TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Deteriorating buildings and dirty overall. Service is terrible. Restaurant reservation system is terrible. Overall a stressful 5 night stay. Left needing a vacation from this nightmare vacation. 1. Buildings need major work. They are falling apart and just look like they are screaming for repair/paint. 2. Bathrooms in the pool areas are disgusting. Each day there were multiple overflowing toilets and water all over the floors. Also bathrooms are oddly placed far from the pools. 3. Pools are dirty. 4. Had an eco room. It was dirty. The first 2 nights we got housekeeping in the mornings. Never got it again after that although I requested it multiple times. I ended up taking my own clean towels out of the housekeeping closet. Ran out of coffee in our room and the lobby workers couldn’t get us anymore so we had to walk the mile to the lobby each morning to fill up our coffee mugs only to find out the coffee in the lobby isn’t even hot. 5. The food is terrible. You must wake up at 11:59 each night and be in the app at exactly midnight to even have a chance of getting a reservation otherwise you are eating the buffets. The buffets are disgusting. Thankfully they did have fruit and salad and I lived off of that but I was hungry every day. Overall this vacation was such a disappointment and the most stressful vacation I have ever been on. I’d encourage everyone to look elsewhere. This is not the place.

Our stay at Sandos Caracol Hotel was nothing short of a nightmare. This resort doesn’t come close to being a 3-star, let alone a proper vacation destination. It’s poorly managed, with rude and unhelpful staff who make no effort to assist guests. The reservation system for restaurants is a complete disaster. Securing a table is nearly impossible unless you spend your entire day checking for cancellations. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the same bland buffet options day after day. To make matters worse, room service is only available for those in the elite section. When our kids fell ill, we begged for food to be sent to our room, but the staff flatly refused. Instead, we had to go down and plate food ourselves—a situation that was both inconvenient and inconsiderate. Managers are non-existent, and no one seems capable of resolving even basic issues. The concierge booked us into two restaurants, only for us to show up and be told the reservations didn’t exist. The first night, we wasted time going back to the concierge to sort it out. The second night, they offered a late 9 PM seating despite our original 7 PM booking, leaving us with hungry, tired children waiting aimlessly. The lack of care for guests is absolutely appalling. This resort doesn’t deserve the price it charges or the reputation it claims. Honestly, it’s barely a 2-star experience, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Save yourself the frustration and book elsewhere.

We had a huge deception with our stayed on this hotel we move from Hard Rock Cancun to here to stay 5 days during new year party. Since we arrived at the hotel the service is very poor, the front desk are very rude, the room was too dirty, we found a bunch of cockroach “cucarachas” and black butterflies, after we asked to cleaning they sanitized, no insects anymore (the guest needs to ask for cleaning), the system to make reservation was horrible not working, we had a support from concierge to make our reservation but when we arrived at the restaurant the reservation was not there, we are on line waiting them fix and accept us on the restaurant it was happen for twice (2 different restaurants), we request for a car to help with the luggage to do the checkout but no car available for that !!! So, unfortunately my personal experience was horrible and all the complaints that was made no one care !!! The facilities is an amazing too beautiful!!! But the service… the only one the make the difference on the employees was Karina that clean the room, she is really good…

This resort is rated under the trip agencies as a 4.4 or a 5 star resort and I can guarantee you it's Not- its like a cuban 2 star !!! If you don't believe the review go ahead and book the hotel and find out for yourself. 1. $13k later for a family of four " not even worth the money - if I'd known better I would've spent 20k for 7 days just to have a proper meal each day on "vacation" 2. Long waits for drinks - snack bars - dinners 3. Understaffed - they're working their "a$$" just to maintain the property jungle grounds and plants 4. The worst is finding out -THERE IS NO BEACH AREA LITERALLY- so you wake up and think breakfast and let's go to the beach the kids will have fun. Nope ! The kids go to the beach just to stare at the beach. FULL OF ROCKS AND UNSAFE ENTRANCE to get in . You can't swim or dip without scraping ur ankles or awkwardly stepping on a sharp rock and twisting ur toes. Atrocious beach - the worst ever. 5. THE FOOD - absolutely horrible . So last night's bread is your French toast in the morning. Lunches sausages somehow made it to dinners sausage veggie stew. Believe me even the chefs in the morning can't make a proper omlette because the omlette mix is watered down and can't put the proper ingredients. Honestly - I'm not picky with my vacations but what I'm frustrated is with the rating this resort got as a 5 star and I've spent thousands to go on a family winter vacation to get absolute bad service, no concierge staff ( no chance to book a la carte - the apps don't work and no staff member cares eneough) no room service- no decent food for breakfast or dinner - poor beach - dirty pools - and believe me it's not that " eco friendly" . If I was to look at a kids resort I pay the top dollar again and take my family to a trusted Reaort-Hotel Chain name brand for a vacation. Oh I forgot - no good coffee - so that'll sum up you week with 2 little kids when you're running on 7$us red bulls each day. Cheers! Never left a review on any company before or hotel and this will tell you how upsetting this experience was and I'm sure many guest here are as frustrated as I am .

