We are leaving the hotel today after a fabulous week. The dining staff are amazing and they make a point of remembering what you like, your coffee, favourite drinks etc. while all the staff are extremely friendly,look for Patricia in the buffet dining in the evening and Jose in the a.m. And lunch. Exceptional servers. You also have to give credit to the management for selecting or training these people to represent them. Every person was pleasant and helpful!
The food was more than o.k., if you can't find something to eat, you have a problem.
The resort is immaculate everywhere, rooms are spacious, we love it here and will be back! The location is minutes from all sorts of parks, taxis everywhere to get you there and back safely. We can't recommend it enough! What we found dismaying was the way some tourists treat the staff, the lack of respect! Also, tipping or should i say the lack of tipping, these people work hard, and a buck or two goes along way! If you choose this resort, you will not be disappointed!

we were 4 couples staing at Babia Principe Akumal with Golden Pass.which is the biggest scam ever,you pay more for golden pass and get nothing in return.Head waiter Francisco at Dolce Vita refused to set 2 tables together to acommodate my group .wake up call from reception always 20 minutes late.Travel from lobby to golf course always late.Golf fees included but still had to pay 80 dollars per person to share cart very expensive .i would not recomend this resort to anyone.waited fro 1 hour to be served at Portofino restaurant a La Carte.

Eddie Amo
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We travelled from Jan 25-Feb 8.

First off, this resort is HUGE. There are 4 hotels on the grounds, the Akumal, the Tulum, the Coba, and the Sian Ka'an. Additionally there is a golf course, private homes/condos, etc. The grounds are so large that they have golf cart-style trams driving people to-and-fro all day long!

Our room was fairly central, but it was still a 5 minute walk to the lobby. The lobby at Akumal is centrally located to the beaches, the restaurants, etc. If you are mobility impaired/elderly/pregnant/etc you may want to consult a map of the facilities to request a more central room.

The pictures you see of the beaches are not entirely accurate. About half of the beach space is rocky with hard waves. We were here for 2 weeks, and the color of the flag at the beaches was ALWAYS red. On most days actually, the water was so rough that all water sports were cancelled (meaning, you couldn't borrow the scuba equipment or go out on a kayak, etc).

About half of the beach area has these gigantic man-made barriers to protect the sand from the rough waves. these are the only parts where you can actually go into the water because it's safe (and sandy).

There were bars all over. There were a couple on the beach, a couple by the pools, bars in all the restaurants, etc.

The people were a fantastic mix of mostly Canadians and Europeans, which made for a lovely civilized environment. Generally speaking, people were not rude or completely inebriated :)

The staff was wonderful. When we checked in, we realized our room was directly beside the main lobby. Concerned about the noise from the bar and the nightly entertainment we asked to move. They immediately moved us. We noticed they moved us to a ground floor unit, which we were not comfortable with, so they moved us to a 2nd floor unit. It was PERFECT. They were extremely courteous, professional, and accommodating.

The food was great. We don't eat mammals and we avoid dairy products, but even then there was a lot to choose from! Being there for 14 days, it felt a little repetitive after a few days, but if we were meat-eaters, I'm sure I may never have eaten the same thing twice :) The buffet was wonderful and the a la carte choices were great. If you don't manage to get into the A La Carte restaurants, it won't be the end of the world. They were lovely...but you MUST go to Mikado for the Japanese/Tepanyaki food. DEMAND a "show dinner" where you get to sit around the Tepanyaki table for a show by the chef. It was well worth it!!! The show was great and highly recommended!

We were there for Superbowl, and they went out of their way to set up the Hacienda for the big game, even using the internet/satellite to stream english audio to go along with the ESPN viva (which broadcast the game with Mexian announcers speaking in spanish). The beer flowed, and it was a great crowd for some playful ribbing between fans of the two teams.

The beds were comfortable (I like mine firm) but the pillows were rock hard and thick and I woke up with an achy back EVERY morning. Thankfully there was a gym, so I worked out almost every single day to get everything back in place, you know? Unfortunately, the gym at Akumal was TINY. The gym at Coba was bigger, but the gym at Sian Ka'an (the Tao gym) was SPECTACULAR! It was a 20 minute tram ride, but well worth it!

