Hyatt Ziva Cancun

The hotel and it's facilities exceeded our expectations. The entire property was/is maintained impeccably. Staff (whose numbers seemed to exceed the number of guests sometimes) were all professional, polite, and friendly. Our room was very well appointed and refreshed at least twice per day. This place really is family-oriented with an abundance of things for children to do throughout the property. There are many different restaurants ranging from beach front bars to high-end French cuisine. However, the quality of some foods went wanting but I believe that is due to the quality availability in the region. Presentations are over the top, but were often served luke warm at best sometimes. The only real negative was the "top tier" wine and liquor 'offerings.' The complimentary wines were nearly undrinkable and were clearly only sparingly offered (be persistent or go straight to the bar if your requests to the wait staff are ignored). Their "top tier" bourbon was Jim Beam 🙄. All brands of the good stuff are available but a hefty additional charge is applied. Surcharges for decent wines were astronomical compared to comparable retail prices in the US.

Protip: splurge and rent a cabana by the beach or pool; we're glad we did. The sun can be brutal and shade is st a premium.

We recently stayed for 6 days at this resort with our extended family and had a terrific experience. We had a large group of 15, including 13 adults a toddler and a baby. We went over Labor Day and generally did not experience crowds.

For kiddos: The resort provided two cribs and a refrigerator (I requested one for breastmilk), and it all fit in our dolphin view room. We used a slumberpod comfortably on one crib. It was a bit tight but totally workable. Our kids were too young for the kids club unsupervised (must be 4) but we took advantage of the kids pool with slides (pictures included). We saw lots of the kids club entertainers and they seemed to really enjoy their jobs and the kids seemed well looked after. There was a character dressed up as Spider-Man who made my 3 year old’s existence. There were lots of shallow parts of the many pools, including in front of most cabanas, where we sat and played. We brought our own floaters and life jackets. There were floats for sale at a shop that would be great for older kids. I think if our kids were a bit older, we would have had an even better time with all the activities but it was definitely friendly enough for little ones.

Family cabana: We rented the large family cabana each day. The service by Theresa, Luis, Edgar, and others whose names I can’t remember was terrific! They really went above and beyond. Alexis and Ignacio were awesome and did the included facials (not true facials, it was a cold towel and massage with aloe that was quite refreshing).

Word of warning - the family cabana itself has two steps and is a little worn and uneven; several in our group took pretty hard tumbles. We would lay down towels to mark the steps but it really isn’t a suitable spot for those who are unsteady. We also almost never used the roof because of the punishing sun but it would have been great for an overcast day.

Food: food was overall delicious. The fruit at Mercado and Theodora’s quesadillas were incredible. There were play areas in the Mercado that made it a lot more kid friendly. The first morning we ate at Mercado there was a very long wait, which I was worried was going to be the norm, but it only happened that first Sunday.

We had excellent food at tradewinds - we went three times and would agree with other commenters that it was inconsistent. One night everything was a little too salty.

Our group loved the French, adults only, restaurant (food pictured). Our sever (I think Juan-pictured), was awesome - and we loved the potato and leak soup, foie gras, and asparagus. We also loved the crème brûlée but it was more fluffy and less custardy than the average.

Our first dinner at Lorenzo’s was delicious but the significant wait after a long travel day detracted from the experience. We didn’t go back because of fear of another long wait, but the pizza was delicious.

Spa: had a great deep tissue massage from Nancy and would recommend.

General commentary: I wish our room had more hooks in the bathroom to hang towels and wet clothes. Minor inconvenience, but we had so many wet towels all the time.

One night we also had to call the concierge because our neighbors were having too much fun and kept waking up the kids. The resort handled the noise complaint promptly and we didn’t have any more issues. I hope that group had fun at one of the many lovely bar areas,

Dolphins: our first thought upon seeing the dolphins was “wow! This is so cool” - but it soon because quite depressing. Their enclosure seemed to small and shallow, and so we did not do the dolphin experience because we didn’t want to support the captivity. I would be lying if I said we didn’t enjoy watching them, and hope that they are dolphins would couldn’t otherwise be released, but I don’t know.