Our family (Adelyn age 10 and Nolan age 6, along with parents Aaron and Kayla) traveled to Cancun with kids for our summer vacation in 2024. We were very excited to go there since we would stay at the Xcaret Hotel Mexico Resort! This would be our family's first time in this city and this resort and we had booked it months in advance.
Like all well-made plans, nature had another idea. Hurricane preparedness in Cancun became crucial as Hurricane Beryl started forming just days before our trip and the predicted pathway showed it was heading straight for Cancun on the days we were going. We were faced with the decision to cancel or to proceed as planned. American Airlines surprisingly never canceled the flight. We decided that as long as the airline would get us there, we were going!
Needless to say, the plane was almost empty. Several empty rows were before and behind us. We arrived at the Cancun airport at 2:59 pm on 7/4/24. The government shut down the airport shortly after our plane landed. We were luckily still able to take the preplanned resort transportation service from the airport to the beautiful Xcaret Hotel Mexico.
We arrived at the resort at around 4:30 pm on that day and we found when we arrived that the hotel was starting to shut down all areas to prepare for the oncoming storm. It was now predicted to be a category 2 heading straight towards us and expected to make landfall in the early morning hours of July 5th. We checked into the hotel but were told that all restaurants were now closed, all alcohol service was stopped, and there would be a curfew starting at 6:30 pm where all guests would need to remain inside hotel rooms until further notice.
We were told that food boxes would be delivered sometime before 7 pm which would contain a sack dinner and breakfast for the next morning. In addition, we were told that most of the staff had been sent home for the day, except for a core crew that would remain onsite in a nearby shelter during the duration of the Hurricane. All of this gave us some pretty considerable anxiety, however, all staff remained in good spirits and did not seem concerned at all.
In addition, we observed the hotel moving other hotel guests who had rooms close to the beach, to other rooms in the back of the resort. Luckily, our room was in an area that had been designated as far enough away from the beach to be considered safe. At this point, we made our way to the hotel room where we knew we would be staying until further notice to await our boxed lunches and try to settle in for the night.
Outside our patio, the weather was quite calm at first, with gusts of wind coming through intermittently. We put on a kids' movie for the children and hung out until time for bed. There were hotel staff walking the halls reminding guests to go back inside, even the patios were off-limits. Around 8:30 pm, our boxes of food finally arrived which made a big impact on our morale. We had not eaten real food since that morning's breakfast. After eating, we all tried to go to bed for the night.
Overnight, we could hear the wind start to pick up. Gusting and blowing could be heard outside. At one point, the door started to come loose but we were able to shut it easily and we had no further issues. The night was uneventful overall. The room might have lost power for about 10 minutes, but then it all came back on. There was no other power or internet outage. The next morning was similar to the prior night.
We were able to eat the boxed lunches, and by noon we saw other hotel guests emerging and walking around. The wind was dying down by then but it was cloudy, with very light rain. We saw some of the restaurants were starting to open back up so we got in line, and around 1 pm, we got to eat our first buffet meal at an Xcaret Restaurant! We were so happy to see the resort opening up and the storm had passed!
That first day was spent just exploring the hotel property and pools since all parks were closed to be cleaned up. This did cause us to make some changes to our reservations but luckily they were able to accommodate that. We did observe some fallen trees but otherwise no major damage from the night's storm. We hung out at the pool and then headed over to Mercado for a fabulous dinner. I would highly recommend queso de bola ice cream!
On day two of our vacation we visited Xcaret Park. This was very easy to do since they offered buses every twenty minutes to and from the hotel so we could line up whenever we were ready and head over. We loved floating in the underground river and my kids got to do a fish pedicure and enjoy the kids' playground maze. It was very sunny that day so sunscreen was important. We headed home in the late afternoon to shower and then headed to Las Cuevas for dinner. This is the Mexican Steakhouse restaurant, and it was fantastic. We loved this dinner.
Unfortunately, we all get blisters from our water shoes, so we had to stop at the boutique and pick up band-aids. Also, the hotel lobby offered Mexican ice cream treats any time so we would get some of those each day on our way home.
Our third day was filled with adventure at Xplor Park, one of our favorite parks in the Xcaret group. The kids had a lot of fun on the go-carts and the zipline. Unfortunately, we had to skip the water slide as our kids were too small to go on that. It was also cloudy this day with a little nice rain, a lot of this park was out of the sun though as you walk through tunnels in this park. I would advise you to bring water sock-style shoes, we wished we had those since our feet had blisters from our water sandals. At the end of the day, we headed back to the resort for a shower and then enjoyed a seafood dinner at Trajinera, which was also wonderful.
