Ocean Coral & Turquesa All Inclusive Puerto Morelos

En réservant un hotel dont l'ouverture n'était pas garantie, je savais au départ que je prenais un risque et que cela n'allait pas etre parfait. Mais je fus agréablement surprise. L'hotel est magnifique. Sa décoration crée une ambiance de détente. Les membres de l'équipe de divertissement ont été extraordinaires avec mes enfants ( ado et presque ado). Il reste de l'amélioration à faire du coté de l'organisation et du menu des restaurants à la carte mais j'ai confiance. Le chef espagnol est très sympathique et je lui donne un peu de temps pour parvenir à mieux satisfaire les clients. Nous avons voyagé dans des formules tout inclus à Cuba, en République Dominicaine, en Jamaique, à Ibiza, et le H 10 est de loin celui qui nous a le plus plu. Pourquoi? Un hotel pourtant imparfait. Parce que le personnel était motivé, souriant, et cela a rendu notre séjour agréable. La plage est longue et nettoyée tous les jours. La configuration de l'hotel fait en sorte que toutes les chambres ont une vue sur la mer et que les distances entre la plage, les chambres, les restaurants sont à grandeur humaine. Pas de petit train ici. Bref, nous voulons y retourner. Le café expresso était délicieux .Mais bien sur, un tout compris ne répond jamais à toutes nos attentes. Il faut connaitre ses priorités. Bon Voyage!

The good, the bad and the ugly..... We have stayed at about 10 all inclusives to date in Mexico, Cuba and Punta Cana over the past 4 years. We are gourmet cooks and I am in the food business, so the quality of food and SERVICE is of importance to us on vacation.

We realize that everyone wants something different from these all inclusives and perhaps you will value things other than we do.

The GOOD: the beach is great for the Mayan as it is fairly clean, save sea grass which is somewhat raked up daily, at least by the two true 5 star hotels next to the Turquesa.....The Paradisus and The Excellence. You can walk for an hour and a half along the beach, uninterrupted to the shanty fishing town of Puerto Morelos. We love walking on beaches so this was a plus for us.

The rooms....were lovely and cleaned daily BUT as a previous guest commented they messed up on the showers big time. The glass enclosed funky showers have a drain that smells of sewer gas..we had to cover ours with a facecloth and ashtray for the entire stay as the toxic smell permeated our room and made us feel ill! Also within seconds of running the shower the water escapes a 1 inch wall surrounding the shower and drenches the bathroom floor, even large bath towels did not contain it! In fact it went into our sleeping area and into the hall outside too! Believe me I was only in the shower 5-10 minutes! They did not slope the floor to the drain! Also the bathroom door brackets were coming off the wall and the glass door did not close or align with the side wall. In fact many building flaws....Basically an Ikea funky looking hotel but lots of construction flaws...poor quality which will not hold up well. The tiles surrounding the building were not laid properly in many areas and are not even....watch your step!

Staffing.........Totally inadequate....understaffed and most speak very little english!

Minibars.......Don't expect to ever have bottled water in them....we had to track it down daily from the front desk or a bar and often couldn't get it easily and were told to save our empties and fill them ourselves from the filtered water used in the dining room. I have never experienced this at any resort before. A pain! We don't drink much booze but do need water, for teeth brushing, as well as drinking. And forget asking the maids to stock your fridges ...they have no access to water either and cannot understand english at all.

Exercise/Gym/Water Sports.....NOPE....We like to use the water activities/equipment but it is still sitting all wrapped up on the one tennis court.....which by the way we had to track down security each day to open the courts as it was always locked. We lost our ball at the end of the court and had to climb over layers of wind surfers and canoes to retrieve it....painful!

OH YES THE GYM....it supposedly opened Jan 2 .....but the floor was covered it drywall mud, the tiny room was full of mosquitos, and although they had some good equipment...try to access it! It is squashed into the tiniest room and you cannot even move between each piece. The gym was not air conditioned and is on the second floor above the unfinished spa...no windows to open

either.

