The pools and the beach are great. You will be walking quite a bit, but the overall resort has nice views. The staff was below average for a resort in cancun, they should definately train their front desk staff on being more friendly. Any contact we had with them was less than pleasant. Customer service should be the #1 priority. The food was typical resort food, but they had plenty of options. The shopping center needs to be re-vamped. Several shops were closed at random times throughout the day and there isn't much going on in the shopping plaza.

Were here the week before Thanksgiving, We have been to this Iberostar and the Playa del Carmen Tucan approx 10 times in total. Things have gone drastically down hill in the buffet food dept. since our visit to the Del Mar 2 years ago. The food was always cold and the selection has become very limited. There were many times that I just could not pick anything that appealed to me and I am not a picky eater. The pool was cold!, never experienced that in the past....BUT I will say as always the staff were and are great. Place is in need of a major facelift....but that happens with age right ;0) We have decided we will be looking for somewhere else to stay until room and lobby renovations are addressed. I will miss the beautiful grounds and am sure we will not find anything else that comes close to those tranquil walks to dinner, the beach and pool. We will miss you Iberostar....until we meet again.

This was our second stay at an Iberostar resort and again Iberostar knows their business. The property is beautiful and well kept, we NEVER saw a piece of trash anywhere. We had lots of fun and would go back with a few changes. We were two couples, one in our late 40's and our parents in their late 60's. First, the resort is big, we had a room near the restaurants which was good but we had a good walk to the pools and beach. They do offer the tram and golf carts but we found ourselves spending more time waiting for those then the time it took to walk to the water. I guess after eating at the buffet the walk was good plus it's beautiful. The reason I would request a room further away from the lobby and restaurants is because of the theater. The show starts at 9:45 in the evening so if you're wanting to sleep any earlier then 11:00 it might not happen. You can hear the whole show even with the door closed. If you like to stay up later, no problem. The beds were great, my husband has back issues and really liked the comfort, so once you fell asleep, you rested well. The rooms were clean and nice.
My second issue was the food. I had read the good and the bad and this is MY opinion. The optional restaurants are good, not great but pretty good. The steak and lobster were good, the japanese restaurant was fun and the steak house was also good.The buffets were lacking in flavor, I know they are catering to many but it's pretty bland. you have to doctor it up some to make it better. Also it seemed that most of the time it was the same things. I have to say though, the grilled chicken and grilled steak were pretty tasty. So take what you want from my opinion. You just have to not be very picky in what you eat and learn to use the condiments. OK now the bars, great bar tenders and wait staff, the wait staff was around often if you didn't want to go yourself. Tasty drinks but the only bear at the bars was Dos XX's so if you don't like this beer you're out of luck, they did have other bottled beer in your room. I have to suggest the "dirty monkey's" if you like chocolate milkshakes and the "michalada's" if you like beer.
The pools were clean and the temperature was pretty good even after a day of rain.
Location, location, close to Playa but a fairly long trip to Tulum and Xel Ha, we're taliking over an hour.
All in all I would say it was worth the money and we would return.

Just returned from 7 days, 8 nights at the Iberostar del Mar. Not much to complain about. Staff are always at work making the resort look top notch (cleaning litter, cleaning floors, trimming grass, etc). Not sure why people complain about the food, there is always something to please everyone. We also got to try every a la carte restaurants (all 6) during our stay. We booked our 3 at the start of the week, and then each morning we just talked to the concierge and that night we would be informed we have a reservation somewhere (tipping the concierge im sure didn't hurt too). Make sure to try the Japanese and Mediterranean restaurants. We also changed rooms after the first night without a problem (to get a better location in the middle of the resort). Beach was great, white sand and bright blue water. Shout out to Victor at the pool bar! Kept the tequila slammers and cerveza's coming all day long. Also want to commend Eduardo on the amazing job he does making sure everyone is having fun and getting people involved in all the activities. Thanks to the entire Iberostar staff! Will definitely be back!