Because we got such a good deal, I honestly left with minimal expectations; however I was pleasantly surprised with many of the negative reviews that some other people have posted.

In theory, this hotel is no way close to a 4.5 star or to a 5 star resort...If you think you are going to book a cheap vacation, and find a 5 star resort..this isnt possible in Mexico. If you are crazy enough to rate this hotel a 3 star or 3.5, I think you are seriously delusional.

To the review...As it says in my header, take it from someone who has travelled to most caribeean resorts and has experienced the best...and the worst...Barcelo Tucancun ranks as one of my favorite vacations (despite the cold weather and rain...which is not the hotel's fault)

Beach: If you are a beach bum, who spends 8 hours a day solely on the beach...you may be somewhat dissapointed due to the 6 foot waves and the 8 feet of sand before the seawall. Beachlovers...look elsewhere...

Pools: Pools are great, all are well located and you can be at the pool with a drink in your hand within 2 minutes...depending on where your room is. From what I noticed, you can walk accross the entire resort in 3 minutes. Pools were clean and Chilly, my one complaint was that the pools werent heated despite their size

Rooms: Clean, great, shower was fine..read a lot of negative comments regarding pressure and temperature....everything was fine on my end. Got a great room in the villas, with an ocean view (and we paid for garden view)

Service: Fantastic...the mexicans are great, especially when you greet them like a civilized human being, smile and say hello. If you have already booked your trip, this is the most important piece of advice I can give you....

BE NICE, BE PATIENT, SMILE AND TIP..AND SAY THANK YOU OR GRACIAS...The service we had at the bars, restaurants, and with the waitresses were phenomenal and I honestly think it was because of our attitude towards them.

So many times, I saw so many ignorant and rude people yelling at the staff and bartenders. They approach the bars with their 1 pint thermos and they yell "Cerveza!!"..no please no thank you. If I were the bartenders I would have spat in their drink

Food: Good..not a huge amount of variety, but I rarely ate something I didnt like. If you like Mexican or spanish food..then you will have a good week. If you don't like Mexican food at all....move on, book elsewhere. The food did become a little repetitive, but I really thinkg it depends on your personal taste.

Location: Couldn't be better located...smack in the middle strip, 8 USD away from the clubs and you are facing a massive mall...which could suck, depending on where your room is.

All in all I would recommend this hotel highly if you are going away with your single friends or with your spouse. It is fun, clean, friendly and a great value. I wouldnt spend over 1100 USD for a week...however if you get a deal..BOOK Immediately!

We stayed at the Barcelo Tucancun during the 1st week of February.

We were 2 couples, late 20s/early 30s. I've stayed in all-inclusives in Varadero (twice), Camaguey, Puerto Plata, and Cancun (twice).

The Barcelo Tucancun overall is a great value hotel, but the biggest flaw is the lack of beach surface. After the hurricanes, almost all the hotels in Cancun have very little beach left, but the Barcelo in particular is lacking. (see 'Beach' for more details)

*ROOMS*:
Unless you pay for an upgrade (starting at $15 USD), a standard room is always facing the back of the mall. The worst standard rooms are the ones that are next to elevators....ours shared the same wall as the elevator, so we could distinctly hear the elevators sliding up and down, and the constant 'ping' of the bell. Also, the corner rooms don't have a balcony or even windows that open fully.

Our king bed was comfortable, but our friends' double beds were terribly misshapen..there were 'craters' in them.

There is a free minibar in every room, with beer/water/soft drinks/snacks that are replenished every day.

There is a safe in the room, but you have to pay extra if you want to use it.

There are free amenities in the room, like a coffee machine, liquid soap, shampoo, and conditioner.

*BEACH*:
There is very little beach left at the Barcelo. At high tide, the water washes right up to the retaining wall. At low tide, you can put a chair against the wall, but you must watch your bag because sometimes the water reaches your chair anyway.

If you sit on the beach there are no parasols, beach huts, or trees for shade. The beach in Cancun is almost always red flag (very windy, large waves).

If you're a pool person, the view is breathtaking. But if you're a beach person, you might be disappointed.

Due to the erosion, the Cancun beach isn't great for walking/running along the beach. It is very long, but the sand is at a steep, awkward angle.

*FOOD*:
The food at the buffet and at the beach grill were quite good every night. There was a good variety of fresh food every day. Food was hot enough (usually a problem at buffets), and there was a microwave available in case you wanted it.

Service in the restaurants was great, REGARDLESS OF TIPS! Of course they always appreciate it if you tip, but the service did not change if you didn't tip. I've never been to a hotel where that was the case, and it was nice not to feel pressured.

There are some great outdoor terraces where you can eat facing the ocean. It's often too windy to eat outside, but it's a great place to sit and have a drink.

What's nice about the Barcelo is that there is a late night snack bar that opens after the buffet closes. It's a great feature if you go out, because it's open until 4am.


*BARS*:
Again, the service was great whether or not you tipped. You will probably have to wait in line at the pool bars, but the bartenders are quick.

The lobby bar has a TV playing sports. Once it gets dark it is the place to be, but the fact that people are allowed to smoke there is a big deterrent.

Drinks were a bit weak, but they were actual blended, slushy drinks (as opposed to just alcohol + mixer). The mixes were not horribly artificial ones, they actually tasted great.


*SHOWS*:
The shows were almost all dance shows. The dancers are good, but by the 3rd night it was pretty boring since the choreography is similar in every show, they just have different costumes on.

The female dancers often wore thongs and sometimes had bare breasts with tassles on! Not the best if you have kids at the show.

*POOLS*:
For entertainment, there are activities like water aerobics and water volleyball at pool 3. That is the only pool that has music and a swim up bar, so it's the 'party' pool.

The other pools are nice and clean, and there is a great pool with beds in the water.

There wasn't enough beach chairs available at the pool, probably because very few people sat on the beach.

*THE MALL*:
It's great to have the mall literally across the street in case you need anything, and for those rainy days. There is a bowling alley and a casino in addition to the shops. The prices are slightly high American standard prices, so don't expect cheap Mexican prices.

*TOURIST DISTRIBUTION*:
During the week that we were there, there were approximately:

30% Canadians
30% French-Canadians
30% Americans
10% European and Other

It was a fairly young hotel, with the average age around 20-40s.

*OTHER*:
The hotel goes overboard with air conditioning. We were often freezing in the restaurants and theater, to the point where we would have to go outside to warm up, or not finish the show because of the cold.


CONCLUSION:
All in all, the Barcelo Tucancun is a great value hotel. It's well located and it a short bus ride from the Cancun nightlife. I would say that it's a 4-star hotel.

*SPECIAL NOTE*:
The hotel was overbooked, so they offered a free upgrade to the 5-star Barcelo Maya in Riviera Maya. We were wary that there might be a catch, but in the end, there was no catch, no meetings, no sales efforts, etc. Transfers and airport transfer was taken care of for us.

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.