Sandos Caracol Nature Resort & Water Park - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

26735 reviews

• 

  Disappointing

  Shocking experience! We tried to raise our issues privately by email and have been dismissed yet again. The hotel claims to be 5 star yet staff refuses to provide a 5 star service and will claim being an eco hotel exempts them from having to provide a 5 star service. If you have no intention of providing a 5 star service then do not falsely advertise that you are a 5 star hotel. The hotel operates at full capacity and is severely overcrowded, we were unable to book at any of your offered “a la carte” restaurant due to being fully booked, not a single member of staff assisted us with this issue and simply shrugged us of. If you want to do anything within the hotel expect a queue, whether it’s speaking to reception, getting a drink at the bar or going to dinner, we have wasted much of our holiday in queues. The hotel claims to provide certain services I.e taxis, airport transfers and excursions however staff will not assist with any of these once you have paid claiming these are not provided by the hotel despite each have dedicated stands within the hotel (even the staff at the stands refuse to help). The hotel claims to be eco and help animals yet has a “petting zoo” which is nothing but a fence, there is barely any room for the animals they keep there, nothing but sand for them to graze on and absolutely no enrichment. Staff decide each day who can and cannot move sunloungers, with certain families being allowed to take the sunloungers right down to the waters edge and others not being allowed to move them into the shade. This being said you will be lucky to even get a sunlounger when families leave single items on them over night to “reserve” them for the next day - this the hotel staff have no issue with! I have emailed the complaints team and have had yet again a dismissive response with “regrets” and “acknowledgments” yet no solutions. Truly disappointing

  Feb 14, 2026
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  Amazing first trip to Mexico

  Stayed here as a family of 4, kids aged 8 and 11, over Christmas. We stayed here as part of a 2 week stay, we stayed at caracol for 1 week. We loved this hotel. It’s so unique, full of culture and Mexican vibes. We stayed royal elite which made a huge difference. The RE pool and restaurant was our go to and we loved spending our days around this pool. We did check out the other pools, but always felt most relaxed here. The whole hotel complex is incredibly well maintained, so much to see and do we never once got bored, always somewhere to explore. We would def come back here because we all just felt so relaxed. I don’t want to dwell on the negatives, because it is a great hotel but there are a few worth a mention. Although nothing that would stop us recommending, just things that could be improved on - the main buffet Laguna is dire! The whole system is flowed, we’ve never stayed at an all inclusive buffet so bad. They make you queue to start the buffet line, which literally takes a good 30/40 mins to even get to the food. At all other AI you just go up to the food station you desire and get your food. It’s an awful system, which doesn’t work, especially with hungry, impatient children. Luckily as we were RE we only endured the buffet on one night, Christmas Eve (only as it was recommended that’s the most festive place to eat) there was nothing festive about waiting an hour in the queue, and not even getting to eat together. We stuck to the al la cartes from then on. - the water park. It was huge and lots for kids but the main draw for my kids were the slides. You needed to be 130cm to go on them. My 8 year old is 132cm, we measured her before we left. The measuring device, ie a stick, is not accurate and they said she wasn’t tall enough to go on. It was a firm no, and they didn’t let my husband show that the stick was not correct. - not enough seating in the show area. We probably watched 1 show while we were there as there was a lack of seating in the outside show area. There’s so much room for extra tables and chairs too so I don’t see why they can’t be accommodated. Some quick positives! - staff are incredibly friendly, everyone says hello when passing by - taco place in the centre was the best! - fire show with meal, incredible, worth the extra charge for this. - beach and sea is gorgeous, the water is warm and calm. - RE party was one of our faves. Amazing dancers and music. I miss caracol,

  Feb 13, 2026
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  Some good, and some bad

