Upon our arrival at this hotel our first thoughts were Wow, this place is beautiful! Within in ten minutes we had our first problem at the front desk. They did not have our third person in our room, this was quickly fixed by the front desk agent. Service the first night in the buffet restaurant was good but after that you pretty much had to stand on your table to get them to bring you a glass of water. The food at the buffet is tasty but everynight seemed to be the same thing. BORING!! Although, the a la carte restaurants had excellent food and service. We asked for a cot in one of our rooms three times and still did not get it. This room also had black mold and holes on the ceiling and the air conditioner was leaking. The musty smell in the room was terrible, this room also had toilet problems, but both times this was looked after quickly. I would not recommend this hotel to any of my friends or family just on the plain fact that the service is terrible. It just looks good on the outside.

There was 8 of us total, 4 couples.
Our rooms were some what close. When we booked we asked for ocean view, king beds and balconies. None of us got either. Check in is at 3pm and they do make you wait until then. We ended up with room 4033, lagoon view and 2 standard beds. I don't think they were queen size. The mattresses were very used. You could tell where people had slept before as there were indents in the mattress. Some of the others in our group said their beds were really comfy with a pillow top. Our view was of the lagoon but good thing we were on the 4th floor so we could look over the mall. Some asked what it would cost to upgrade to at least have a balcony. I believe they were told $39 extra a night. The maid service was good. We did leave $2 a day though. We had clothes laying out and she folded them. We had shoes out and she lined them up under the window. Towards the end of the stay the maid broke a small marble top table in our room and we think she tried playing it off to the supervisors as we did. They kept asking us what happened but we were at the pool all day so it had to have been her. We were worried about being charged for this but in the end we were not. The mini bar is nice. Bottled water, soda's, beer, chocolate wafer bar & peanuts restocked every day. You do have to pay for the room safe. I believe it came out to be around $2 a day but we thought it was well worth it to put jewelry, money or passports in. We did not find the water pressure to be bad. They do have 2 options on the shower had for pressure (massage=light or spray=hard).
We found the front desk friendly enough. We were not approached by the vacation membership people at all throughout the whole trip. The exchange rate was not as good at the hotel as we found downtown. When we were there it was $12 Peso to 1 USD, at La Isla mall it was $13.40 Peso to 1 USD. The bus is the best way to go. It's very safe and the drivers we found were very helpful. Even some of the locals on the bus were nice with giving directions or letting us know when to get off. It ended up being around 50cents USD a person to ride the bus. They will take US dollars but not US coins.
We were only at pool 3/activity pool. The activity staff is great. We really enjoyed Vanessa & Marianna. The water aerobics is a great workout (my arms were hurting the next day). They also played pool volleyball, pool basketball, bingo, movie & tv trivia. They do give out prizes also. We never found scum on top of the pools. I saw the pool maintenance guys out there at least twice a day. We liked their pool towels, very nice size and heavy. It seems like they do allow topless bathing as there was one lady there. The ocean was red flagged the whole time but they still allow you to go in it. There is a lifeguard on duty and they do whistle if you get out too far.
We thought the bar staff was great (Antonio was the best!!). We did tip so not sure if that makes a difference. We thought the drinks to be strong at times and they kept our glasses full. They do not allow smoking, only outside, but if it happens to be raining they do allow smoking in the lobby bar. They have a pool table which was 20pesos.
The nightly entertainment in the theatre was good. They have a Caribbean Night, Cabaret Night, Retro Night, Karaoke Night and I think there are more but I can't remember.
As for the food, overall it was decent. We ate at the Mexican Restaurant and the Seafood Restaurant. I think the Mexican was the best or at least their desserts were the best (Churros are the way to go!!). The Seafood was good too. I ordered the Shrimp Steak, thinking it was Shrimp and steak, that was not the case. It's shrimp in the shape of a steak, very good though. We had the buffet for every breakfast. You could get eggs made to order and pancakes. Make sure to ask for your eggs extra done, they tend to make them runny even when it's an omelete, so I ordered scrambled most of the time. They have an array of fruit, some form of potatoes (hashbrowns with or without carrots) and meat (bacon, sausage links or ham). They also have bread (white & wheat) for toast. Their milk is not like US milk. It was a lot thicker. I tried it but couldn't stand it, so skipped that for the rest of the week. You have to wait to be seated for the buffet they get very upset if you seat yourself. They do not allow you to take food out of the buffet either. We tried taking some bananas out but were told that's a no-no (there is a sign but it's behind the door, so who would read it?). The lunch buffet was decent too. They have hamburgers, cheese burgers & hot dogs. They have stuff to make a salad though too. Sometimes there were items on there from the buffet the night before. The dinner buffets were decent. Every night was a different theme. At least the good thing about buffet and all inclusive is if you don't like it you don't have to eat it.
All in all I would go back to the Barcelo.

My husband and I just returned from a stay at the Barcelo Tucancun Jan 21-28 2009. We got a really cheap deal - $775 each plus tax for the whole week - which was really like paying airfare only and staying at the resort for free. Given that, I can't really complain. The staff are very friendly, and the rooms kept clean. It is nowhere near as nice as the Barcelo Maya on the Mayan Riviera, where we stayed last year. If you can afford it, go there instead. The Tucancun isn't really a 4 star, more a 3.

What was good:
-friendly staff
-convenient location, close to busses and within walking distance of shopping
-clean rooms

What wasn't so good:
-unless you want to pay extra per night (15-50USD), you'll end up with a standard room looking at the shopping mall directly behind the hotel
-the food was pretty lousy- I was surprised at the quality and lack of variety of the food, especially having just stayed at another Barcelo last year. For breakfast, I'd recommend eating at Don Quixote's rather than the main buffet as the food seemed fresher and the ambience was nicer.

We stayed at the Barcelo Tucancun from Jan 3 to 17th 2009.

The food was fantastic at the a la cartes as well as the buffet, but the drinks left something to be desired. You may be able to get a certain drink at one of the bars and not at the next one and they were very weak. Very limited drink selection that is included.

Entertainment each evening was very good and the entertainment team at pool 3 was good.
One of the main pools where the stationary beds are had visible scum floating on it each day as though it wasn't filtered properly.

Our towels were picked up the first day by hotel staff ($25.00 charge if you don't return your towel) and I had to make several trips to the front desk before this rectified.

Our room was adequate and the maid service was very good but we did tip each day. Service is very dependent on tips.

Across from the buffet is an office and the staff there approach you immediately inviting you to enjoy a meal at one their other resorts so that you can see if you would like stay there on a another vacation. They are very deceptive and they are really trying to sell "vacation club memberships" which translates to time share. they assure you even when asked that is not the case but when they get you to the other property tha's exactly what it is. They wanted us to sit through an extensive sales meeting which we told them in no uncertain terms we were not doing at which point we were politely shown the door with no ride back to our hotel.
It is due to this waste of my precious vacation time, that we found sneaky and dishonest that I would not only not stay here again but would not recommend this hotel to friends.

There are all inclusive resorts that do invite you to their other properties to enjoy a meal and drinks and that's all it is an invitation to be familiar with another property you may wish to book in the future.