My wife and I just spent an incredible week at the Sun Palace. We were an RCI exchange and were assigned unit 725 which overlooked the ocean (7th floor). The unit was as accurately described by many previous posters---comfortable King bed, big jacuzzi style tub, oversized shower, double vanity, marble floors, fridge stocked with beer, soda, juice etc, liquor dispensers. We had maid service at least twice a day.

We enjoyed room service for breakfast several days. The food was always on time and quite good. We usually had just fruit, croissants, juice and coffee and enjoyed a full buffet in the Alamo restaurant after a walk on the beach. The Alamo breakfast buffet had made to order eggs (great omelettes) and about anything you would find on a nice Las Vegas buffet including full bar service. We enjoyed sorbet several mornings.

For lunch on nontour days, we usually had sandwiches by the pool. The sandwiches were good but not spectacular. It was nice not to have to head into a restaurant. The activilty pool had several flavors of ice cream in a freezer available at about all times. We usually got our own, but one time I asked for coconut ice cream when there was none in the freezer and the attendant came back 15-20 minutes later with a bowl for each of us.

Dinners were quite good. Tratto the Italian was best in our opinion. The waiter indicated that we could basically have whatever we wanted even if it was not on the menu. I ordered fettucine alfredo with grilled shrimp even though it was not on the menu and had a great meal. The mahi mahi in a tangerine sauce was quite good. We ordered several meals just picking what we wanted out of several menu offerings and always good exactly what we asked for. The risotto was quite good. We enjoyed several bottles of French, Spanish and Chilean wines all of which were quite drinkable.

The Alamo mexican restaurant for dinner was probably our least favorite but still acceptable. They had a table of various tequilas for shots. We are not "shooters", but I will bet some readers would enjoy that.

For one evening, they moved the Steak restaurant to the beach. It was a little windy, but a delightful meal. We were celebrating a special occasion (had noted that in our reservation) and the staff really went all out with a chocolate cake, serenade by three singers and the most incredible service.

The only problem with dinner on the beach was it was too windy for Mayan coffee. We enjoyed Mayan coffee at three dinners. Hard to describe except to say the flaming brandy gets poured several times and the showmanship was outstanding. Order Mayan coffee with dessert. You will not be disappointed.

We tried the Oreintal restaurant once. It was pretty good. I don't think I could spell what we had. The Oriental restaurant is outside with a nice atmosphere and good food.

Drink service was outstanding all week. I kept wondering while at work today when the nice young lady was going to bring my Drink of the Day. I had only one drink all week that I thought was "weak". When I mentioned this to the waiter, he immediately went and got a shot to freshen it up for me.

It is hard to describe the level of service other than incredible. We have never been so pampered in our lives. We spent about $250 on tips for the week. We tipped $2-4 per day at the room. We always tipped a dollar a round on drinks, $2-3 dollars at buffets or pool meal service and $5-7 at dinner. We also gave $5 to several different people who just seemed to be working hard. Not everyone was tipping, but I could not see any difference in service. Wait staff makes $5 for an 8 hour shift plus tips. Tips are shared with some of the kitchen and bar staff. We also tipped bus drivers and tour guides for the three tours we took.

We took tours to Chichen Itza, Tulum and the zipline tour. The Chichen Itza tour was a very long bus ride for the time we spent at the ruins. Probably would not do that one again. Tulum was a shorter bus ride with a better tour guide. The zipline was OK but not near as good as the one we did last year at Mazatlan. The tours were probably the weakest part of an overall great week.

The beach at Sun Palace was great. Nice white sand with blue water and a pretty strong surf most of the week. Visits with other Palace Resort guests while on the tours suggests Sun Palace has the best beach of the Palace resorts. The beach was much better than what we have experienced in Florida, Texas or Mazatlan.

Occupancy was under 50%. Never had a problem getting good chairs at the pools or on the beach.

We plan to go back next year. The all inclusive was our first experience and was expensive but probably a good value. It was nice not to have to be paying for things all the time (even though we tipped all the time)----took $100 in ones, $100 in fives plus cashed in a $100 bill for 20 and 50 peso notes----exchange rate at the hotel was 12.5 pesos to the dollar.

Probably the best vacation we ever took. Can't wait to get back next year!! Gave it 5 stars because the service was 7 stars. Absolutely incredible!!!

