bar, which was consistently excellent. The Italian buffet seems to be most popular but we found the Mexican buffet tended to be the best for us, and most fun at breakfast with the mariachis. The beach is not a stereotypical mile of undisturbed white sand, but we enjoyed the more natural and varied character, and more wildlife that comes with it. And yes, there’s still plenty of soft sand! The rooms are fine. We found our balcony was a great place to watch the monkeys and iguanas, but otherwise didn’t really feel much desire to hang out much “at home.” The minibar was constantly stocked and the cleaning staff did a great job every day. My one gentle criticism would be construction noise, which was loud to the point of headaches in one buffet, and also immediately adjacent to the Cristal cenote, which dampened the experience somewhat. But these are quibbles; we loved our week and would very much like to come back soon.

  Mar 22, 2025