RESTAURANTS......We lined up to get into the Japanese for 1 hour Jan 2. There were not a lot of options...the Italian was closed and there was another huge line up at the buffet restaurant to get in. The lack of staff to clean tables etc was the problem. The food was adequate but no Bran cereal, Kiddie Coco puffs etc that was it!, Not the greatest selection! Little whole grain anything. The main dining room/ buffet room is a super bright lit square room with the ambiance of an interrogation room! It's a bit of a free for all with the few staff over worked.

FLIGHT...We flew from Halifax with Air Transat....NEVER AGAIN..the 4.5 hour flight took 9 hours. We were on a tiny plane from several decades ago with no TV, no air , no music/stereo, a surprise refueling stop in St Pete's Florida with a nice long runway delay tacked on and stinking washrooms one row back and oh yes the screaming baby in the row behind me. We took off late too! Good way to kill the first day of the vacation. Visited the Transat rep daily to try and move to another hotel where we did not have to spend our vacation in a food line up and water hunt to no avail. Oh, we could move to the Excellence if we plunked down another $2000. We passed but checked it out on our own! Yes, we will definately be staying at the Excellence next adult only vacation and pay the extra $. There was no comparison!

WEATHER...cold for 4 of the 7 days.......I mean long pants and 2 fleece jackets cold...thank God I brought a warm outfit! I think the weather was atypical......it was extremely windy and the red flags were up. I could not even bare my arms never mind think of swimming on those later 4 days. Of course the day we left was sunny and warmer.

Sorry if this sounds so negative.....but we had been told by Transat when I called Montreal that all was functional....and based on this we chose this hotel. I can understand it is a new hotel but we were not told the truth and that is simply dishonest. We did enjoy our walk on the beach, morning tennis, the lovely coffee shop with character and books! Hope your experience is better! Good Luck!

Hotel set up is fabulous but all came down to zero with the poorest service ever experienced in 9 trips to all inclusive resorts. The hygiene was doubtful, the staff was overwhelmed, the food was terrible with a lack of variety. Bar staff was unexperienced and disrespectful because of the clients frustration of bad service. A chance that Transat rep Vicky was there to listen to every frustration. Good job Vicky! Don`t be screwed by advertisement over themed restaurants, they will never be able to respond to over 700 guest with 40 seating restaurants and very poor staff. Activities = none, zit, nada! Stayed from dec29th until Jan 5th.

Could become a great 4 1/2* if service increase by 10.

We stayed at the H10 Punta Coral (actually it's sister property the Punta Turquesa since the Coral was not ready for occupancy) from Dec. 29, 2007 - Jan 6, 2008.

The hotel was far from ready. The Punta Coral is not yet open so we were moved to the Punta Turquesa. The rooms are OK but the food was terrible and service is non existant. The "Gala New Years Celebration" turned out to be a battle with 400 other guests to get under cooked seafood from the understaffed buffet tables. Line ups were the order of every day. Want a plate of pasta? Thats a 30 minute investment. On New Years day we waited two hours to get into the buffet restaurant. The "theme" restaurants being either closed or full of people who made reservations before they scrapped the reservation system on the 1st day we were there. At breakfast we were forced to wait for a table to free up and bus it ourselves to find a place to eat. There were no water sports available since the hotel neglected to get the permits neccessary to operate them. There was no bottled water in the rooms and despite repeated requests they would not bring any. I could go on forever but the bottom line is I expect our dog received far better service at his kennel.

This will be a very nice 4 star hotel in about a year, after they hire enough staff to run it and bring in a management team that have at least a basic understanding of foodservice management. Until then...stay away!

Architecture superbe, décorés avec beaucoup de gout, pas de clinquant. Les chambres sont grandes et bien aménagées. Attention aux chambres au niveau de sol car la vue sur la mer peut être bloquée par un batiment de service. A mon arrivée j'avais une telle chambre et j'ai exigé sur le champ une chambre avec une vrai vue sur la mer et j'ai pu profiter de leur désorganisation car j'ai eu une suite double donnant directement sur la plage (ce qui a sauvé mes vacances ). Tout les autres services étaient sous nos attentes et ne corespondent pas a la publicité et la recommandation (coup de coeur) de Air Transat. Ils ont des croûtes a manger avant d'acceder a un statut de 4 1/2*, s'ils n'amélioren pas le service, l'organisation de la restauration et l'ajout des autres activités comme des sports d'eau(voile, kayak etc.) qui étaient complètement absents il n'atteindront même pas le 4 *. Actuellement ils s'affichent comme un 5* ?... .

