Know Before You Go: Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya
A last-minute mother-daughter getaway intended to send summer off with a bang turned out to be a fizzle. While the Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya has many picture-perfect views and design elements, it was hard not to wonder what this place could have been like under different ownership / management, as it felt like there was unfulfilled potential at every turn. For example, we met many kind team members, but no one seemed to take ownership of the guest experience, and the constant campaign for positive TripAdvisor reviews was off-putting. Our room was lovely and new, but there was no way to request any services from the room as the phones and app-based request features didn’t work, and the front desk was a 15-minute walk away. There were beautiful beaches, pools, and outdoor spaces, but the sargassum seaweed rendered the beach unusable and the pervasive rotting smell made it difficult to be outside — the smell even lingered in the room. The kids club was a highlight, and had one of the better facilities and programming we’ve experienced, and best of all, it was complimentary. While the room rate here was hard to beat for a 5-star beach resort, the experience here felt more like staying at a 3-star hotel on shaky footing.
OVERALL RATING
💛💛
Substandard
Rating Legend*
💛💛💛💛💛 Exceptional
💛💛💛💛 Notable
💛💛💛 Standard
💛💛 Substandard
💛 Unsatisfactory
*Relative to similar-class properties
Overview
At-a-Glance
Date of stay: August 2023
Length of stay: 3 night / 4 days
Trip type: Mother-daughter getaway
Property type: Luxury beach resort
Tailor-made for: Families, couples, beach-goers, and corporate events
Highlights
The standout highlight was the kids club — top-notch facility and attentive staff, great line-up of programming for kids of varying ages, with complimentary access included in the rate
Beautiful newer property with lots of Instagrammable design elements
Nice room with beautiful balcony view and outdoor tub
Well-equipped game room for older kids
Lovely breakfast buffet spread and surprise mariachi music one morning
Nice new fitness center, though the room got stuffy and needed more air circulation
Most of the staff were very kind and hospitable, especially those at the kids club and restaurants
The room rate was a great deal, which is why we booked this trip (along with the complimentary kids club and daily breakfasts)
Good to Know
Room phone and app-based service requests did not work (despite countless attempts and requests to have these fixed), so any requests had to be made at the front desk, which was about a 10-15 minute walk — in-person requests also routinely fell through
The sargassum seaweed issue meant the beach was unusable and created a putrid smell by the pools, beaches, and outdoor dining areas that lingered even when we went back to our room
The resort staff campaigned heavily for positive TripAdvisor reviews, including handing out cards with QR codes and explaining that the number of positive comments they received in TripAdvisor reviews was a measure of their job performance
There was a live cockroach in the dining room near our table at breakfast our last morning, which the manager quickly and discretely attempted to remove without more guests noticing
The roundtrip transfer we booked through the hotel was in an old, sparse mail-delivery-style van with no bottled waters for a nearly 2-hour trip — luckily we brought our own waters and snacks
During lunch at the beach palapo one day, a hanging light fixture came crashing down next to our table — the team was incredibly responsive and went out of their way to make sure we were okay, but this raised questions about the soundness of the resort’s basic infrastructure
Team member walking around the resort with a hawk was surprisingly unfriendly to children and adult guests alike
The pools close at 8PM so no night swimming was permitted
Almost no resort programming was offered
Housekeeping showed up after 8PM on 2 of our 3 nights here
Our stay was supposed to have come with a suite of benefits (free breakfasts, upgrade, etc.) between our booking partner and HiltonHonors Gold status, but these were not noted in our folio and had to be adjusted mid-way through our stay
