We Stayed at White sands Holiday Village in Septemeber 2008

So like the rest of you reading these bad reviews i was thinking oh no what have i done

I travelled to Cozumel with my daughter who is 14, on arrival at gatwick we did nt wait very long as we had premier seats as A part of our package

So this was really quick, the other que had about 250 people in it

The flight was good and most of the hostess were very pleasant
However they were not very clear about the mexican tourists cards and most people had to fill in more information or redo them on arrival

The airport was hilarious 1 man called "Carlos" so this is a slow process so beware !!! but quite amusing

The security is fantastic press a button and if its green you go if its red your searched .....Interesting security system

Transport to the hotel was qick and organised as was checking in at the hotel

On arrival they give you a chance to settle and invite you to an information evening
Its good to go as it tells you the do's and donts and where to go

Accomodation
yes the beds are a bit hard...but after a long day they are comfortable

The rooms are clean
you get an iron, hairdrier, safe, bottled water, coffee, air con and fan, TV and daily towels and linen if you need it The rooms are no 4 star but are clean and airey

Food
It was ok never had a problem - there are lots of choices
the restraunt is in two parts one part is aircon which makes it more comfortable to eat The lunch buffet was a good variety however its very difficult to get seated, you can just take the food out with you and eat it, which was better

Drinks
Cocktails were good but no two bars in the complex taste the same, the beer is Corona and the service was overall good

Entertainement
Yes its true Bingo every night at 9, yes again not for me but the prizes were cash which was about 150 US dollars for a line and 350 for a house it varied every night

The team of entertainers worked really hard and always gave the guests 100% , im not really into this type of thing either but they were fantastic

entertainement during the day was also very good to i enjoyed watching the water polo and the daily quiz Every rep will try to get you to take part thats there job, but there is no pressure

The beach - is amazing

sun beds - yes people take them early but if yo go around 8am i never had a problem getting one in a good spot

The resport is mainly american and british tourists

my daughter was unwell and the reps organised a doctor very quickly and although it cost £50 it was well worth it

There is a shop on site , its very expensive people say dont wait till you get to the airport but i found some lovely gifts there all of which were good value for money

Once you have checked in for departure you can go outside the airport, yo just need to show you boarding pass and go through the security gate again, which will take you about a minute

Return flights - staff were brilliant and cheerfull

so from my experience make your own opinion the resort is clean and has lots to do
you can eat and drink 24 hours a day

If you leave a tip here and there eg 20 peso=£1 the staff will give you 5 star treatment , they do work really hard all day every day

The first choice reps throughout the resort could not do enough for you and are always there to help

And the entertainement team are amazing !!

Adults only - should take a royal suite they are beautiful
Families - the pools are clean and are brilliant for kids aged 3 - 16
there are 3 different pools

please please ask me any questions and i will do my best to answer

Sit in the jacuzzi - with a drink and watch the sunset ..it is truely amazing

Booked our holiday with first choice months ago after spending a very enjoyable holiday in their Holiday Village, Dominican Republic last year. As the holiday grew closer we started to worry a bit about the terrible reviews that this resort was receiving on tripadvisor! We seriously considered changing our holiday right up to the week before we left but, in the end, we decided to go for it!! Was that a mistake.....? The jury is out!

FLIGHTS: The flights were OK. Fairly comfortable as planes go. Totally agree with another tripadvisor member that there is absolutely no point upgrading to the premier class for a few centimeters extra chair space and a bit of nicer food for 10hrs. You can get all the same movies and the ability to pause them just by paying £5 once you are onboard. Save yourself £135pp. Also, I find it absolutely OUTRAGEOUS that First Choice want to charge you for the basic human right of sitting together with your family. We didn't pay this - at the end of the day, if they seat you all separately they are creating their own problem when your kis kick off during the flight. They then have to sort it out anyway - FREE OF CHARGE!

