Margaritaville Island Reserve Riviera Maya

This could be a great hotel! I travelled with a small group of moms & girls to celebrate high school graduation at the Cancun location. We based our decision to come here by online reviews & photos. We didn’t want a crazy drunken party place but still wanted to have fun. What we didn’t know is that the resort is shared with “Prestige” Karisma travelers club guests. (timeshare) that get special cabanas, butlers & first dinner reservations each day. There are only 3 dinner restaurants in the resort. Different ones are open on different days so then that really only narrows it down to 2 a night for 146 guest rooms. You can only make reservations day of and by 8am one day there were no reservations left for us. The Beach House restaurant & Rita’s tacos are the only 2 open for lunch. Only 1, the Beach House is open for breakfast. The market that opens at 8am daily has small fruit plates, yogurt & salads & coffees. If you don’t want to sit down for a coffee, you’ll wait in line at 8am when it opens. When you ask for coffee cream anywhere, you will get milk so bring your own if you like creamer. We ordered room service for breakfast one day but gave up after 1.5 hours when no one showed up with our food! Disappointing. We are not picky eaters & found something for everyone on the menu that was quite good, but this is not your gourmet fine dining resort- they are feeding bulk groups here. Frank & Lolas (Mario was a great waiter) did have steaks & lobsters & wine you could order for an extra fee. The “Blended” smoothie bar offered overripe fruit to grab & go and watered down smoothies & bowls from 8am-12 daily. The Beach house does have 2 resident raccoons that hang out on the ceiling while you eat dinner & wild birds do come grab food off trays at breakfast. You can message staff in an app but it is hit or miss if they respond to your questions. The activities are not always up to date and when we showed up to Bingo at 3pm they said, “oh she’ll be here in 10 minutes” and never showed. This happened multiple days. There are not many activities to do at this hotel, especially later at night & the bars all close at 11pm. The painting & margarita making class only had enough seats for 10 people so show up early! We enjoyed the rock band, reggae band, & acrobat show the best! They need more entertainment like this! It would be great if you could order a sandwich or bar food to eat at the pool, but you are not allowed to carryout anything from anywhere. Service in the restaurants is very slow. The workers are very friendly and do work hard! Clean towels are set out in the am & good luck finding a dry one after 12pm because no one is there to set more out, even though they say “20 minutes” People reserve pool chairs with their stuff early in the morning, but we still found seating at the other pools or around the pool area daily. Sargassum on the beach is a big problem here, but they do have workers during the week trying to clean it up. We swam from the steps off the pier & walked in from the beach when the area was cleared off early in the day. Hotel staff will walk around the pool area & offer a free 5 minute massage in order to get you to book a 50 min one thru the spa or offer their photo shoot services. We did not take advantage of either but it may be nice for some guests. We booked an excursion to Tulum cenotes & turtle swim through Cesar at the front travel desk and that was amazing & the best part of our trip! The license to chill bar was closed 4 out of the 5 days we were there. The cocktails & service were all good, just inconsistent depending on who made what at which bar. Some days none of the bars or pools had music playing & it was so quiet- odd for a beach resort! We asked for staff to turn it on but they said “20 minutes” & never did. Our Paradise Jr. Suite room was big & clean but a bit run down for only opening in 2020. The shower was slippery and the room was musty even with the Damp Rid we brought along. We had no hot water for 2 days until I called down and the desk told me the red knob was cold & the blue was hot, so after we knew that the water temp was just fine. We lost power due to storms 3 out of the 5 days we were there. The Beach house roof leaks and the staff seems very used to squeegeeing water off the floor. Only half the resort can operate on the generator the hotel has. I inquired about a new room with A/C on the side that did have power and only then after contacting a manager was I given an option with one bed to use in case power did not come back on. After 4.5 hours it finally came on & we did not use the other room. I was grateful we had the option. We made the most of our stay & did enjoy it. The landscape is beautiful, and the layout of the resort is easy to walk around. I enjoyed the Jimmy Buffet music and themes around the resort- it added to the vacation vibes. For what this trip was, I thought this resort was a good value. Not being a timeshare member, if I come back to the Cancun area, I would stay at another resort.

I’m not sure how this place received such rave reviews but I will be honest with my review. If I were you, I would choose a different place immediately!!! First of all, this place smells horrendous as soon as you walk through the front doors. The smell is from the seaweed and it’s absolutely disgusting! Secondly, they harass you for a presentation that you are not interested in (if you’re wise) because it takes so much time from your stay and it’s a total ripoff (you’ve been warned). The pool looks inviting but feels so disgusting as if they never clean the water and it’s obvious that ppl are peeing in there so be careful with that. It even looks as if there’s algae in there. Now the rooms were okay but nothing to brag about. The drinks are absolutely NOT good although this is all inclusive so don’t expect much from the bar. The alcohol that they use is definitely watered down. As far as the food…the breakfast food is totally redundant. But the dinner food is only worth it when you go to the steakhouse or Frank and Lola’s. The employees are okay but not as friendly as other places. Some of them give an uneasy feeling. And more than anything, THERE IS NO BEACH!! Go somewhere else!! Don’t have regrets like me!

What a fabulous hotel. Very relaxed and chilled vibe. Staff all really friendly. Food was outstanding and the All Inclusive service was the best we have ever experienced. We had a swim up room that was positioned right by the swim up bar which was perfect. There was seaweed that built up on the beach every day but that wasn’t even a problem as staff would be there clearing it every morning. Would highly recommend a stay here.

I’m giving this hotel 5 stars for the service: pool servers Sergio Gonzalez and Ismerai were great and attentive. Drinks were correctly made and brought promptly. Breakfast staff Christian, Marcelo and Erick were also great. Everyone in the staff is really nice. No complaints there. But this hotel does not have a lot of restaurant choices, activities, and it’s far from any real stores in case you want to go shopping. The area needs to be developed with other restaurants and stores so people can leave and walk around. **This hotel is great for anyone that just wants to lounge at the pool. No beach. The bed is also very comfy.