My husband and I returned from vacation on January 2nd, 2008 and honestly we couldn't wait to come back home. This is the first time that we encountered such incompetence and so many problems while vacationing in Mexico. The hotel itself is very beautiful, the rooms are super nice except that you cannot take a shower without having water all over the floor, even putting towels on the floor did not really solve the problem (we were told that the architect forgot to put a stopper for the showers) but that did not mean that we were getting more towels in the room so my husband and I were sharing one towel as we has to use the other 3 to put on the floor, the phone did not work the whole week as for the TV it was not always functional and our room door would not lock. As for the food it's ok, nothing out of this world, there was not a big variety in food at the buffet and it was always the same thing, there were barely any fruits and the food often looked like it was sitting there for a while. We ate in the 3 a la carte restaurants and the only one which we really liked was the Italian, what a waste of time for us to go to the 2 others. We would have loved to go back to the Italian restaurant but since reservations were required and you needed to reserve in person with whom ever was responsible there were often a huge line up and we did not feel like standing in line for 30 minutes! As for service I strongly suggest you don't hold your breath, most of the staff does not speak English and to my surprise most of them were very rude (usually Mexicans are very nice people). In order to have some kind of service we had to talk to the Managers and often they would solve the problem within minutes but when speaking directly to the staff they would turn us down in a very rude way and always made us feel like we were bothering them. For two days we could not get bottled water, it was very upsetting and unconceivable that a supposedly five star hotel would run out of bottled water.We would spend an average on 1 hour a day in the lobby trying to get things fixed or just to have someone answere our questions. I don't want to write about all the problems that we had because we had so many and it would require a lot of my time to go over everything but this is what you should watch out for: always ask for plastic cups as they do not wash the glasses at the bars but rather rinse them and serve the next person with it, that was done before my eyes, I was very grossed out. Also, the restrooms were often neglected so we would go back to our room to use the bathroom. There is no pool service nor room service... well let's just say that service is not a priority for them. Towels are very rare items so make sure you bring a few with you. As for the entertainment it was so booooooring!!!! I would not go back to this resort even if they paid for my trip. What a shame, I give this hotel 3 stars at the most and I think I'm being very generous.

My boyfriend and I stayed at the Punta Turquesa Dec 22-29. The hotel is beautiful. The Punta Coral and the Punta Turquesa share the same lobby, pools, bars and restaurants. I have never been to an all inclusive and perhaps my expectations were too high. The food needs some improvement. For those of you who like the deep fried stuff you will love it, such as the frozen fish patties. I expected more fresh fish but couldn't find much of it. Breakfast was great, fresh omelettes, pancakes and fresh fruit. The coffee and orange juice was very good. As far as the other meals, out best meal was at Xel-Ha. When we arrived in our room, the mini bar was empty. We asked the Transat representative if she could help us with that since we did not get anywhere with the front desk staff. We got it filled once, with two pops, two waters and four beers. After that in spite of repeated requests it was not filled again. We went on the catamaran the third day and before we got twenty feet off shore were turned back by (coast guard??) authorities who told us we did not have a permit to be in the water. The catamarans never appeared after that. They have snorkelling equipment but it is not new. The staff told us that it is cleaned everyday, but this was 2:00 pm. How many people used the mouthpiece that day? Not us! They have no other water sports. Except for a few staff: Roberto at the loung bar, Julien in the Italian restaurant and Memo at the pool bar, we found most to be almost surly. The beach of course was beautiful. Hard working staff clean it of sea grass everyday. We walked an hour south to Puerto Morelos. Beautiful! Met Rob at the Alma Libra book store. Very nice. The sand bugs come out at night so it is best not to spend too much time on the beach after sundown. I was told not to worry too much about the language barrier, most people speak English. This is not the case. It is best to learn a little Spanish before you go. We bought a phrase book at Rob's bookstore which helped. Thanks Rob. We stopped tipping the staff after the third day because it did not help to get service. Except for the canned beer (not corona) all beer is on tap. I have never had a white margarita before, figured Mexico would have the best. Not the case. The margaritas were better at Xel-Ha. Try the Miami Vices. Memo makes the best! Pina Colada mixed with a Strawberry Daquiri. Sounds weird but they are very good. I did take photos to post but someone else has posted some. Mine aren't any different. Take some bug repellant if the mosquitos like you. They are tiny but their bites are deadly. I am still scratching! Some people had problems with the showers in the rooms. The handle is fully adjustable. If you adjust it right you will not flood your room. All in all, we had a wonderful time, the resort looks like a five star but I would rate the food and the service at about a three.