CHECK-IN/ ROOMS: Very quick and well organised transfer and check in with welcome drinks. The rooms and bathrooms are quite basic but kept very clean by the excellent cleaning staff (definately worth tipping a couple of $ per day). Air con is very efficient (a bit too cold at night). Personally, we weren' t too concerned about how luxurious our room wasn't because we didn't intend spending too much time in there!

LOCATION: The real feather in the holiday village cap is its location. The beach and sea is 'AWESOME' as the Americans like to say! White sands, crystal clear blue sea, colourful fish, great snorkelling.

FACILITIES: The pools were all open when we were there and were all very nice. The splash pool is brilliant for all the kids. Beware - some of the sunbeds around the edge are in the direct line of fire of the water guns!! We noticed that the base of the splash pool is already craking up, though, and would not be suprised if this needs to be closed for refurbishment in the near future.
Dive Palancar on the beach is great - they lend you all the snorkelling equipment for free. Plus they offer a great range of boat tours around the reefs (cheaper than the first choice excursions). The glass bottom boat tour is a good one if you have young children.

The breakfast buffet was very good. The Mexican restaurant was OK. The Oriental restaurant was very nice. Make sure to use up your allocation - the rest of the time try to stick to veggie options in the buffet! The restaurant and bar staff were all brilliant and polite & helpful. Definately, the odd tip is very much appreciated by them and helps to ensure particularly good service fo you and your family.

BUFFET RESTAURANT: Unfortunately, for us, this was the big let down of the holiday. The buffet food was edible and thats about it. Very boring/ school dinners springs to mind. When you go to Mexico you kind of expect some exciting Mexican food. Not lasagne, curly fries, hamburgers and fajitas with all the spice taken out. In addition, I was appalled at the food handling and feel that it is only a matter of time before there will be some serious food poisoning issues. For example, on the grill area they cook individual pieces of chicken to order. At the start of the night (7pm) they bring out a huge dish containing hundreds of raw chicken breasts (uncovered) and place them next to the grill in 35 degree heat. That same dish of luke warm raw meat is still there at 9pm. If you get one of those that is still pink in the middle when you cut into it say hello to the toilet bowl for the next few days.....both myself and my two children were severely ill for two days.

REPS: I'm sure the reps are very nice if you are having a lovely holiday. But, when you have issues with the way the food is handled and need a doctor to be called out they all run in the opposite direction as fast as their little legs will carry them! After paying the local doctor $90 for his consultation and spending two days in our room being ill, not once did the First Choice reps call or look in to see if we were OK. When we raised the matter with them they DID NOT WANT TO KNOW. I think the term "closing ranks" describes the situation perfectly. Even the doctor, after prescribing antibiotics for the food posoning, wrote in his report that it was a 'rare form of travel sickness found in the Carribean'!!?? I'm sorry..... WHAT!?

TIME SHARE: Just beoynd the hotel lobby there is an Occidental area where you will be offered a free welcome gift and invited to breakfast at the Occidental Grand up the road. Basically they want to sell you a time share holiday package. If you accept the invitation, you can wave goodbye to at least 5 hours of your holiday while they try every trick in the book to get you to sign up to their exclusive First Club for a mere £18 - 25000K. However, they will offer you a gift - such as free jeep hire and some pretty substantial discounts off of the excursions available just to attend the breakfast. So, it kind of depends how much you are willing to sacrifice for some money off....

TOURS: We got sucked into the Time Share breakfast, and after spending several hours trying to extract ourselves from their sales rep's grip, we managed to get ourself a free jeep and travel to Punta Sur. This was a really nice day out and we got to spend it snorkelling along a 1 1/2 mile reef with sea turtles, among many other amazing creatures. If you do this, it is adviseable to pay a local guy to come out on a kyak with you so that if you get tired you can hop in the boat for a while (particularly if you have children). We also did the dolphin day at Chankanab which was brilliant and very well organised. Full day out to Coba on the main land was interesting - get to ascend a Mayan pyramid, visit a traditional Mayan home and swim in a Cenote (sink hole). This trip is a very long and extremely hot day but worth it - not good for very small children, though.