The negatives? Maid service was not consistent: some days they forgot to leave our coffee, some days they forgot to leave sugar, some days they left fresh sheets, some days our sheets had shoe prints on them! The huge grounds (yes, it is also a negative because some days you just have ENOUGH of all that walking - lol), over 1 hour drive from Cancun airport, there is a car rental agency on the resort and it's a joke - it's poorly managed, it takes over an hour to rent a car (if they even have one) and it's too expensive

The definite pluses of the trip? The rooms are large, the food is great, the customer service is fantastic, the "wild" animals on the resort (they are incredibly tame, ridiculously cute, and will BEG you for food - lol), the huge grounds, the grounds are very well maintained, quiet area, close to Tulum & Coba (ruins) and Playa del Carmen. Sian Ka'an was a gorgeous part of the resort, but it's not child friendly, so we only went up there for a drink one day with our son then left.

The hotel had overbooked guests, and were looking to shuffle people around to Sian Ka'an and even offering free transfers/stays at a partner hotel in Cancun. We thought we would take them up on the Sian Ka'an offer for a few nights but then we found out it was a child-free zone, so we wouldn't be able to do it.

I would definitely recommend this resort to anyone and everyone, unless you are looking to party. Then you should probably stay in Cancun or Playa del Carmen :)

I'm a little late writing this review as visited Nov/Dec 2012 but anyway here goes.

Travelled with Thomson. Flying with Thomson has become almost unbearable. The entertainment was diabolical, have to pay extra for almost everything, food was disgusting, I could go on. Either way it's not, in my opinion the nicest start to your holiday.

Luckily, when we got to the hotel it was worth the ordeal! Checked in very efficently, all my email restaurant bookings were there waiting for me and we were taken straight to our room. We had a superior room which was reasonably clean, very spacious but as other people have said is now starting to look in need of an update. However, they are perfectly adequate for a holiday as as far i'm concerned the room is mostly for sleeping!

There are many places to eat and drink on the site and I loved this aspect of it as it provided lots of variety. Of the the three buffets we thought Tulum and Coba were much better for breakfast, Tulum good for lunch Coba for dinner. Wasn't that impressed with Akumal buffet perfectly adequate but not such a good choice and staff not as attentive. We had mostly good service in all three, just the odd occasion when we had to wait for drinks.

With regard to the A la Cartes, they are, in our opion, excellent! We ate at Le Gourmet, Arlequin, Don Pablo, Mikado, Dolce Vita and Mediterannea. All were good but our favourites were Mikado Don Pablo. Delicious! We ate several times at Dolce Vita at lunchtimes as this was near the beach and it was a lovely lunch every time.

We liked the Coba reception bar, it had a brilliant atmosphere at night and good drinks service. The Akumal was a bit lacking in that it didn't really have a reception bar.

The pools were all nice, however some were extremely noisy. We gradually learned where the quieter spots were. It was brilliant at the coba pool, around 4.00ish to see all the racoon like animals waking up and running around. Our only critism of the pools was sometimes there were large groups of, i think canadians/americans who sort of took over and did get very loud. One day at the Akumal pool the language did get a bit offensive but we just moved somewhere else. But mostly they were just on holiday enjoying themselves.

The entertainment was ok. The michael jackson shows were quite good but generally it was the typical holiday entertainment, nothing really outstanding.

The Christmas lights were put up while we were there and they were delightful, lots of trees lit up and big big Christmas trees in the receptions. It was quite a laugh one day as the staff tried to get a tree up in the Coba reception, the discussions were getting quite heated as they to get the tree up, which they did eventually!

The trams were extremely efficient and we never had to wait long for one.

The beach was just ok. Always plenty of sunbeds but rocky in places as people have said. Lots of fish sweimming round your feet though even in shallow water.

So overall we loved this resort so much so we have just booked to come back again in October but this time to the Sian khan. Can't wait! Enjoy!