Just returned from wedding & stay at Hard Rock Riviera Maya
We stayed at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya for my brother’s destination wedding. Thought I’d drop some info about it here. Hard Rock wouldn’t have been my personal first choice, but we did have fun.
- Stay near the blue lobby if you can. That lobby & its surrounds are MUCH nicer and less crowded than the red lobby. Unless you have younger kids: the pool near the red lobby is much larger and more kid-friendly.
- The property is an hour and a half shuttle ride from the airport and Cancun. If you want to go off-property, it’ll be a $100 cab fare. It’s also 1-1/2 hours from most excursions. They’ll say it’s an hour, but it’s not. There’s also no shopping anywhere near the resort, only the expensive hotel shops.
- The staff is extremely friendly & helpful. We got good service there. Tip: bring your Yeti-like tumbler and they’ll fill it up with your choice of beverage at the bar.
- Beforehand, I thought that more of the resort staff might speak at least a little English since 95% of the guests speak English. Obviously it’s a foreign country, so I’m not throwing shade, but it’s something to be aware of.
My very minimal Spanish skills and the translator on my iPhone came in very handy when I bit it hard on a difficult-to-see curb (painted black! Who does that?) at the front and messed up my knee. They have on-site paramedics (with whom the translator was necessary) to bandage you up, but if you need to see a doctor, they’ll charge you $200. That knee injury cost me 3 days of staying out of the water - bummer on a beach vacation.
- There are monkeys and tons of iguanas roaming the resort, which was unexpected and cool.
- The food at the buffets and at the shows is not very good, especially the meat. The food at the à la carte restaurants is better… if you can get in. Breakfast at Toro is really good. The pastries everywhere are terrific.
- There’s an iPad in the room that’s super helpful to figure out what to do. We were unaware ours was frozen the first 3 days, so we did miss out on some of the things they have going on.
- We didn’t use any of our resort credit. There’s no easy way to figure out how to redeem it. The telephone concierge for the Rock Royalty upgrade never answered the phone. Basically, a lot of the benefits they sold us on weren’t easy to figure out. (We were under the impression that they’d reserve beach chairs and get us into the restaurants, which is impossible to request if they don’t answer the phone.) We did get a nice small charcuterie board & a bottle of champagne in our room the first night, but we weren’t sure if that was for our status or because I hurt myself before even making it through the front door. We also had to call the front desk for the Rock Royalty beach bag.
- One final tip: You can take a tumbler filled with ice through the TSA in the US. You cannot take ice through the Mexican TSA equivalent.
To be honest, the first couple of days weren’t fun. It didn’t help that it really hurt to walk on my injured knee. Once we started to figure out the resort, what to avoid and where the more private spots were, we really enjoyed ourselves.
What else would you like to know?