I have been planning this trip for 15 months. I have read all the reviews during this time. The Sun Palace was more than I imagined! We were given room 624 which is at the end of a hall and has spectacular views. It is one of the rooms with a huge balcony. The bed was very comfy and we had everything we needed. Ladies: there is a lighted makeup mirror in the bathroom. Wish I'd known that after dragging my travel makeup mirror all the way to Mexico! I will try to hit some of the points that I haven't seen mentioned here and avoid repeating what has already been written. We really loved the food. Try the soups - they were all outstanding as is the ice cream. They have unique flavors. The Italian restaurant was our favorite. The beef filet was the best I've had and the spinach lasagna was great. They have the best Caesar salad I've ever eaten. The ambiance is outstanding - ask for a table in the front window. The saxaphone player there is good, too. The bananas flambe at the Mexican restaurant is delicious - we had it twice! The trio of singers that perform there and at the outdoor steak restaurant during dinner are great! The steak was our least favorite and we only ate there once. My husband loved the sushi at the Thai and I loved the springrolls. This is a great spot for appetizers and a drink before dinner. The sunsets are incredible and you have a view of the lagoon and the ocean from here. The beach is beautiful and the ocean was so warm. We had one day that was yellow flag. It was very rough the rest of the week. Occupancy is low - 32% when we arrived and 20% when we left! They are expecting 52% for the upcoming week. The workers are bored and very eager to wait on you. There were times when we were the only two people in a bar or restaurant. The only show we saw was the fire show and it was very good. We got to release baby sea turtles and that was a thrill! I also fed the iguanas who live in a rock condo just off the quiet pools. They love bananas. Ask the bartender for one and feed them. It's fun! We took the city bus to Beach Palace for drinks on the roof and to Cancun Palace to eat at their tepanyaki restaurant. We enjoyed the dinner but were glad we were at the Sun and not there! We both used the spa. I had a pedicure, manicure, and a facial. My husband had two back massages and a deep tissue massage. We both thought they were excellent! We spent all of our time at the quiet pools. The pools were never crowded and were just the right temperature for cooling off. The weather was perfect - around 90 each day and windy. The only rain we had was at night and one morning, early. This was our 3rd trip to Cancun and we have really spoiled ourselves! We will be back again someday....

Best Hotel EVER!!!! Perfect place for a honeymoon! Food was AMAZING! Top Shelf alcohol and my husband drank a bottle of wine everynight, he also gained 15 lbs in 10 days because the food was so amazing!!! we can't wait to go back!

