Barcelo Maya Palace

Hotel was solid overall, this was our second time going. Definitely enjoyed the adults only hotel on a previous trip better. Dinner reservations can be frustrating. Overall, enjoy the hotel and experience and plan on going back.

We recently returned from an 11-night stay at the Palace, within the Barceló Maya resort complex, and overall we left satisfied, although a number of points are worth mentioning in detail. We’ll start with what we enjoyed most: the food. Both the buffets and the à la carte restaurants offered noticeably better quality and variety than the other hotels in the complex, which we also tried (Colonial, Tropical, Caribe). The French restaurant was excellent, and the Kyoto restaurant deserves a special mention: the service was very attentive, and the show that comes with the meal is genuinely worth experiencing. Despite eating at all hours over eleven nights, including at the 24-hour sports bar, we had no digestive issues at all, which says a lot about the freshness of the food. The range of included activities was also very good. Snorkeling is offered free of charge, for one hour per day per person, with only a $20 deposit required for the equipment. Kayaking and windsurfing are included as well; only motorized activities such as jet-skiing come at an extra cost. The beach borders a reef just a few metres from shore, with impressive marine life, even for those with no snorkeling experience. Between the beach, the pools, and the activities, there was rarely a reason to leave the resort. The entertainment and dining staff were, for the most part, warm and attentive, with a genuine effort to make guests feel welcome. We would like to give special credit to Mauricio Gomez, whose service was one of the highlights of our stay. We now turn to the points that fell short of expectations. Our main concern was the front desk. We arrived around 1:30 a.m. due to a visa issue unrelated to the hotel, and although reception was nearly empty — only three families and two staff members — we still waited over an hour to check in. Beyond the slow service, we also noticed a lack of professionalism on several occasions: inconsistent information, staff who seemed poorly informed on certain matters, and, most notably, a significant language barrier. In a five-star property that presents itself as an international “Palace,” we were surprised that the person who checked us in spoke almost no English. We managed thanks to some basic Spanish, but it left a mixed impression. This same issue cost us four full days trying to recover a t-shirt lost at the beach (maroon, with “Eagle” printed in white), with different information given at each visit. The matter was ultimately resolved in five minutes, once a supervisor who spoke fluent English simply showed us a photo of the item — which, in the end, was not even ours. She was clearly more capable and professional than the team she was supervising, and in our view would be better placed at the front line. It’s also worth mentioning that the hotel’s decor, particularly in the lobby, is starting to feel dated for a five-star property in 2026: the first impression on arrival falls short of what the resort’s reputation would suggest. Another, more unexpected issue concerned the beach itself. The sand is very fine, almost too fine, which makes walking on it somewhat uncomfortable and can quickly hurt your feet. The real problem, however, lies just beneath this thin layer of sand: a hard, almost concrete-like surface. While playing beach volleyball, one of us slipped and injured an ankle on this surface — an injury that could easily have been avoided on a normal beach. We were also disappointed by the pools, which, while cleaner than at the resort’s other hotels, still leave room for improvement: after only two days, our swimwear showed light yellowish stains, something we also noticed on other guests. The water was also quite warm during the day, which likely doesn’t help. On the equipment side, we were surprised that the Palace has no proper table tennis table. The Tropical has a good one, but it belongs to the kids’ club and therefore closes at 5 p.m., which severely limits its use. Some dining areas, particularly the rodizio restaurant, were affected by unsupervised children being fairly loud; there is already an adults-only pool, but a few additional quiet areas would be welcome. The nightclub was enjoyable overall but played the same playlist every night, and bar service could be slow, with “virgin” cocktails frequently served with alcohol regardless of our request. Lastly, the hotel’s mobile app clearly needs to be redesigned. In its current form, it is difficult to set up and adds very little value. We would have liked something closer to what other resorts offer (the Riu, for example): an interactive map to help guests find their way around such a large property, in-app restaurant booking, real-time activity schedules, and a clear indicator of which restaurants are closed or fully booked. On a complex this size, a well-designed app would save a considerable amount of time for many guests. Overall rating: 8/10. We left satisfied: the quality of the food, the range of activities, and the warmth of most of the staff fully justify the stay. A handful of relatively simple improvements — better English and more consistency at the front desk, more thorough pool maintenance, and a redesigned app — would be enough to bring this resort close to a 9.5/10 experience.

Amazing service , friendly and kind staff, and great hospitality