We stayed at the Barcelo Maya Beach resort at the beginning of January 2013. We had some issues to work through such the bathroom flooding the first couple nights, and our safe glitching a few times during the week, but overall it was a great resort. For our troubles with the safe, the hotel provided us with a bottle of champagne and fruit. This is a VERY LARGE resort, at least by our standards. It is essentially 5 resorts-in-one. The restaurant and buffet options were very good, and the pools and activities across the resort were fun.

The beach was very nice and we never had trouble finding beach chairs during our stay (keep in mind this timeframe right after the New Year is considered a 'low period' for travel). The beach itself was very nice, however, there were a few rocky areas in the water so sand shoes were nice to have. We were hoping to do some snorkeling off the beach, but it was quite breezy during our stay which made the water a little to choppy for snorkeling.

The food quality was fantastic, and the selection was way more than what we expected. The Barcelo was recommended as having good food, but we were very surprised by the variety put on for every meal. The main buffets were not what I would classify as a typical buffet, it took you 5 minutes just to peruse the selection to get an idea of what was there before you decided what to get. There was always a great selection of 'local' dishes as well as typical 'western' food fare. A child's buffet was also included which contained some usual kid food fare such as burgers, chicken fingers, fries, etc. The quality of food and service was very good.

Don't get me wrong. This resort is beautiful, The service was very good and the food better than average. However, we paid for an all inclusive resort and upgraded to premium everything. Evidently if you're a wine drinker that doesn't mean anything.
Our first meal in one of their "fine restaurants", the waiter told us the house wine was terrible and handed us their wine menu . Cheapest wines on the menu approx $45 US per bottle.
To make a long story short, he was right, the house wines are indeed terrible, surprising for a Spanish resort and certainly not what we were expecting for an all inclusive resort that serves premium liquor. If we'd known we would have brought our own wine.
Their wine menu had a very limited selection ( for eg. one mediocre pinot noir) of wines most marked up 300-500%! And to make it even worse, every restaurant on the property had the same wine menu. Their wine store also sold primarily the same wines at the same markup.
Obviously the profit they make from selling wine far outwieghs their concerns for customer satisfaction,,,,,,,,never going back.

This review is a little late as we went in the first week of August. The weather was wonderful. rained one afternoon for about 10 minutes and then cleared right back up. My husband and I stayed in the Beach section and other family members stayed in the Caribe section. Rooms are nice and clean and large, stayed on the second floor and balcony was very nice and large. Beach was amazing! Areas for snorkeling and other areas just pure white sand. Best of both worlds! My husband is a vegetarian and the food was pretty good, he did not go hungry but by the end of the week he was getting pretty burned out with tortillas and what ever he could find to stuff in them. But everybody else seemed to enjoy the buffets. The staff at the resort all very friendly and hard workers. One thing we did miss at the resort was the wildlife, not many Iguanas or anything. Having been to the Grand Palladium twice right down the road where there is wildlife everywhere, we really did miss it! But we did see one racoon one night in the hallway eating a piece if fruit. But anyways we did get a good price for the week and was a nice family vacation. My brother his wife and their 2 kids it was there first beach vacation anywhere and the just loved it!

We are a family of four with two sons ages 3 and 5. In a few weeks we will be returning to Barcelo Maya Beach for the fifth time. We went once before our kids were born when it was still quite a small resort, and have been back three more times with kids since it has grown. We have stayed at five other large reorts in the Mayan Riviera and this is by far our favourite. The beach, pools and grounds are beautiful, the buffet food is amazing (none of us has ever had any stomach trouble), the swim up bars are fabulous, the staff is friendly. We love the pools, kids' waterslides, kids' bungee trampolining, mini putt golfing, marketplace and swimming with the fish off the pier. It's also big enough that my husband and I can take turns running around the resort for exercise and they have a well equipped gym and spa. I can't say anything negative about this resort and highly recommend it. We have traveled with our kids to Australia three times, South America, South Africa, Europe and Asia and this resort in Mexico is their favorite!