This review is a little late......=)
I looked at all the reviews probably ever posted on TA for Sun Palace. And I would have to say that they are pretty accurate.
This trip was for our honeymoon, and we were there August 3 (mon) thru Aug 9 (sun). We booked a concierge room.
This was my first international trip, so I was pretty nervous about the airport. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice (and non scary) the airport was. From the reviews I read, I expected to be hounded by people trying to sell me stuff, or even some one trying to kidnap! me. We got off the plane, went through customs and security in shorter time than expected (from memory it feels like less than 40 min). We had booked a shuttle with Best Day Travel thru Expedia. After we got done with security, we walked out the door and there was our representative who lead us to our shuttle. Sun Palace was the first stop.
From the moment we arrived, we were treated like royalty. As we stepped off the shuttle (and our bags grabbed for us), we were ushered to the front desk, where we were offered champaign and a flower for me. As we booked a concierge room, we were then taken to the 5th floor for our check in(they even pressed the elevator button for us). Throughout our trip, we had 3 concierge, (and I am misspelling these) Rocio, Alexander, Javier. All three of them were excellent! Checking in took a little longer than I would have liked, as I was very excited to explore the hotel. As were were there for our honeymoon, we were offered that special (which included a private dinner and t shirt that says "honeymooners"). During check in, we scheduled our honeymoon dinner, which we opted for the in room dinner, and our concierge dinner, which was a dinner on the beach. You also plan your meal then. These two dinners were the best food and I wish that those choices were available otherwise, even if for a cost. We were also told about all the excursions that we had available for free and some for cost. At the time, we were too overwhelmed to schedule any, and in retrospect, we should have scheduled, as a few days later we wanted to go to Tulum but it was booked.
One of the reasons, I picked this hotel was the picture of the room. And I was not disappointed! We had room 517 with a view of the quiet pools. The room was very spacious and clean. I loved the double sinks. The hot tub was nice, but we only used it once (it took a long time to fill). We used about a quarter of the bubbles and it was very bubbly. We heard very little from neighboring rooms. I loved the shower, great water pressure. One thing I didn't like about the bathroom was there was no exhaust and our toilet seemed to leak water? It wasn't that big of deal, we just put a towel down. We also learned on our first day, do not leave the door to the balcony open! even if for 5 min. The room got very moist! All the counters (which were stone) and the tile floor get very slippery! The bed, which some find too hard, I found very comfortable. Every day when we got back to our room, we had treats. 1 plate of savory and 1 plate of sweet. They were not very good, but I appreciated the thought. We also had a different towel animal everyday. We left a tip everyday, the first day we left $5 and left something every other day. The liquor in room was Jose Cuevro, Bacardi, some whiskey and some vodka. We didn't try to exchange for anything else, as we didn't really use it. We just went down to the bar for drinks. The fridge had some juices, some pop: coke, coke light, 7 up, ginger ale, sprite, and bottle water. The balcony was awesome. I loved the sound (and view) of the ocean. We had one of the double lounges and took a few naps out there. We also got to chose pillows, but I didn't really find them to be that special. I tried the water pillow and the mint and lavender one. One thing I really liked was the aromatherapy pot. Everyday when we came back to our room, the pot had been refilled and was plugged in for us. Any time we needed it refilled, we just called the concierge and they sent some one right away. We only ordered room service once, and it was fast and delicious! The shrimp cocktail was pretty good, and the Palace Club was really good. We didn't really order much of the special black menu as it was just stuff that they had at the restaurants (and we were tired of eating that). As part of the concierge package, we also got a cute little beach bag that I used everyday. They also have a selection of movies that you can borrow.
We didn't do a whole lot while we were there. We mostly were the beach or the quite pool. On our first day, we sat at our concierge area of the beach. The concierge part was the furthest away, and therefore did not have as good waiter service during our stay. The chairs were really nice, and you got extra towels, but they were not as close to the water as the normal chairs, so we didn't really that much either. However, you did get a bucket of ice and a liter bottle of water, which was very nice. The wait staff at the beach was excellent, and we always tipped. We always had plenty of drink at the beach. When you go down to the beach, if there isn't any chairs set up, they get you chairs, a table and an umbrella.
We spent a lot of time at the quite pool, and didn't venture to the activity pool. The water temperature was amazing. We usually got down to the pool by 10ish and grabbed the chairs that sat in the water. (which was an awesome way to spend the day). We had brought books and our ipods, but didn't really need them. It was just nice to hang out. They also have a menu and you can order drinks and lunch at the pool. Be sure to use your sunscreen and apply often! I had a good base tan before I went, however I still got toasty!
The nightly activities were funny. We went to one every night. ..... They weren't the best, however, it was funny how bad they were. You can tell that they try real hard with zero budget, and weren't un-enjoyable. My favorite was the Michael Jackson tribute. The fire show, was actually good. After every show ended, and it was usually around 10, we went down to the pool bar for drinks. Our favorite bartender was Alan! He is awesome and made the best drinks.(Try a bahama mama [not the same as you would order here] and a riviera mayan]
The food. It was ok. Nothing to write home about, and after a week, you would kill for McDonalds. Some one compared it to Applebees, and I wish it was that good. It wasn't bad, however all the food seemed too bland and Americanized. For breakfast and lunch, there was a buffet. There was plenty of choices, so you could always find something to eat. The best for lunch, was probably at the activity pool. (Try the strawberry icecream!)
The dinner menus had an ok choice, however I don't eat beef, and got tired of the same chicken choice every night. My husband got tired of the same steak every night. The best dinners were the honeymoon and concierge dinner, as they had choices that we didn't see anywhere else. The crab bisque was AMAZING! It seemed the appetizers were better than the main courses. The oriental lounge was my favorite, and we went there for the spring rolls! A must try.
We did do 2 excursions. We went to Wet N Wild for the dolphin swim as it was buy one get one. It was ok, but at the end we kinda wished we hadn't wasted a whole day there. The food sucked, and the water park wasn't much. We also did the tour of Isla Mujeres. While we were there, we paid for the tour of the island. It was only $35 each and lasted the whole time we were there. I would recommend this trip. You go on a boat and they take you all around the island. The boat staff was funny and they did a titanic skit. (A mexian man, with a dress and wig played Rose, hilarious.) The offered beer and pop and lots of tequila. The boat ride was fun, you see lots of cool and pretty things. We stopped at an outdoor aquarium thing, where there were dolphins, sharks and sea lion show. We also got to go into the town for shopping.....be careful there. They all want to sell you something, and get kind of aggressive.
Overall, we were very happy with the Sun Palace. The staff was amazing. The room, beach and pool were awesome. And you can deal with the food. We hope to return soon.