Sandos Playacar

The cleanliness, staff, food and amenities are awesome. We especially enjoy our daily visits and our after dinner drinks at The Avenue Lounge. The staff is AMAZING. Hoping I have the name correct - Jose and Marvinna are like family. We truly appreciate the friendliness and wonderful service! Thank you!

We were at the resort in March ’20 – right at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, so it’s possible that our experience was somewhat affected. With this in mind, the majority would likely not change during “normal” times. One important part – we were there with “black bracelets” giving us full access to the resort, including special member only areas by the pool and beach, member only pool, all the loungers throughout the resort and top shelf liquor. I honestly thing that resort is not worth considering if you’re there with a “regular” bracelet. Too many limitations and, if you’re there with the kids, you’ll have a very hard time keeping them out from the pool directly adjacent to a kids’ waterpark. While the water park is accessible by everybody, the adjacent pool is members’ only. Making sure that kids don’t go there while enjoying a water park is going to be a hard and unpleasant task. Selection of alcohol in regular bars is rather sad, comparing with premium loungers as well. A good section of the beach is reserved for members only in the “everybody’s” section and “adult’s only section” of the beach is for adults only. Families with kids without black bracelets are limited to rather small section with limited selection of loungers and umbrellas on the beach. While we’ve been to the resorts that has “premium” bracelets with extra benefits, we’ve never seen a resort that makes the experience such drastically different. Having black bracelets we, of course, enjoyed the added benefits, but we decided on the second day that if we’re back, we’re only coming back with black bracelets. First, the good… The resort is well maintained, clean and the beach is impeccable. All the walkways are well lit and organized. Signage to find your way is very decent and it’s easy to find your way. WiFi was very strong and available throughout the resort, including beach area. Instructions we received to connect to it were not exactly correct and rather strange, but it was easy to figure out. With very rare exceptions, staff was very attentive and professional. We had couple of issues in the room during our stay and they were addressed very quickly. There was always a lifeguard by the kid pool and in the beach area, though the one on the beach didn’t seem to be very attentive. The kids water park was very nice for younger kids – probably under 8 or 9. Older kids would find it rather boring after a while. However, it was kept clean and under constant observation by a lifeguard, who was also a paramedic. Family section (we didn’t stay there, but walked by on many occasions) has couple of very nice smaller connected pools, including a kids pool for little kids. The pool is right by the building, making it very convenient for families staying there. The resort was half empty when we were there, likely because of global pandemic spreading at the time. We didn’t experience much of lines or waiting anywhere, though when they started moving people from Caracol (their sister resort), the lines started and some inefficiencies in handling the crowds were becoming evident. The room: We were in 1bd Hasienda and the room was all that we expected – spacious and comfortable. Nice bed with two day beds for kids and our request for a rollaway was honored very quickly too. Very nice and spacious showers, though the water pressure could have been better. One element of “decor” that seem to be common in Mexican resorts is the “step” in the middle of the room dividing it into two levels. I could never understand the reasoning behind it and it always results in somebody hitting it with the foot several times, often causing issues. Since we had a 1bd, which is essentially a two rooms separated by a sliding door (which was, unfortunately, getting stuck all the time), we had two separate A/C units. I had high hopes for digital thermostats, but, while we made it work for us, the temperature was never what we wanted. One room was constantly too cold and the other too warm, regardless of what we set the thermostat to. It wasn’t a big issue, but was annoying. Additionally, even though that wasn’t really a problem, this was the first resort we’ve been to where cleaning staff didn’t do towel animals for kids. Not a big issue, but our kids were expecting it and were somewhat disappointed. Grounds: As mentioned before, the area was very nicely groomed and managed. The only issue we had with it is that there were several uncontrolled exits where you can easily find yourself outside of the resort. For security purposes, I’d prefer the resort to be a bit more locked down. Mainly, however, we were concerned with kids accidentally getting out of the resort when they were wondering around. For some reason, the resort setup a small zoo in the middle with a