ehallison

From your list, I can only speak to Secrets the Vine. Do you have status? They gave us the most incredible Globalist upgrade - an upper floor wrap-around balcony suite. It was as big as our first home They also granted us preferred club access, which for us just meant we could eat breakfast at the outdoor sit-down restaurant instead of the big buffet. We could have also used the preferred club pool if we were inclined (quieter than the main pool, with cabanas). We didn't figure out until later that actual preferred club rooms give you a butler who can make dinner reservations for you. We did not have a butler, and could not dine at our first choice restaurant without waiting more than an hour. (they'll tell you upon checkin that none of the dining rooms accept reservations which is not true - butlers in preferred club can make reservations).

The only thing that I didn't like about our stay was that for a resort that advertises itself as being wine-focused - their included wines are simply terrible and the upgraded wines are $$$. This might be an AMR thing in general because we had a similar experience at Zoetry. I don't understand how they can include some upgraded spirits but the wine is worse than 2-buck Chuck.

lowfareair

Thanks for the review! Not a globalist unfortunately, and we decided to do Secrets Playa Mujeres as it is right next door to where we're going afterwards.

Wine is absolutely the weak link at the vast majority of upscale all-inclusives. I think part of it is to upsell to nicer bottles for dinner, the other part being it is relatively expensive per drink compared to liquor (even a top shelf Don Julio beverage is about $1.50-$1.75/drink to a resort, that's about $7-8/bottle for wine and wine tends to cost a little more in Mexico compared to the same bottle in the US, so look at your $5-6/bottle wines in the US and you are seeing about what you could serve there to be equivalent in cost to top shelf liquor.

I honestly don't know any all-inclusives that have good wines, but I haven't been to the true top-end ones in the region (Le Blanc, Grand Velas, etc)

Skink

We tried Breathless Cabo as our first AI ever and didn't like it. Most of the staff were friendly. Service was good at some restaurants and bad at others. Room service never arrived (only ordered once). Sea Lions hang out on the docks just outside of the hotel and "bark" rather loudly all hours. Some of the guests, at least while we were there, were quite loud at times as well.

I'd originally booked 5 nights at the Cape followed by 3 nights at the Waldorf. The Cape notified us that some areas would be closed for weddings the final 2 nights so switched to Breathless for those nights. Being sandwiched in between The Cape (which we really liked) and the Waldorf (which we loved) might have made us like Breathless less than we normally would. Breathless does have a swimmable beach, which those other hotels did not.

bgriff

I stayed at, and posted a detailed review of, Secrets Impression Moxche: Secrets Impression Moxché -- Playa del Carmen REVIEW - MASTER THREAD

Stgermainparis

We are trying to get away for a long weekend in mid October. Leaving the kids at home. We can do Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, , or Cabo. I’d rather not go all the way down to Riviera Maya or PDC, just to save time. Any recs for which Hyatt property among those three would be the best? We are not really looking for a party atmosphere. Excellent food and drinks are priority. And views/pools.

We could also go to Jamaica, if anyone thinks one of those properties would be better. The St James is not available for our dates (though I heard their food is good).