My daughter, 8, and I traveled to Club Med Cancun from June 7-14, 2009 with another family. I would love to rate it 5 stars, but 2 major disappointments prevent me from doing that.
I'll start with the disappointments: AIR CONDITIONING (or lack there of) - It was extremely hot the week we traveled, as expected in June. However, the air conditioning in the hotel room could not keep up with the heat. There wasn't one time in my room at any point during the week when I wasn't sweating. While I didn't have a thermometer handy, I am confident the room temperature never ventured below 80 degrees, and many times it was hotter than that. I explained the problem at the front desk on 3 separate occasions. The first time the receptionist told me to give it more time to cool down. The second and third times the receptionist sent a maintenance worker to look at it. A worker came on two different days, but the room never got any cooler. In addition to poor air conditioning in the room, the air conditioned main restaurant was extremely hot as well. The only meals I didn't sweat through were the ones I showed up to with wet hair (straight out of the shower for breakfast and dinner and straight out of the pool for lunch). I would have loved to "primp" for dinner, but I think I would have been taken out in a stretcher if I would have tried the hair dryer in the room. I'm from the Chicago area, so I am familiar with high heat and humidity, but I needed a well air conditioned room to relax in between outdoor activities.
My second disappointment was the kid's club. I thought my 8 year old daughter and my niece, also 8, would attend the kid's club for a few hours each day, but they both hated it after the first day (and they were only there about 1 1/2 hours). Our kids wanted to swim, swim some more, and then swim some more after that. There is very little scheduled swim time for the kids. Most of the kid's club activities are centered around outdoor sports and practice for kid's evening performances. Our girls didn't want to perform in any show, nor did they want to bake in the June sun without the water activities. On a good note, for the rest of the week, anytime their "grouchy" side came out, a threat of sending them to the kid's club straighted them up right away :)
Now - the good:
BEACH - Wow!!!! It is the most beautiful beach I've seen. As it has been said many times here on Trip Advisor, Club Med has the BEST location in Cancun! We spent hours and hours floating in the sea, as did our kids. The sand beach must have been cleaned up every morning as there wasn't any sea weed on the beach. Lounge chair were plentiful. The beach boy, Zaidt, was adorable (oh... and he was extremely attentive to our wine drinking needs!).
POOL- perfect for us. It was clean and the water temperature was delightful. I did hear a rumor that Club Med was adding another pool this fall.
SERVICE - outstanding! I can't really say enough here - I was completely blown away every single day of our vacation. All of the GOs were friendly and welcoming. Julian joined us the first night at dinner and Jhony joined us once for lunch and once for dinner. It was great to learn about the GOs and their life experiences.
FOOD - excellent! We ate mostly at the main restaurant, La Hacienda. I found new favorites every day. If you're looking for a great afternoon snack, my sister and I would split the Croque Senor sandwich at La Pergola (I miss that sandwich!). And if you sit outside (rock beach side) in the late afternoon, it's shady and breezy - probably the "coolest" spot at the time of the day. The kids would explore (finding tons of hermit crabs) while us adults would have our "happy hour." We were all very happy.
NIGHTLY ENTERTAINMENT - The Thursday night outdoor show was excellent. The indoor stage was a hot box beyond words. We skipped the indoor shows opting for lounging under the stars. Oddly, the nightly outdoor movies had no sound or subtitles??? It really didn't bother us, but we just found it odd.
ROOM - Aside from the air conditioning issue I've already mentioned, our room met my expectations. The bed was comfortable, the pillows were okay, the closet/storage area were excellent, there is a wall safe, the balcony was useful for drying wet bathing suits, and the bathroom was acceptable. The room was cleaned daily and 2 large bottles of water were delivered daily. The room was extremely damp and musty (maybe from poor air conditioning). We did have some ants, but that didn't bother me as they stayed by the main entrance door area (and I probably never saw more than 10-15). It smelled like stale smoke at random times, but not consistently. I don't know if it was someone smoking in a room nearby and the smoke was coming through the air conditioning system or what. It wasn't a big deal, just noticable. Our view was stunning. We were in the Granate building with an oceanview room (5113 & 5114).
It was a wonderful vacation. The only reason I wouldn't return or recommend this hotel to a friend was the lack of room air conditioning.