The buildings and the grounds are very nice. The beach is long and beautifull. The rooms are brand new and the layout is very opend and modern. I was not too happy about the toilet setting but in general the room was nice. Having said al the good things now comes the bad part.

They had good food the problem was that the people that prepared it did a very poor job. Most of the times my food was cold and I had to make long long lines in order to eat. Almost all of the food was fried infront of you. The staff people had NO intention on helping guests. You could tell that they where overwhelmed with things to do. I had never stayed at a hotel where guests where treated like cattle. Unfortunatly this is how I felt they treated me in this hotel. They lacked the meaning of word customer service.

Just spent Christmas at H10 Punta Turquesa. What an amazing resort. Just opened on Dec. 20, 2007, so there are minor things they still need to work on. We are easily pleased so let me try and list some negatives first.

- Our TV stopped working after the first day and it took them 4 days to fix it. Who wants TV when you're in the south anyways. It's just something to fall asleep to, so not a big deal to us.

- The buffet could use more options, but we always found something to eat. We didn't try the resturaunts, so I can't comment on them. People told us the food is really good, but the service was very slow. The restraunts are Japanese, Italian, Mexican and there is a coffee pub and sports bar.

- There is still lots of constuction debris in the beach sand. Only along the top edge of the beach. Debris such as chips of concrete and tiles.

- The resort lacks large palm trees which we love. It's only because it's new.

- New Latin employees are still learning the basics of other languages. Communication was sometimes difficult, but they really tried hard and they were learning very fast. A noticable improvement over the week.

- Sea grass washed up on the beach. They still didn't have a tractor to clean it up, but employees were using rakes and wheel barrows every day.

- Showers don't contain water well. Place a towel on the floor at the door and face the shower head towards the wall. Water pressure and temp. is great. No problems with that.

I'm having difficulties thinking of anything else negative.

Most resorts occupy a small piece of beach and stretch inland. This resort stretches along a large portion of the beach which allows every room to have an ocean view. Yes, EVERY room. It would take almost 10 minutes to walk from one end of the beach to the other and there are tiki huts for shade all along it.

The pools do not use chlorine, instead it is salt. They are also tempurature controlled. I personnally thought they were a little too cold. The ocean was warmer.

The Avtivities team was the highlight of this resort. They are fun and amazing people. They included Nikki, Allison, Marisol, Gustavo (from Argentina), Gustavo two, Franco, Aaron, Juan, Didier, and Li).

If you are interested in snorkelling on the reef, it is cheapest to go to Peurto Morelas. Either it is a $9 one way cab or a 45 min. to 1 hr. walk south on the beach. At the docks, people will be offering snorkelling tours for $25. You can get a 2 hr. guided snorkeling tour for $15. Bargain with him, he will drop the price. It's worth it. Also, Xel-Ha is an amazing snorkelling park. Look into it if you like to snorkel, but spend a full day. Half a day is not enough to see it all. IT"S BIG.

Shopping is good on 5th Street in Playa Del Carmen. It's a long street closed off to traffic. It is full of stores, bars, restraunts and time share pushers. LOL. Bargain with them for souvenirs. You can generally get things for half of what they originally ask. Cancun is also a great shopping spot, although we did not go there.

Not much we can say bad about this resort. We had a great time and enjoyed the friendliness of all the employees. Hope you do too.

See my profile for some pics.

CHEERS!

Un hôtel incroyablement beau, très stylisé et très tendance. La nourriture est exquise. Que ce soit le buffet, le restaurant japonais, le mexicain ou l'italien, ils sont tous de bonne qualité et offrent d'excellents plats. Le personnel, woow! Personne ne peut s'ennuyer. Sur et certain!! Bref, une semaine inoubliable qui malheureusement, a passé trop vite!!