OVERALL: Apart from the food and our illness issues (along with the reps disappointing response), we did have a very nice holiday. We won't be going back simply because First Choice let us down and we will never book with them again. However, many other families did not have any problems and seemed to be enjoying their holiday just as much as we did. The resort is great for children and the local people will bend over backwards to make your stay as enjoyable as possible. From what I could make out, if you are a couple it would be most definately worth upgrading to the Royal Suites where I think that the rooms are much nicer and you get a private pool - but, most importantly, you get to eat in the VIP Mediterranean Restaurant all the time which got rave reviews all round.

We stayed at the White Sands Holiday Village from 23rd August till 6th September 2008. We were very worried due to the negetive reviews we had read. but!!! on arrival our check in was quick and easy, our bags arrived a few mins after we had got to our room, which was large and roomy, we also had the kids den with an X-box. both rooms had air-con, bathroom & balcony with hammock. (and a resident geko, which we loved).

All three pools were open, the kids fun pool was great for my 7 & 12 year old who had a great time on it. There were two water guns not working though, but this did'nt spoil any fun. There is also a lifeguard at the pool when it is open.

Food was what you would expect from an all inclusive, always different every night. Queue for the room with air-con though as the main resturant gets very hot.

Evening entertainment was really good, the E4 team are great fun. I would have preffered something a little more Mexican but they had the kids up dancing and singing every night. Carlos and Penny are fantastic.

The grounds are very pretty with lots of wildlife, we saw loads of Iguwana's a very large crab, some teeny weeny hermit crabs, frogs, geko's and humming birds. Snorkeling off the beach is nice, lots of fish, some days the sea was a bit murky.

Excusions we went on were fab. The dolphin swim is a must, and Xel-ha is extreamly pretty. If you like to hire jet ski's then I would reconmend going on the Wave Runner Safari. much better than hiring from the beach. We went with the kids and all had a great time.

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE INSPECT REPELLENT WITH DEET ITS A MUST AS THE MOSSY'S ARE LETHAL.

We have just returned from 2 weeks in White Sands and after hearing people saying about the bad reviews on this site (which we didnt look at before we booked) I thought I would add mine!

In the taxi from the airport the other passengers were already complaining about the resort because of reviews they had read - we wondered what we had let ourselves in for!

The only complaint we have for the whole of the 2 weeks was the bed being too hard and were a little bit disappointed with the room!

We actually stayed in the 'Royal Suites' area and we thought it was quite a romantic getaway - no kids, constantly waited on by excellent waiters with drinks and snacks all day, even in the pool and the sea. Meals in the mediteranean restaurant were lovely (a la carte) and the cooked to order eggs for breakfast were second to none! The pool in this area was constantly tested and cleaned - although one day it did get a bit grubby. We were a bit disappointed with our room as we did expect more than a standard room after booking the upgrade to Royal Suite but we were hardly in there so it wasnt really a problem.

I can see why some people complain about the lack of shade around the pools and on the beach but being in the 'Royal Suites' area we didnt have those problems.

I agree with other reviews that the buffet restaurant was lacking in choice and quality at times but on the whole not bad! Didnt like the Mexican restaurant evening food at all so only went in once but the the food in the Oriental restaurant was lovely!

Luckily I wasnt bitten at all by the 'mossie's' my husband had a couple of bites but we didnt find them much of a problem. Didnt take long to get used to the Iguanas roaming around, but wasnt too keen on the Tarantula near the beach!!

We found the evening entertainment a bit boring/monotonous to be honest we expected more 'Mexican' entertainment, the team worked very hard at what they did and a lot of people were really enjoying themselves, especially the kids, but it just wasnt our thing! In the adults bar we had a few good karaoke nights in the first week as there were some very entertaining guests around, bit quieter in the 2nd week.

Drinks were watered down but plenty of choice available.

We loved our holiday but dont think we would have enjoyed it so much if we hadnt been staying in the Royal Suites area!