Xcaret, Playa del Carmen

An experience not to be missed. No matter where you stay in Mexico, plan a day here. Arrive early and stay until the night show is over. I paced my day starting with water activities: 3 rivers and the beach. One river was a bit hard because you exercise way more. That river is the Manatees. Don't worry about a locker, your belongings are sealed and locked for these activities, no extra charge. Do stay with your group or determine a meeting point. The park has wonderful and easy paths, color coded. I bought the basic ticket and dinner for the show. Dinner was a 7-course meal with beverages. Pricing at the park is comparable to reasonable restaurants in the US. You can use dollars inside the park at the best exchange rate I saw in Mexico. Shows are spectacular. The setting is magical and you need to see this. I visited the park on a weekday on early December, no crowds to wait for attractions so I maximized the use of the day. Plan ahead your route and make wonderful memories.

This is really a one stop shop! Amazing wildlife, lush jungle landscape, the most beautiful river you’ve ever seen, Mayan ruins, great entertainment, caves, snorkeling, etc! We had so much fun. Very family friendly. We had lunch at the buffet and the food was great. Xcaret is the perfect place to go to hit a bit of everything without spending your vacation going from excursion to excursion. It’s pretty expensive but you do get to see a lot. You can definitely get it all done in one day if you don’t purchase the extras.

It was a beautiful day in a beautiful setting. The restaurants are lovely, and the food is good and quality. With the plus admission, one meal is included. The shops have quality and beautiful items, different from what you find in the markets. Prices are very high. We did not do any additional activities, even if some intrigued us. There was no time. For a whole day, we were not able to visit everything. The guide gave us the wrong information regarding the pictures. He told us to use the park cameras and that we would download the photos the next day for a reasonable price. Instead, you have to buy a photo pack at the entrance or online - at a gold price - before starting your visit. They give you a barcode to use in the park's cameras. The sad thing is the animals in captivity in tiny spaces. It is not acceptable. The jaguar looked mad. He kept making the same path back and forth as if he had lost his mind. A sorrowful scene; I couldn't stop looking at it. And idiotic people were making noises, growling as if to provoke him. Unacceptable. Such wild and large animals need bigger spaces and more care. The same for the dolphins forced to swim with screaming kids in an environment where everything booms. In 2022 we should be able to have fun without making animals suffer. Overall it was a good experience—the truly enchanting final show.

Stunning resort with plenty to do, although additional activities comes with an additional price tag. Paid extra to swim with the dolphins and do sea trek. Long day with lots of walking, good food selections available, show at the end (7-9pm) felt extremely long after being there for 12 hours, however entertaining and worth seeing. Transportation included, picked us up from the hotel and straight back no issues. Staff are kind and helpful. Definitely worth a visit if you can keep up with all the walking!

Suitable for all aged visitors, you can see quite a few tropical animals. Take the black line and then switch to white to see the terrestrial animals or blue to see sharks/dolphins. We paid extra for the interaction with stingray and it was very nice! The underground river swimming is really hard for people who don’t know how to swim. Great Mexican cultural show at the night. You can easily spend a full day here, so plan ahead and arrive early.