Xel-Ha was our destination on the fourth day, and it turned out to be one of the best parks for family activities. Here we enjoyed the kid's play area with a slide into the ocean, the floating bridge, floating on rafts in the ocean, a rope swing, zip lining over the ocean, and snorkeling. This day was cloudy and also rained so that kept things nice and cool. We were unable to use the slide due to a high wind advisory making it unsafe for children that high up. We went back to the resort for a shower and then enjoyed the best meal of the trip at Xin Gao, which requires reservations. This was my favorite meal of the whole trip and offered fun drinks to pair with the food.
On the fifth day, we explored Xenses Park, which was very different from the other parks with its fun optical illusions. My 10-year-old found this park to be her favorite one- and we had tons of fun taking photos of the illusions. We also enjoyed their water slide, ziplining bird style, and walking around the gardens and fresh lemonade. This day we came home earlier than the other parks to shower and get ready for our trip to Playa Del Carmen to meet Jorge for our family photos. The beach there was lovely but very windy! After photos, we took the resort transportation that I had previously arranged back and enjoyed a late dinner at Mercado.
Xenotes tour was on our itinerary for the sixth day, and it turned out to be my favorite! This took place about an hour off-site in the jungle and also requires advanced reservations. We were taken by passenger van to the tour site in the jungle and got to explore 4 different cenotes. Each cenote offered an activity such as zipline, kayaking, more ziplines, lunch, and then snorkeling. These were all cooler and under the cover of the large trees kept the temperature comfortable, and protected from the sun. This was a full-day excursion. After returning to the property at the end of the day, we went back to another dinner at Las Cuevas, since that was one of our favorites!
Our seventh day was spent at Xavage, where we experienced a variety of thrilling activities. This park offered another off-road vehicle ride, two very large and high-up bird-style ziplines, and a very unique type of ride- a man-made white water rafting experience. This was such a unique and exciting experience! Slightly scary for the little kids, but overall very fun. They offered a few other things that I am forgetting since we did not take the time to try.
This park unfortunately had very little shade cover and this day was very sunny and hot, so we had less stamina to explore the entire park. We spent the last part of the day at the water park to keep cool and give our feet a rest. The lines here took a little longer for each experience than the other parks we noticed. Otherwise, this park was similar to Xplor yet farther away (40 min bus ride). After Xavage, we came back to the resort for a shower and then attended the Teatro De Rio show! This was another fun night which included a 5-course dinner along with a singing and dancing performance. They offered a kids menu separately which worked out great for my kids. A delicious meal and a very fun night. This was our last night at the resort and I feel like we ended on such a high note.
The next morning was spent packing up and then we headed over to Mercado for the last meal at Xcaret Mexico Hotel. We had transportation pre-arranged to take us to the airport at 11 am so we had to say goodbye to this wonderful property.
Overall we had an amazing trip for our family of four which included my husband and myself, our 10-year-old daughter, and our 6-year-old son. There was a kids club on site but we did not take advantage of it. There were only a few things our kids were too young/small to participate in. Sadly, the octopus kids slide was out of order for the duration of our time there. We would go back to Xcaret Hotel Mexico again! We were very glad we did not delay the trip due to the hurricane since it all ended up OK.
Due to us making a visit to each park, this was a very active trip. Overall that is good since all the walking we did balanced out the all-you-can-eat buffets! By the last day, it would have been nice to have a rest day and stay at the resort for a lazy day, so if I could do one thing differently it would be to build in a rest day towards the end.
For those planning family vacations at Xcaret, I would recommend bringing band-aids, and two types of water shoes for each person. Waterproof phone bags were also very helpful, as well as swim shorts and shirts to protect from the sun and prevent chafing.
Most of the Xcaret parks will include water activities and walking around while wet can be uncomfortable if not wearing the right amount of protective layers. Also recommend bringing reef-safe sunscreen since these resorts require them.
The resort was absolutely beautiful with lots of opportunities to just walk around and explore downtime. We often would walk around the resort for a scenic stroll each night after dinner. The kids liked the bridges, and you could even walk up to the beach and have lots of on-site cameras set up to pose in front of. Xcaret family activities are well worth the investment for a memorable family vacation experience. We left with wonderful memories and can’t wait to come back!
Thank you,
Kayla Kloc
Location: Playacar Public Beach.