donkey, couple of sheep and a cow. I haven’t seen ANYBODY paying any attention to the animals, but the smell could he felt for quite a distance, depending on the wind. The area could have been used much better. Pools: We mainly hung out at Royal Elite pool and their attached cabanas. The area was great, though it was very unexpected that the area was not cleaned at night. The drink cups that were left from the day before were there the following day. For the sake of experiment, we didn’t intentionally remove them for 4 days in a row, and they were stacking up until we moved them on the 5th day. There were also cigarette butts that were not cleaned up as well. Additionally, the resort provided a nice “island” with some fruits and Champaign in that area, which was a very nice touch. However, they provided glass flutes instead of plastic cups, which in the pool area was very irresponsible. All the pools were very nice otherwise, but on the smaller side. Considering the size of the resort, a larger pool would have been nice. One day some kid had an accident in the water park and they quickly shut it down. Considering that it happened relatively early in the morning, we thought they’d start getting it back together right away. Instead, it was standing roped off with nobody working on it for the rest of the day and only reopened the following morning. Vacationing as Royal Elite (black bracelets) we were supposedly entitled to getting two towels per towel card. Unfortunately, the towel booth attendants were not made aware of this. Once again, wasn’t an issue, but rather annoying inconsistency. This is clearly a management oversight. Beach: Beach area was awesome with clean sand and very little sea weed. Plenty of cabanas and shade in adults and Royal Elite sections. Regular family section was very sufficient for half empty resort, but I’m not sure it’d be adequate for when they are full. There were virtually no animators around, though that could have been attributed to Covid crisis. Tour sales: I’m not sure if the agents selling various tours are employees of the resort or external vendors, but they employed very questionable tactics, even for the Mexican resorts. We found an officially advertised Xel Ha special on their website and when we presented it to the vendor selling tours there, they tried to convince us that their much higher priced tour was a better deal, instead of trying to work with us. The weekly sales event when they bring local artists doing and selling all kinds of crafts would have been an ok entertainment, if only they manage these vendors better. They were extremely obnoxious and would literally try to stop you physically when you walk by. There were nobody from the resort overseeing that event. Food: We were originally very impressed by selection and quality of the main buffet. Everybody could have find anything for the taste. However, after few days, we noticed ABSOLUTELY NO rotation. They’d replace something minor once in a blue moon, but that was about it. We always knew what we’d be able to find and where we’d find it. There was very little, if any, distinction between lunch and dinner menu either. The fact that they had a dedicated Mexican station was very welcomed and that was probably the only area with some attempts at rotation. The rest of the buffet got old very quickly. One bizarre thing was total lack of spoons anywhere. During our 10 day stay, not even once we were able to get spoons ourselves at the buffet. We’d always had to ask for them. Even in the soup or cereal sections, they wouldn’t set any spoons out. I’m not sure what the reason is, but this was very unexpected. We dined in 5 restaurants with various degree of satisfaction. Generally, I’m not expecting gourmet experience from specialty restaurants in an all-inclusive resort. This is merely a form of entertainment and just a different experience from buffet, so we don’t have high expectation from service or food to begin with. However, we want it to be different form buffets. Mexican restaurant had very decent food, though rather smallish menu, and decent service. Not professional restaurant service, of course, but totally expected for what it was. French was a total disappointment. We waited for an hour for food to arrive and it was very bland and tasteless. Service was very slow and inattentive as well. Rodizio was very good. Waiters were making jokes and meat tasted great for the most part. We visited it twice. Steakhouse was very average. Neither of our orders were cooked how we asked and meat was lacking much taste. Service was ok Asian had a lot of hype with people lining up and waiting for hours to get in – we signed up and were only able to get a spot for two hours later and even then, waited about half an hour. The food was simply bad. Ended up going to the buffet after. Italian was very nice - very quite and intimate with nice service and quality menu. We enjoyed it a lot. For some reason, every night two restaurants were closed on rotational schedule – not sure if that was related to resort being half empty or there was another reason.