We recently returned from three weeks at the Barcelo Maya Palace Deluxe, having stayed there two years ago.

The resort is beautiful, and by staying at the Palace, you can access restaurants/bars in the other attached Barcelo's.

The entire resort was beautifully maintained and clean. The room was clean, comfortable, and very quiet. The food was excellent at all the buffets and a la cartes.

The best part of the trip, however, was the staff. Everyone was friendly, helpful, wanting to talk to you, and always had a smile on their face.

We definitely will be staying at this resort again.

We stayed in the Palace section of the Barcelo from Jan 28th to Feb 6th and I would say the resort more than met our expectations. We are a family of four with two kids (3 and 5). The resort is beautiful, the rooms are big, and the beach is excellent, great water park for the kids, good selection of fresh food and lots of entertainment. Keep in mind when you are reading the negative reports on this resort take them with a grain of salt as many of them pertain to a problem with either the airline (i,e, delayed flight) or the ground transportation which have nothing to do with the resort itself.

Rooms: They are big. We had to double beds, but we got the housekeeping staff to make the couches into beds for our kids. Lots of closet space and drawers for your clothes. Big bathroom with double sinks and walk in shower. The bathroom amenities included toothbrush kit, sewing kit, comb, and razor kit. The room also had a good size safe, mini-fridge (stocked with beer, water, pop and juice) and coffee pot. The deck was large with two chairs and a table (would have been nice if there was a lounger as there was enough room). A couple of nice features in the room included bedside air conditioning controls and a drying rack on the deck for your wet bathing suits.

Food: We had an opportunity to try several of the a la carte restaurants including the Brazilian, French, and Caribbean restaurants in the Palace section as well as the Mexican restaurant in the Beach section. All were good and unique in their own ways. The stand outs for us were the French and Mexican restaurants for the food and service. We hit the buffet for breakfast everyday as well as for several dinners. The food selection at breakfast is great (made to order eggs, made to order smoothies, fresh donuts, waffles, French toast, pancakes, etc and an incredible selection of fresh fruit – better than most grocery stores) and the dinner selection is overwhelming (steaks, seafood, stir fry, fresh fruit and vegetables, desserts, etc). All of the food looked and tasted fresh. We ate at the grill restaurants in both the Palace and Tropical sections, I would say for selection and service the Palace was a notch above and was also less busy which made finding a table very easy.

Kids Club: Our kids used the Kids Club on several days and loved it. The staff were very good and the kid to staff ratio at the Palace side is very good (I don’t think there was more than 6 kids at any one time and always 2 staff working). At the beginning of the day the Kids Club staff could be found making balloon animals to the entrance of the breakfast buffet on most days. Our one child is under four and the staff was all right with us leaving her there for several hours at a time without a parent present, which was very nice for us to get some adult time.

Pools: The kids pool area at both the Palace and Colonial/Tropical are fantastic with zero entry pools and lots of slides for big and small kids. We used both facilities and liked them both, however the Palace side was less busy. We also used the pool area at the Palace and Tropical sections, both of which are big. Again the Palace section was less busy, so if you are looking for a little more relaxation best to stay there, if you are looking for a little but more of a party scene head over to the pools in the Tropical/Colonial section. The nice thing with the Palace is you have a choice of all the pools and facilities.
Beach: Probably one of the nicest beaches in the Mayan that I have visited. Several kilometers of soft white sand dotted with palm trees and lots of chairs. The waves are not that big, so kids can enjoy the ocean without getting swamped. There are some areas that have coral, so I would recommend wearing water shoes. We did some snorkeling but the variety of fish that we saw was not that big. There are lots of water activities (water tricycles, kayaks, windsurfing and catamarans). I think they are free, however we did not use them so I am not sure.

Common Areas: The lobby and common area in the Palace section is very nice and the grounds are well kept. Yes this is a large complex when you include the other Barcelo sections, however there is so much to see and do and we enjoyed the walking. Again the Palace section has everything you need, so you can definitely limit your walking if you want to.

Gym: The gym had several elliptical machines, bikes and treadmills as well as a selection of free weights. It was very clean and well maintained.

We stayed here in October with another young family. It was great! We loved it so much that we are returning in the spring!
The service is good and the food is amazing. We couldn't have asked for more. This resort is by far one of the best ones we have stayed at, and we have travelled to other destinations such as Jamaica, Antigua, and Cuba. The restaurants are great too! My favorite one is the french restaurant, good food, great waiters and they are very nice and polite. The japanese restaurant puts on a great show which entertains the young children and the food was very good.

Big Plus: This resort is very accomodating to families as they have a kids water section by the pool. Also the resort has elevators for those of us who had strollers.

The beach is very nice. We brought our own snorkel gear in case we saw something. On the third day of our trip we ended up seeing turtles. They are not too far from the beach but it's about a 5 min swim from the shoreline. Its a fantastic sight to see!! On calm days, you can actually see the fish swim up where it's really shallow, many kids loved that.

Overall I would recommend this hotel to anyone. We've already recommended it to friends :)

This was our first all inclusive vacation and it was fabulous! We normally cruise and thought we'd try this for a change. It came highly recommended by friends. Our room was great. Very spacious. The grounds were absolutely beautiful and the pools too. All staff members were very friendly. I was suprised at how quiet it was at night. Very relaxing. We used Apple Vacation and everything went very smooth.