  Here’s our quick review….. Our stay was from Tuesday February 3rd-10th. We went down as two families, 4 adults and 4 kids. Check in was quick, we had a private shuttle so line up wasn’t bad. We have an 11 month old so we asked to be on the main floor so we didn’t have to do the stairs(no elevator), we also asked to be in the same building as our other group and they accommodated as well. Rooms were okay, nothing fancy, we didn’t pay 5 star prices so we didn’t expect 5 star accommodations and cleanliness. We found everything to be always damp, maybe it was because it was a little colder and couldn’t run our AC as low. Lower floor was louder with al the foot traffic and vehicles, upper floor (3 stories),our other group got to see lots of monkeys. We asked for extra blankets, towels, and a crib through the app and they all came pretty quick. Walking around the resort was like walking through the jungle with all the animals and trees and cenotes. We all very much enjoyed that. We didn’t find anything was too far, whether going to lobby, beach, water park, or restaurants. The smell some people comment on is hit and miss, I don’t think it’s raw sewage as much as it’s the cenotes that smell. The kids loved the donkeys and the petting zoo they had and also did the activity where they got to go in and feed the animals and they all loved that. Water park was hit and miss, think they were dealing with issues and had it closed intermittent when we were there, water was quite cold as it was a cold spell when we were there. Word of advice is if they lower the water depth in the aqua park, don’t let your kids go down the little kids slides, we saw lots of scrapes and blood as they slid off the slides and stuff as the bottom is like heavy duty grit sand paper that hurts or feet pretty good. But the park is perfect for kids and adults, we all enjoyed the little, medium, and large slides. The beach for us was perfect, lots of palm trees for shade, nice sand, wasn’t too hard to find chairs if decently early. The have break walls to stop the rough waves from coming in to certain swim spots. The water depth is great for young ones, there are some rocks in the water so just watch where you’re stepping. There are tide pools all around and I think we had more fun walking up and down the beach exploring those then actually swimming. Out past the break wall there’s supposed to be good snorkeling, just be weary that once you’re out of the main swim area there are lots of sea urchins, seen people stepping on them every day. One note is there’s only one pool bar and it gets quite busy, the smoothy bar there is great too but again the line gets quite long. There were many spots in the resort where they only had one person working the busiest spots which didn’t make sense to us. There’s also no food around the beach which was surely missed, they need a bbq out there. We never did the main pool as the water was too cold. The food…. The buffets are okay, they are decent for breakfast or lunch, but after a while you kinda dread having to go, especially the first couple days where you can’t book reservations and your stuck doing dinner there. Lines can get quite long, but we have young ones so we were always before the rush. Having to wake up at midnight to book an a la carte is kinda a nightmare, and we wish you could pre book before showing up, but can’t as a regular room. We did lunch at El Nido a couple of times which just had fresh tacos which were great, while kids played at the kids club. The a la cartes we did were the steak house, Mediterranean, Italian, and the teppanyaki which was our favorite, the others were decent… was just happy we didn’t have to eat the buffet 😂. We found the times for things kinda weird, the shows don’t start until 9pm, which with young kids after being out all day is kinda impossible to do. The buffets open at 6pm which can be kinda late for some as well. We ran into another group who we knew and they mentioned that there whole crew got severely sick and that kinda made us nervous as we read a lot of reviews about people getting sick but we just carried on and unfortunately on the Saturday of our stay our little one(11 months old) started throwing up and having diarrhoea, we ended up having to see the resort doctor on Sunday as he couldn’t keep anything down. The doctor was very nice, and I think it took us 20 mins to see her once the resort called her in and they also covered the charge to see her. Long story short, we had to see two resort doctors, almost had to go to the hospital down there, once we got home we drove directly to our local emergency, and our guy is still throwing up and diarrhoea 6 days later. Of our group of 8 we all got sick, not quite as severe as our youngest, so take that as you will. We even went as far as having a private shuttle take us to Walmart before so we can grab our own water and we had had our own drink cups thankfully, because after watching the bar tenders clean the cups at the bar you can see maybe why things spread so fast down there.

  Feb 13, 2026
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  It was a breathtakingly beautiful experience all around, we would highly reccomend to anyone :)

  We had a BEAUTIFUL experience at the Sandos Eco resort for our wedding! It was breathtaking scenery, clean rooms, and great food all for a good price. The photographer was absolutely amazing! We couldn’t have imagined better.

  Feb 12, 2026
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  Do not recommend.

  I am honestly shocked at how bad this experience has been so far. We paid extra for the Select Club expecting upgraded service and a smoother experience. Instead, we waited two full hours in line just to check in. There was no priority service, no visible benefit, and absolutely no explanation. So far, there has been zero difference between Select Club and standard service. The room condition is unacceptable. Broken and worn items everywhere — window blinds falling apart, outlets not working, a fridge that barely functions. Everything feels old, neglected, and poorly maintained. This is not what we paid for. The food has been incredibly disappointing. The buffet is set up in a way where strong-smelling fish is placed right next to the meat, so everything tastes like fish. It’s honestly unappetizing. Even the Mexican food — in Mexico — is shockingly bad, which says a lot. I genuinely don’t understand how it can be this poorly executed. Service has been just as frustrating. You cannot get through to reception. No one answers. Trying to book an à la carte restaurant feels impossible. We’ve made repeated attempts with no success. So far, we are horrified by the overall experience. This does not match the pricing, the marketing, or the expectations that were set when we booked. We came here to relax and enjoy our vacation — instead we’re dealing with broken rooms, long waits, poor food, and inaccessible service. I sincerely hope management takes this feedback seriously, because this is not acceptable for a property positioning itself at this level.

  Feb 12, 2026