My wife (Meera) and I (Anand) just returned from a fabulous week at the Azul hotel in the Mayan Riviera. Before I booked the vacation with Air Canada Vacations, I had only read one review for the resort on your site. It said that this resort was for people who wanted to chill, relax and enjoy the classy service. They were absolutely right!!! This resort is one of the best ones I have stayed. Its a small cozy resort with ~ 100 rooms.

We flew from Calgary to Cancun on Air Canada from Aug 27 to Sept 3 2005. No problems with the flights as they were on time. Try not to sit in the 15th row in the economy class as the seat does not recline as it is right in front of an emergency exit. Otherwise the plane was good and lots of leg room. We stayed in Villa 4 room # 410 at Azul. There are about 10 villas with 10 rooms in each villa. Room 410 is probably one of the best rooms to stay in. The room is on the second floor and the first one towards the beach in Villa 4. So the view every morning is of the ocean from your window. Almost all rooms are within a 1 minute walk from the beach.

The resort
The resort is located about 2-3kms from the highway. The entrance on the highway isnt as impressive as some of the other larger ones down the road from Cancun. But as soon as you get to the hotel's entrance, its a different story. It has a good size fourier. As we entered we were greeted by the bell boy who told us to just walk right in and not worry about our luggage. We were given cold champagne and asked to take a seat to check in. The check in was smooth and they gave us the key to a safe (no extra charge!) in the room. It is recommended that you not loose the key to the safe, as it will cost you US$150 to break the lock as your key is the only key ..the master key. Breaking the lock takes about an hour and is loud and painful for other guests. One of the best parts of the resorts is the they have 24 hour room service.. which is a part of the all - inclusive deal. So if you want to order some late night snacks.. its all included. And they do appreciate tips as the staff at the resort are very appreciative.

The staff at the resort were great. We were always greeted by everyone with a smile and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The rooms were cleaned daily and on time. A word of caution, place the 'do not disturb' sign outside before you go to sleep...or else the housekeeping staff will knock around 8:30 am to clean your room and wake you up from your beautiful sleep. If they see the sign hanging they will not disturb and you can let the front desk know when you would like your room to be cleaned. Also, all rooms have DVD players and the front destk has a good variety of movies. The AC in the room was really good. You dont need to place any cards in a slot to keep it running once you leave the room. The bed was a king size bed. The bed was a little too firm for my back and we requested a foam pillow to be placed on the bed and it was done the next morning after we checked in and that did make it much easier/comfortable to sleep.

There are 3 pools. We were right next to one of the smaller pools with a kids pool right next to it. The main pool is a good size pool right next to the swim up bar. The bar is really cool with a high ceiling and is used as a venue for staging nightly shows around 9:30pm. The resort has nightly shows for an hour everyday at 9:30pm. These are pretty good shows that include acrobatics shows, magic shows, latin dance shows, native mayan dance shows, etc. We really enjoyed these as it gave us a brief glimpse of the local culture. The performers do give it their all and I think they were well performed.

The beach was nice with white sand. There was some sea weed as a result of the high level of wind due to hurricane Katrina in the gulf of mexico. But the winds died down after a couple of days. However, there was always hotel staff raking the seaweed early in the morning to keep the beach clean. Overall I would rate the beach and the swimming area in the ocean 7 out of 10. The beds on the beach were really very comfortable and we didnt have to wake up early to get them as it was low season & the resort only had 27% occupancy when we were there. The beach butlers (see below) were always very helpful in setting up the bed for you by lining it with towels and getting you all set up for nice relaxing feeling.

The restaurants and bars
There are two main restaurants at the resort.

There is the Blue restaurant which is really classy. Its got breakfast, lunch and dinner. The best part is that there are no 'buffets'. Everything can be ordered from the menu. There is ofcourse a salad/fruit bar for all three meals. Also there is desert at the bar. But you can order desert from the menu as well. The best part of the menu at Blue is that they have a lot of choice for people who love seafood and meat. There is limited choice if you are looking for vegetarian and authentic mexican food. However, they do have a full page of vegetarian dishes at Blue. Everyday the chef has specials happening in the area beside the Blue restaurant where they make fresh pasta, bbq meats (mexican style), seafood platters, etc. Very nice!!

The second restaurant is Tainen. Its a mix of Thai food, with some chinese and Japanese. The sushi was pretty good for a restaurant located in the Mayan riviera. Also, other dishes were really good, especially the pad thai. They were also accomodating to the fact to prepare vegetarian meals for my wife. We ate at Tainen 3 nights and at Blue the other 4 nights.

In addition to these restaurants there is a sandwich bar 'La Mancha'. Its got a good selection of sandwiches and appetizers. They also have a variety of juices and deserts available.

We wished that there were one or two more restaurants at the resort as at the end of the week we were getting bored of eating at the two places. But keep in mind that the quality of the food was very good and we did not have any stomach problems. In fact, it appeared that the chefs took great pride in making each dish.

The beach butlers
I had heard about them and was not really expecting a whole lot. But we were really impressed by their level of service and dedication. This group of beach butlers conduct activities all day long for adults and children. They are always around to ask you if you need something to drink, read or need any suntan lotion. Also, they take you out on the katamaran for a ride out in the ocean. They do appreciate it if you tip them and they were always very prompt with your order. The beach butlers are all connected with walkie-talkies and get your order out to the bar or restaurant right away.

The beach butlers were one of the best features of the resort. They encouraged everyone to take part in the activities but never forced you to join if you just wanted to relax.

Day trips
We rented a car for the week and it came in very handy and inexpensive to travel to Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Xel-ha and Tulum. We took a lot of day trips and transportation from the hotel to any of these places ranges from US$20-$40 one way. Hence a rental car is practical if you plan on checking out the local area outside the resort. Also driving around is pretty easy as there are lots of maps available.

Final verdict
We really enjoyed staying at this resort and would definitely go back. We are also thinking of checking out the 2 other resorts by the same company in the area. They are the El Dorado Royale and El Dorado seaside suites. More info on these is available on www.karismahotels.com
The website is what sold the Azul hotel to us.
If you need further info, feel free to email me at anand_gohil@hotmail.com