Cons:
1. This is extremely important to know: You are given vouchers to eat at the restaurants. We were booked to stay there for seven nights, and the amount of vouchers we received were 3!!! Which meant for the other 4 nights we were forced to eat at the buffet. We felt this was a total scam and NOT okay. This alone was enough to make us not want to return.

2. The resort needs to be updated. This might be a little picky, complaining that the resort did not seem "fresh" enough, but after staying at Ocean Coral and Turquesa in November, we just assumed that this resort would have the same clean, new look. Unfortunately it was disappointing. The pool is a HUGE disappointment. It is just ugly. Concrete and unappealing water. That is not how a resort pool should be. The restaurants (except for Buffet) are close to the pool and beach, and all in this round circle thing. Ugly. But it does offer outside seating which is nice. This is a minor con, but if you are really looking for something super new feeling do not go here. If that does not matter, then go - it was dirty, the grounds were well kept.

3. Ants. There were ants in our bathroom and right beside our bed. Very small ones, but still - you are on vacation, this is not something you should have to be thinking about. We were told that ants are just a part of their lives, but even so - I am paying to stay at a resort, and I certainly do not expect bugs to be in my room no matter how small. However - they were very good about coming in and spraying which they did very thoroughly.

4. They need new beach chairs. The first three I sat in were broken or extremely saggy. Just a minor annoyance, but worth mentioning.

5. The buffet is by the lobby, which is fine. However, it is "outside" meaning it is simply humid and moist. If the restaurant is going to be no where near the water or anything attractive, just put it inside with some air conditioning so the food does not look soggy and the cheese isn't sweating. It made eating very unappealing.


Pros:

1. The beach is unbelievable. The water is crystal clear - everything you dream the Caribbean to be like.

2. The staff is always ready to help, very friendly.

3. The steak house and the Italian are very good. Just stick with those two as long as you can. For those of you who are "privileged guests," the Tapas was not great.

Overall the resort needs a refreshing. If it was updated everything would be fine - since they have a prime location. The resort is not as big as everyone makes it sound. If one is elderly it might not be ideal because the buffet is next to the lobby, which is the farthest from the beach. I would not go back here at all, mostly because it is so unfair to be paying that money and then have such limited food choices. Maybe this is mentioned and I did not see this before booking, but finding out upon arrival was not pleasing.
Also, being booked as a privilege guest did not mean you got a better room. The only difference it meant was that you could got one more voucher for dinner (to the Tapas restaurant) and access to that same restaurant for lunch. Honestly, this was the only thing that made the experience a little better because that restaurant was on the water, the closet to the beach and outside!! It was a gorgeous view. However, at dinner, you are forced to eat inside unless you are paying for a lobster dinner in which case you get to eat outside.
You also have access to a privilege lobby, which is just a tiny room where you can get the same sort of buffet snacks and some computers to work on.

We ended up being upgraded to their sister resort in Tulum because they overbooked. Thank goodness!! It was significantly better. If we had stayed seven nights at Catalonia Playa Maroma we would have been fine, because hey - its vacation, and its nice to be somewhere warm with beautiful water! But being upgraded made it sooooo much better.

I am a single woman that travels with a group every year for a break from winter. This hotel, while living up to expectations as far as rooms, cleanliness, beach etc. has issues with accommodating either single women or groups. To begin with, I had to pay for 2 persons in order to get a room. I understand that I have to pay for a room even though only one is using it. My issue is that only 1 was using the all inclusive, yet I had to pay for 2 people. There was no single price. Upon arrival, my room was on another floor and the other side of the building from the other 4 rooms in our group. The "Privileged" check in promised me another room the next day. So at noon, I left my room understanding I had to wait until 3 for my new room. At 3:30 I had to insist that they give me a better located room. Finally my vacation could begin!
My next issue is with the specialty restaurants. At the Terrace they were able to seat all 9 of us, but it was down hill from there. The Italian restaurant could only seat us at a table for 4 and a table for 5, and they were at opposite sides of the restaurant. The Steakhouse said they MAY be able to seat us together at 9:30, when it was 6:30 at the time. We gave up on the restaurants and ate all our meals at the Buffet, where Miguel the waiter had no problem handling all 9 of us in one seating.
Special mention must be made of Jhonny from Animation who made us feel welcome.
Enrique at the beach was also a very hard worker, and always smiling!
This was my sixth trip to Mexico and the ONLY one I was not happy with.

