Sandos Playacar All Inclusive

The location on the beach is Great!!!

ICheck in and check out experience (with Karla) were not really comfortable. Check in I was given the room number and no explanation on how to get there. It took me 35’ to get to the room, the room number also was not matching the number on the actual door. At check out, me and my kids were supposed to stay four more hours on the property before leaving and Karla refused to give us the cards to get towels. I understand this is the policy of the resort and I asked multiple times to talk with a manager and explained that with two kids it is impossible to spend four hours by the beach without towels and that I would definitely gave the cards back, I would clearly have done it. I also offered to pay for the additional Hours of beach towels use. But nothing. Karla was a wall with pleanty of NOs. My suggestion is to try and be flexible with clients in front of such basic requests. Who is actually taking home beach towels? Come on!!! You ruin your reputation on some 5$ beach towels!!! Room Cleaning service good but never on time and also employees lying on the hours getting to the room. They would say we would not let them in at times when we were not even there in the room. Daniel the butler is a five star. He was assigned to my husband who arrived the day after me and my kids… why so? Why not assigning him to me since the beginning? A mistery. There were three of us arriving with luggages and at night and alone we had to look for the room. Bah.

Most things were very good to excellent. Staff were very friendly and accommodating. Room was nice but showing its age.

Booking the À la cart restaurants was a nightmare. Guest services were unable to help us. The booking system needs to be changed or updated.

The best thing about Sandos is its beach. Without a doubt one of the best beaches in Playacar area. Staff is hit or miss, and need a bit more training in hospitality. Food is good, buffet has a wide variety of options and it is decent. Our kids enjoy the pools.

The check-in and check out experiences are some of the worst I have experienced in all my travel. First of all, expect to wait a long time, and I mean a long time. We waited in line at check-in longer than we waited in line at Mexican passport border control. Once you check-in, you are approached by a member of the staff, who will try to tell you all about the facilities and try to sell you up on some hotel tour in exchange for a massage. This would have been perfectly fine if we did not wait for 45 mins to check-in, with two kids starving and tired. After the check-in, no one shows your room, gives you a ride to your room or anything of that sort. You will need to figure it out on your own, and wait for your luggage another hour or so to make it to your room. I literally had to trek back and forth between our room and the front desk to check on the status of the luggage THREE TIMES, because no one answers the front desk phone. We called them from our room repeatedly at different times, AND NO ONE answers the phone (Hope no one ever has an emergency in their room). I have never ever seen that before with any other hotel in the world. Maybe it is an issue with training or lack of adequate staffing, but it was aggravating. The rest of stay was enjoyable due to the superb beach and adequate facilities. If you can get past the front desk experience, you are lucky and you will enjoy your stay. Then comes check-out time, it is again the same calvary. we left our towel cards in the room, the receptionist insisted that we trek back to our room to get them. I simply refused and she went back to ask her manager who agreed to let us check-out. Sandos can be a wonderful resort if it manages to work out its front desk-issues (check-in/check-out). Tip: make sure to book reservations at the different restaurants ahead of time, which were all unavailable at the time of our check-in. But you will need their APP to reserve, which you cannot have access to until you check-in!

Well located, overall clean

We travel a lot, by far Sandos Playacar has the worst check in and check out experience we have had in a long time anywhere. There are like 10 places to have people check in and check out but always only 2 people working which creates huge lines: that is your first experience with the hotel and will be the last experience when you leave. It was just my husband and I at the resort for a wedding and we asked to be put close to the wedding party but we were put in the family section while the other guests even the ones with kids were in the adult section. We were in the 3rd floor by the family pool, the room was old but clean so all good there but the elevator to the 3rd floor never worked going up only going down. We raised the issue, nothing was done. The phone in our room never worked, we tried to order room service a few times and gave up. My husband had to walk to guest services to place an order which defeats the point of room service. Even when the line would ring nobody ever answered the phone. Reservations at the “restaurants” were never available and we gave up and just ate at the grand Buffett, the second day there I got shrimp pasta and food poisoning so was very careful what I ate after that. Definitely we will never be back.