Cancun, Royal Solaris Review

Overall Rating

The room terrace over the ocean, the huge balcony with lounge seats overseeing the unnaturally blue ocean, the activity pool and the gala dinner terrace. Got very nice afternoon views and were able to enjoy a beer there in the afternoon. Only available on the first floor, the balconies on the other floors are quite tiny, only room for two tiny chairs and a small coffee table.

Comfy beds. I had read that beds are awfully hard in GR Solaris, hence I brought an inflatable bed along, just in case they were as unsleepable as it was rumoured. Seems the guys keep a close eye on web reviews, cause there were extra cushions added to the originally hard beds, such that we could get a really nice rest on all nights. Inflatable bed was money out the window but I have not yet unpacked it and will give it away as a gift.

Good air conditioning. What with all the heat outside, it really made us cover ourselves at night, which I love.

Fantastic service in all restaurants, pool bar, lounge and deli. Waiters would pro-actively replace your empty glass if you had the same drink more times in a row, they would make the drink as hard as you like and would treat you nicely whether you tipped or not, I tried both. I particularly appreciated Barahona down at the pool bar, who went over his head to give us all we wanted and all of that in a friendly, yet very respectful way.
For hardcore drinkers, waiters had wheelchairs to carry them back to their rooms once they were thrashed. It made for some really funny moments.

Extra-mile-going cleaning maids. Maid came up to the room to clean in the morning, was asleep, came again at noon, was asleep too, finally came in the afternoon, when I suppose not a lot of cleaning goes on, after I had finally awakened.

All day long kids club, you will even forget you are with junior and they will have a really good time.

Good assortment of drinks in all bars. I only had premium tequila Don Julio and they would go over the top to get some more of the good stuff. Good white wine, nice vodka, great complimentary champagne. I did not have any headache during the stay. The only minus is for the draft beer, sheer Mexican rubbish. When you get mixed drinks, make sure you tell the waiter to give you half the ice they usually give, otherwise you will get little booze and lots of ice, I can barely talk because of that.

Adult relax pool. Clean water, good atmosphere, I guess the name says it all.

Trip to Isla Mujeres. We took it and were not sorry. All inclusive and paid 12 USD each for the most amazing snorkelling tour of the Caribbean Reef. This I believe was the high point of the whole journey, crystal blue water and a fantastically coloured fauna below, plus the reef itself, so I would recommend this to anyone visiting the area.

Food. During my 6 night stay there, there were maximum 3 dishes to my liking in all restaurants and throughout the meals I had. By the way, my standards are quite low with food and this was way below Chinese all you can eat. The only nice stuff we got was the once a week free lobster tail dinner at Marco Polo and some fish with ajillo and chile on one day. The rest was totally worse than noodles in the bag.

Thin walls. I could hear the hardcore action going on in 4 rooms, both while in the corridor returning to the room and in bed, which was inspiring. Make sure to get a room at least 3 rooms away from the elevator. Otherwise you will hear ding dong all night when the doors open, from party people returning to their rooms.

Water in the activity pool. It was way too warm, it failed to chill me out in the least and honestly I think there was more urine in it than water. It reeked and it made you reek once you got out of it. People would just sit in the pool bar, drink and go in the pool. Horrible to get that stuff into your eyes.

Poolside entertainment. Although they tried hard, the guys responsible for the entertainment by the pool seldom did a good job and revolved around the same lame questions asked of the guests at the microphone like what's your name, where are you from, lets hear it who else is from there, uno dos tres. While some may appreciate that kind of animation, I most certainly did not. In fact, I totally hated it.

Distance to the town center, be prepared to spend about 20 - 35 minutes to the nicer Cancun areas, such as Senor Frogs or Coco Bongo, on the buses driven insanely by the Mexicanos. FYI the Mexican buses only have gas pedals with two positions, off and pedal-to-the-metal, at least this is the only way their drivers can drive them.

Price. While our time there was totally agreeable, this came at a hefty price. Paid USD 2800 for 6 nights and tickets from Houston. Bought the regular room, yet they gave us a fantastic terrace facing the nice caribbean sea, terrace is approx 4 x 3 m. I understand from other reviews that this is not common practice. However, we appreciated it.

Assimilated. Cancun lacks almost any kind of real life Mexican flavour. It is very close to an American resort in the South part but I did not appreciate that.

General Cancun prices were shrimp (not lobster), dinner for two, including a 10% tip, with beer, no wine. 75 USD at El Shrimp bucket. Nice fried sea food, nothing to write home about but it was more expensive than Texas, let alone other places, try China for example. Other place we went: Lorenzillo's was very cosy and sophisticated but quite expensive, 7 USD for mineral water, 23 USD for the cheapest main course made of shrimps. However, a class above El Shrimp Bucket and Bubba Gump. Open bar at one of the good spots downtown, Senor Frogs, Daddy'O, Pat O'Brien: 40 USD include OK beer, dos equis, tequila, local vodka called so negro, vat 69 whiskey and mixes with the stuff above.

Time share sales guys. In as much as they were annoying, it was not hard to get rid of them. All we had to do was say we were not married, not on honeymoon and yes, leaving tomorrow. Beware of seemingly inoffensive people asking these questions of you. Answer as above and you will be left alone.

Good luck and please let me know what you think by submitting a comment below.