As I mentioned last week, my family and I just returned from a week-long vacation in Mexico. We stayed at Azul Beach Hotel in Puerto Morelos, which is about 20 minutes south of Cancun. We chose Azul Beach because we wanted something all-inclusive, and two years ago my husband and I vacationed at - and loved - The El Dorado Royale, which is an adults-only resort in the same family as Azul Beach.
We had arranged for an airport shuttle (through the hotel) prior to our trip, so all we had to do was step outside and wait a few minutes for that. The trip to Azul Beach was only 15-20 minutes. Even so, my very exhausted mini-macaroni managed to fall asleep en route.
The beach and the beautiful blue-green waters of the Caribbean are visible as soon as you walk up the stairs to the open-air lobby. After refreshing ourselves with cool, scented washcloths and greeting Grammy and Grampy (we met them there to celebrate their 70th birthdays!), the concierge brought glasses of champagne for the adults and chocolate milkshakes for the kiddos. Ahhh. Of course the kiddos wanted to get down to the beach and pool right away, so we went to our room, got changed, and headed out to explore the resort.
Directly behind our Villa was the kiddie pool and "hot tub." I put that in quotes because it wasn't heated; but it has whirlpool jets so the kids referred to it as the hot tub. By the end of the day it was lukewarm. It was maybe 1.5-2 feet deep, and the boys had fun splashing around in it. The main pool is about 5 feet deep and has a swim-up bar (where my 7-year-old loved ordering piña coladas and strawberry daiquiris, "no liquor" - LOL). This became the favorite pool for our entire stay. There is also another, smaller pool plus a kind of canal system and pool in the section with the swim-up suites, and another swim-up bar over there. Swimming all day long in the pool was the favorite activity for both of my kiddos, both of whom are now much better swimmers. In fact my 5-year-old went from almost swimming to swimming across the pool. Awesome!
The beach at Azul Beach is white and powdery, very nice for walking on barefoot, and the water is clear. We enjoyed hanging out in our palapa on the beach, building sand castles, and a little bit of saltwater swimming. We found out that the palapas have to be reserved at 3:00 the day before you want one, but didn't have a problem getting one when we arrived AT 3:00…probably since the resort was not at full capacity when we were there. No worries, though; there are plenty of shaded beach chairs on the beach and chairs with umbrellas around the pools.
Eating and drinking are of course a huge part of any all-inclusive vacation. The food at Azul Beach was delicious, much better than the food I've eaten at other all-inclusive resorts. This may be partly because they grow a lot of their own food at one of their nearby properties. Breakfast could be ordered off a menu or you could choose from the huge buffet that included an omelet station, fresh fruits, pastries, waffles, pancakes, french toast, cereal, and more. I'll admit that my kids did not make the healthiest of choices (or even close) during our stay, but that's what vacations are for, right? We sat outdoors for all of our breakfasts and lunches. There are five restaurants from which to choose for dinner, serving Italian, Asian, Latin, International, and Contemporary cuisines. Our favorite restaurant was the Italian restaurant; our favorite dinner was the fresh mahi-mahi caught that same day by my father-in-law! The wait staff in all the restaurants were so awesome and friendly. They gave us excellent service and didn't even make fun of us when we attempted to speak Spanish. By a few days into our stay, some even knew us and our kiddos by name.
The Kids Club at Azul Beach was another big reason we wanted to go there. After two days in, the boys still did not want to try it out. Yikes! They agreed to check it out for an hour before dinner one night, and after that they ALWAYS wanted to go there. We even had to tell them "no" a lot of times. After all, we live nowhere near the beach and we were on a BEACH vacation. But it was nice for the boys to visit and have a little downtime for a couple hours every day. They had two movie nights in the movie theater, played water balloon games and got their faces painted, made peanut-butter-and-bread "sushi" rolls, and even got some video game time. Plus we were able to eat a couple grownups-only dinners, which is always nice!
One thing I like about staying at an all-inclusive resort is that you don't even need to leave if you don't want to. That being said, there are lots of options for excursions to take if you want to pay extra. My husband went diving in Cozumel; my husband, father-in-law, and I went deep sea fishing, and the entire family went snorkeling. There really isn't anything else I would have wanted to do. Oh, except for yoga, which was offered every day on a pier over the water. SO relaxing and refreshing.
If you are considering a trip with your kids to Azul Beach, I would not recommend the basic room, which is what we stayed in. It had two full-size beds and just enough room for walking around and between them. It was pretty crowded for the four of us, and there was no privacy. The resort offers a variety of suites and other, larger rooms that I would definitely opt for next time. My in-laws' room was the same as ours, except they had only one king-size bed, and much more room to move around.
If you're considering a family vacation, I highly recommend the Azul Beach Hotel! While there were plenty of people without kids at the resort, I, personally, would go somewhere else if I were on vacation without the kiddos.
*I did not receive a free stay or any compensation for writing this review.
