Went over spring break week with our 8 & 10 year olds. Plenty of kids to play with but did not use the Kids Club due to the expense (1/2 day was around $45per child). Still has a nice beach, great for walking in the waves, waveriding and sandcastles. Two nice pools and a hot tub. Very attentive pool staff provided occasional spritzing with water, cooled towels, frozen fruit popsicles and was always available to help with an umbrella or take a food and drink order.

Restaurants were a bit expensive but the food was very good. If you don't mind running upstairs for your drinks, paying for the Club Level was well worth the cost. Four nice food presentations each day plus a chocolate fountain (which you won't want to see again after the third day or so) each night made it worthwhile for us.

You can also pay $50/day/child food plan but if you plan to leave the hotel for some days or meals it probably isn't worth it.

Rooms are standard size and could use updated TVs. Bedding is great and rooms were kept very clean. Bathrooms were good size with double sinks which is nice when there are four in your group. Great views of the ocean and pools from the balcony.

Very accomodating staff. Many, especially Club Level conceirge, call you by name at each sighting. Bell captain helped my kids feed the resident iguana and showed us pictures of him holding it. They loved every minute of it.

Would be nice to provide more economical transport to/from the airport.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton from April 24 - April 29. Overall, it was an extraordinary experience. The hotel was fabulous, just like other RCs. The rooms were good, nothing spectacular here, but the bed was very comfortable. The staff was very helpful and attentive and their service was excellent. The icing on the cake was provided by the conceirge the day before our departure. This was in the midst of the swine flu outbreak and we thought it prudent to wear a face mask on the flight back. We searched at least 5 pharmacies near the RC but none of them carried masks or were sold out. In a last ditch effort, we approached the conceirge who thought for a while, called up a local pharmacy and arranged for 2 face masks to be delivered at our doorstep. It cost us about 60 pesos but at that point, we were ready to pay just about anything to have them. Wow!! That's what I call service. Kudos to the staff at RC, Cancun.

My husband and I stayed at the hotel from 4/24-4/27. Overrall we were pleased with our stay, but we felt like this Ritz could have been anywhere. There was nothing Mexican about it from the decor in the lobby to the dining rooms to the rooms to the pool area. We walked around both Aqua and ME, and we found both of those hotels to still be nice and modern AND somewhat Mexican. Not a huge deal for me, as I stay at a Ritz for the comfort, cleanliness, quality of food, and service, but my husband would add atmosphere to that list, of which the Ritz had almost none. We remarked to each other that the vibe in the hotel was half funeral, half museum. That being said, check-in was a breeze, the room was plain but certainly comfortable and well-appointed, and the hotel was unbelievably clean. The food was delicious everywhere in the hotel, and we ventured out for dinner on 2 of the nights to Cambalache (Argentinian Steakhouse) and La Parilla (authentic Mexican food in downtown Cancun), and both of those meals were great as well. Sidenote about Cambalache...nobody told us that it was in a shopping mall, which detracted from the overrall experience for us a bit. La Parilla was super cheap, Mariachis singing all around us, and the fajitas were excellent! We had good weather for the most part, but the wind was quite gusty for most of our stay, and you could not swim in the ocean. We walked down the beach one day from the Ritz to Aqua, and we barely made it there. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WALK TO NEARBY HOTELS ON THE BEACH!!!! Was that loud enough??? My husband and I barely survived it (not really a joke), as the waves crashed over us and we got banged up pretty good from the rocks and rebar. We can laugh about our adventure now, but at the time it was truly scary. If you are looking for a more refined Cancun experience where you eat all of your meals in the hotel and make an early night of it, then the Ritz is for you. If you like to venture out, but also like to come home to a little refinery, then the Ritz is for you too. If you want to be entertained by the pool and have a real Mexican experience, I suggest the ME hotel. Very modern, adult pool with a DJ and scantily clad women, hip lobby bar, and a very tropical feel. The beaches everywhere along the strip are all but washed away by Wilma, so don't let that be a deciding factor. All in all, we had a great trip, and if we had to do it all over again, I would still pick the Ritz =))).

Perhaps it's just that Cancun isn't really my scene (half Vegas and half Fort Lauderdale)... but I was disappointed with my experience here. I travelled to the Ritz last week with my husband and two kids. We booked through Amex platinum and the buffet breakfasts were included (and delicious!) and we received a resort credit. We were told we were upgraded, but I am not clear what that meant since the room was average size and amenities, and all rooms seems to have a view of the ocean. The staff is cheerful and always on hand, but I got overwhelmed with the service. I prefer my service subtler. They never let us be. In the restaurant, the plates were cleared before we were all done, the pool staff wanted to spray my face with Evian, it all felt like a bit much. The hotel was not close to filled, so we were constantly approached. We didn't use the kids club because it appeared that most of the kids in the club were younger than mine.
As for the beach, I can't imagine Cancun will be here in 10 years. It's really small and it appeared to be the same when we looked up and down the strip. The water was fairly rough (yellow flags) but we got into it some. However, other than the color of the water, the beauty of it was lost.
The two things I would recommend are taking the buses-- which are dirt cheap and constant. You don't wait a minute and they run up and down the strip. We also liked Isla Mujeres alot because it felt more like Mexico. We took the bus to the ferry at Porta Juarez over and once we got there we tooled around the island on a golf cart and had our best meals there.