A week at the Mayan Palace

Best Things Nearby:
Playa del Carmen is a short bus or taxi ride south of the resort. Playa provides a great variety of restuarants and live entertainment in a very safe enviroment.

Best Things About the Resort:
The Pool is huge. It took us 45 minutes just to walk the perimeter of the pool. They have a swim-up bar on each end of the pool, each having several happy hours each day.

Resort Experience:
The room decor is odd for at beach resort; all neutral tones and no ocean or pool views. The room was large, very clean, and provided all one needs for light cooking. The food and drinks served at the resort are excellent. The steak I had at the Tumtah restuarant was possibly the best I have had anywhere.

• Unit Type: 1 Bedroom
• Activities: Good
• Amenities: Excellent
• Unit Satisfaction: Very Good
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

This was our favorite place to eat while at the Mayan Palace. Tumtah is located near the beach and is inside a Tiki Hut-type structure. We ate breakfast and dinner here several times, and each meal was very good.

The Blue Lobster was recommened to us by several people, and we found the location overlooking Fifth Ave. a delightful place to enjoy a meal. We had shrimp and lobster which were very good.

The chips and salsa at this restuarant are outstanding. Our next visit to Playa del Carmen will definitely include a return visit to the Blue Lobster.

Corona Beach was suggested to us by a local as a nice low cost location to snorkel for the beginner to intermediate level snorkeler. Ask any taxi driver downtown to take you to Corona beach, and for $10US he will take you to the small bar/snorkeling operation. (Only in Mexico would one combine drinking and snorkeling.)

It is a safe enviroment in spite of this odd combination, with two people monitoring all activity in the water. Just 20 feet from shore, you can observe many types off fish and coral. We found this to be one off our most enjoyable days of our vacation.

Previous to my visit to the Mayan Palace, I had read many negative comments about the beach. I decided to include several photos of the beach so everyone will know what to expect. The water is still the wonderful Caribbean blue, but the beach itself is layered with a very rough coral rock base, making it impossible to walk on without beach shoes.

I did see several people who did manage to go snorkeling at the resort, though I would reccommend to all interested in beach swimming to make the 10 minute walk south of the resort to the sand beach. The Mayan Palace will tell you they are adding a artifical reef to trap sand and create a sand beach. In my opinion this is going to take years to develop and will not be corrected anytime soon.