Let's start with the Staff: ***** The "animation" staff was just exceptional. We could not believe how hard they work to make sure guests are having fun, offering everything from yoga classes, Spanish lessons, salsa dancing, to volleyball competitions, relay races, to pilates. They did this all day then had a one hour break to eat- would run to the theatre and put on a Cirque du soleil quality spectacular each night complete with contortionism, dances and hilarious clown acts! Amazing. And of course I am NOT the kind of person who would think that this would be high on my list of priorities for what makes a vacation great- but it REALLY made it GREAT. The kids club people were fantastic. We are not the kind of people who drop off our kids, but were happy to hang out at the kids club to get out of the high noon sun. They had a nice shaded playground and fun activities to keep the kids busy for those 2 hours of harsh sun. And when my daughter got a little sun burn- one of the gardeners hand delivered us a huge aloe vera branch within minutes, for us to help cool her skin down!! Everyone from concierge to the maids to the beach staff was always smiling and always friendly- REALLY incredible!!!

The Beach- breathtaking, fantastic!
Pools- incredible!
Food: creperie and cappacinos- yum!!, Buffet- was good, not great, but good. the 3 restaurants on site- don't bother - was poor- only thing we complained about.
Another note on food. All we REALLY look for in Mexico when we travel- is the really great tasting flame broiled meats- which we got here, GREAT guacamole- thick and chuncky- which we DID not find here. Great salsa- which we did find here. And GREAT ceviche chuck full of shrimp etc- which we did not find here. so over all food is the only thing I considered deducting a star for, but since everything else was so crazy incredible- we let it slide. If you are a hard core foodie- you may not be thrilled.

The Rooms- AMAZING!

The Cost- we booked travelocity and got a GREAt package- so for us it was EXTREMELY affordable.

As far as the reviews that this place is very international and not for Americans?? First of all I LIKe that Americans are the minority there- hello that is why one travels internationally to go somewhere new with different people and experiences! Everyone spoke English- we never had a problem, and scraped by with the minimum Spanish and Italian that we collectively knew, in the rare instances when someone like the maid didn't understand us. So pretentious for people to expect everyone in a foreign country to speak English!

Ease with kids: SO easy so incredible. Everyone UBER helpful. We took a direct flight from boston and were there. We didn't want to ever leave. Which is strange for us, since before kids my husband and I were the total backpacker types- traveling in Japan, India, etc. One thing I will say is that they do the usual thing since you are somewhat stuck there- where they try to rip you off on taxi fare. It's a good idea- to do what we did, find a good taxi driver in Playa Del Carmen and negotiate a cheap fare back to your hotel, then ask him if he'd be willing to be your can driver for the trip and call him when you need him. The hotel wasn't thrilled that we did this, but we did save a ton of cash. Anyway we Highly reccomned it!! Enjoy!!

Every year a group of us get together for some fun in the sun and we always go to Mexico. This year we traveled with nine people and chose the Catalonia because of other reviews. The hotel knew ahead of time how many were in our group. As we entered the dirt road filled with many pot holes leading into the hotel, not a good first impression, but once there it was beautiful. We proceeded to check in and was told only 2 rooms were ready. Our luggage was put into the two rooms and we went for a bite to eat and wonder around the facilities. Beach was beautiful and so was the pool. Finally, the rest of our rooms were ready. My husband and I proceeded to our room only to find other people in the room wanting to change their room to ours, what if our bags were already in it? Not happy about that. Anyway, the room was nice overlooking the court yard. We had 4 special restaurants to go to plus the buffet. First time we were all accomadated and able to eat together. Next time at the Italian one, we sat 4 & 5 far away from one another, they could not get us together or close but the head person had no problem seating 15 together since they were his friends. The Steak house wanted us to come back at 9:15 and then they could possibly seat us near one another, yet there was parties of 7 or more seated together. We ate at the buffet and never had a problem since the waiters got to know us, as we tipped, and always went out of there way for us. We only met a handful of English speaking people and they were always happen to hear someone they could speak with, mostly rude French people were there and yes, they were rude. We made the best of everything though. Get seats early in the morning at beach and pool as they filled up quickly. The beach and pool bartenders were very nice, all the male staff was excellent, the females always had an attitude or seem annoyed if you even spoke or aked them anything. We did 2 excursions to Tulum and Xel Cha which were great. Too bad the other people on the buses back had comments as to the road back to our hotel, they thought we were staying in a low budget area. If you want to keep the road natural, at least fix the pot holes! Nightly entertainment was good but the long walk from our rooms to the lobby was tiring as we had to walk there twice a day just to get to the buffet or lobby bar, disco and theatre. This hotel does not take any American dollars anywhere on the property, they told us it had to do with some Mexican law. Our bus driver told us that was not true as other hotels all took American dollars. None of the bars had any bar stools except the disco with 5 stools. All in all we did manage a good time as we were on vacation together but none of us will be back. We plan on going back to Isla Mujeres where we felt more welcome and all friendly.