This is our second visit to Sandos Caracol Eco Resort. The first time was about 5 years ago. Sandos was not our first choice. Our first resort had a name change and is undergoing renovations limiting it to 1 restaurant an 10% occupancy. We made the change 1 week before leaving and we picked Sandos because we knew what we were getting, or so we thought. When we arrived at the check in, we were told that we cannot checkin at the front desk as we are part of the Select Club. We didn't know that. The front desk girl took us on a walk to the Select Club pool and the office that sits beside it. When i have stayed at other resorts, you are usually offered a welcome drink (champagne, wine etc..). None of this was offered although there is a self serve area. Check in here took quite a while as there is only one person working. When we left there was 3 other groups looking to check in. Im not sure what Select club gets you as we were never told. The rooms for the select club are positioned around the select club pool, which is at the FURTHEST point from the beach. Be prepared to walk 20 minutes to get to the beach from these rooms. The brazilian BBQ restaurant is also at this pool. The room itself was pretty plain. A king bed, pullout sofa, minibar and a big 20L water cooler which was nice to fill our water bottles. The minibar had coke, sprite, fanta, sparkling water and 4 beer. This resort is falling apart since the last time we were there. I saw lots of maintenance people doing painting in rooms and landscapers working in the gardens but i didnt see any "Heavy Maintenance." A small list of issues we saw: -Our room had a cheap shower curtain for the shower (you could tell there was a glass door there before and the other couple in our party had a glass door), - the toilet door didn't close/latch properly requiring you to hold it shut while you do your business -The TV didnt have a remote and it took 2 attempts to get one. When we did the remote was missing the battery cover so the batteries kept falling out -The Mirror in the room is delaminating and is showing "holes", see photo - Room service dishes left outside were in the same spot for 3 days before being pickup up (covered in insects) -The in room smoke detector didnt have a battery in it. -The fire alarm pull station in our building was pulled one night and no alarms were sounding. I am not sure if the alarm system is even active. -There was a large piece of drywall ceiling that fell off in the lobby near check in. I hope no one was hurt. -When it rains, the entire place gets wet. The thatched roof on all buildings is in need of desperate repair. The bartender at the elephant bar was soaked because the rain was falling on him. The Riviera restaurant men's bathroom had water coming through the drywall ceiling and pooling on the ground. Just about every building has a grey tarp covering the roof. -Ladies bathroom at the pool was closed for the duration of our stay Restaurants If you plan on eating at any place except the buffets then you need to book your reservation on their "APP." The app is a webpage and restaurant reservations open up at 12 midnight for the next evening. This needs to change! I don't want to be waking up at 1159 to book my dinner when i am on Holidays! It should open at 9 am or noon the same day. This gives everyone a chance to book. The food is generally good. I have celiac and cannot eat wheat or gluten products. The Al a Carte restaurants were excellent in gluten free awareness. The 2 buffets could be much better. At the buffets the food is generally labelled (other resorts have a printed label with allergens). At sandos it was just some handwriting and most of the time the item was not correct (i can tell the difference between fish and pork). I did ask for a walkthrough of the buffet and the girl that helped was very nice but i questioned if she knew what gluten was. The teppanyaki grill was by far the best food and the best for Gluten Free. They brought out Kikkoman Gluten Free Soy sauce to cook with and i didnt need to worry about cross contamination as they made the whole table gluten free. No desserts here though (tart and fried ice cream were offered). The wildlife was fun to watch until they began to encroach on your meal. The racoons would come into the Brazilian restaurant and climb your chair while you eat, the monkeys pester you around the select club pool for food. They are so bold they come right up to you and touch you. The birds will steal any bread you leave on the table while at the buffet (Brazilian Restaurant Breakfast). We consistently watched people go into the select club office and get food just to feed the animals. This is unacceptable. I know Sandos would have a hard time controlling this but there is a difference between living with nature and living for nature and guests should be held accountable for any feeding. The staff is generally friendly. They are always moving and working but im not sure what is actually getting done (apart from the restaurant staff). The main pool had 1 server for the whole pool, the select pool had 1 server and that seemed to start after lunch. In general we enjoyed our small visit but not as much as last time. The resort is in DESPERATE need of major work. We will not be coming back to Sandos Caracol Eco Resort.