I have to say that we were a bit hesitant to arrive at the Azul Hotel after reading many of the reviews especially the more recent ones. We booked the resort because we were traveling with a group of 8 adults and a 2 year old and wanted a good, family friendly all-inclusive hotel as well as one that was close to the airport.

We were all in a quiet area of the hotel, as requested, and our rooms were in the same villa which was great. The standard rooms were clean and simple and able to fit a pack&play for our daughter to sleep in - they were definitely not plush but how much time do you spend in your room on vacation anyway? All said the rooms were totally satisfactory.

We were the most impressed with the service throughout the hotel. This staff aims to please, weather you are in one of the restaurants or bars, on the beach in a beach bed, or ordering room service. We especially liked the beach butlers who knew our names within a day or so and tended to our every need, weather it was bringing chocolate milk and sand toys for our daughter or a drink and snack to enjoy on the beach.

We have all vacationed at Four Seasons & Ritz Carltons before, and can honestly say that the service at Azul was parallel to what we experienced there. And for an all-inclusive hotel, the food was solid - we had meals that were so-so, and ones that were excellent. But overall, no real complaints.

For a 100-room boutique hotel, this place is surely a gem. It never felt crowded, we always got a beach bed to lounge on all day, never waited at restaurants with a party of 8, and had every amenity we could have asked for at our disposal. And our daughter LOVED the playground right in the sand. We will definitely be back in the years to come.

We have just returned from a 6 day, 5 night stay at Azul Beach Hotel and I will tell you that the place was very, very nice. Most of the positive comments that I have read about in the 200+ previous reviews of Azul Beach were 100% true. And most of the previous negative comments were false, some categorically. Take that as you will. I think it is important to remember that for every 1 reported negative comment, there are 10 positives that are never posted to this site, that's common marketing statistics that have been proven academically.

As for the trip, our family of three's (myself, wife and 15 month old son) flight left STL on USA3000 Airlines without any problems. Upon arrival at the Cancun Airport, moving through customs was straightforward. If you're traveling as a family, just know that everyone goes to "the button" at the same time (the button meaning the red/green light search your bags button). Walking out through the airport was surreal, there were at least 30 people, all dressed alike, that asked about where you were going and how you were getting there. Everyone, including the flight attendants, told us about these scum and that you needed to avoid them at all costs. We did and made our way out to where the transportation folks were. We used Lomas Travel and paid extra for direct transportation (they take you to your hotel first). I strongly suggest that you do this. There was a long line of people waiting and we jumped to the front, onto a van and were on our way. I can't stress enough how nice it was only taking a 15 minute ride, whereas the others in the van had to go to our hotel, and then to another and another, potentially taking them over an hour to get to their resort. I tipped him $10 for 3 pax and 5 bags.

Arrival at Azul was amazing. Their check-in area is stunning, open-air, grass roofed space that allows the sea breeze to blow through welcoming you to paradise. We were promptly greeted with champagne, strawberries, a Kinder Egg for the baby and cool, lavender scented towels. Even though our arrival was at about 1130A, they had the room ready for us. The bellboy took our luggage up to the room which was in Villa 5 overlooking the Aquinox Bar, with a small view of the Caribbean. I tipped him $1/bag. The room was nice, small, with a king sized bed, small eating table, tiled floor, small refrigerator, at least 30" flat screen TV with DVD player and coffee maker. We asked for a crib for the toddler and they brought up a pack-n-play almost immediately, and made it up complete with a little pillow.

Generally we spent our days, bouncing between the pool, the bar and the beach. A few notes about the beach, especially the cabanas. We did not have any problems getting a cabana...however, the reviews on this site are correct, you need to get there early in the morning, I mean like "watch the sun rise" early. If you are out there at 7AM, plan on getting a lounge chair under a palm tree. In some cases that is frustrating, but you have to understand that they only have a limited number of cabanas. So, don't drink yourself out all night and get up early to get a cabana. The cabana's were awesome for our toddler, he was able to sit and read books, play with toys and most importantly, take naps on the beach, in the shade. I can't tell you how awesome it was for us to relax on the beach with him napping away. This was the best part of the trip hands down. We ended up with a rested and happy baby and also got to relax ourselves in the privacy and shade of the cabanas while on the beach. Amazing folks.

One more thing about the cabanas. Azul Beach employees were doing some funny business around the time that I got to the cabana (about 6AM each day). They would take a book and a towel (from their beach hut) and place it on a cabana. This would make it "look" like the cabana was taken and discouraging others from getting it. Some of these would go unclaimed for at least 2 hours. Although I never witnessed it, I think if you tipped the Beach Butlers they would take you to a cabana and remove the book and towel that they placed on there and you would get that cabana. It's a pretty shady move, and on our first day that really frustrated me. Lessoned learned: if you get down to the cabanas and there is a towel folded with a thick book placed on top, remove it, take it back to the Beach Butler hut and the cabana is yours...free. I had to do this once, with no problems.

Just a few words about the grounds. They were very well maintained, very clean, even with everyone drinking bottled water (i.e. no trash). The beach was swept every night and the seaweed cleaned up 2x per day. They came around 7A and put fleece covers on all the cabanas and Beach Butler service began at 630A. The Butlers were very, very good. Especially Alex and Heidi. Alex talked to us all the time and was enchanted with our son (he also has kids, one who is 6 months). He even sat down and read a book to our boy. Heidi too was nice, they both went out of the way to keep sun off of him while in the cabana. They put towels over the top of the cabana to prevent sun sneaking through. Throughout the day, as has been talked about in other reviews, they brought water, lavender towels, appetizers, juice (watermelon juice one day) and beach towels. They were fantastic, we tipped each $5, which I think wasn't enough in retrospect.

As for the food. The three sit down restaurants were Blue (international food), Chil (Mexican) and Tainan (Asian). There was an energy bar (La Mancha), that had fresh fruit, ice cream and smoothies. Lessoned Learned: although not directly advertised, you could order nachos, pizza, hamburgers and sandwiches at this restaurant. We didn't find this out until 2 days in. The food was good at La Mancha and was perfect for late day snacks (the other restaurants didn't open until 630P, so getting the toddler some food was essential). For whatever reason, we never ate at Chil. It was away from where we were and after looking at the menu twice, we just didn't see anything that appealed to us. Some others that we talked to said it was the best restaurant on the resort. Hmm…maybe next time. Blue Restaurant, the International fare, was OK. They had a breakfast buffet each morning that was very expansive and generally pretty good. I thought that they had a great selection of normal American food (pancakes, French toast, potatoes, oatmeal, toast, eggs, etc.) They also had a person who could make omelets. As was reported earlier, the eggs were a little runny, I never had any of them. I think the problem was that they used too much milk in them. For lunch, we only ate at Blue once and it was so-so. Normally we did their "special lunch" which Thursday was Beach BBQ, Friday was Fresh Fish Cookout, and Sunday was the Picnic Lunch on the beach. The latter was very, very good, although it came out at 130P. I would suggest doing it though.

For dinners, we ate at Blue two of the nights. Based on a Trip Advisor review, I had the Mahi-Mahi. It was overcooked and dry. My wife had a lobster dish, which she said was good. The baby had pizza and gobbled it up. The second night there, I had filet mignon, and it was a little overcooked and the wife had lobster raviolis, which she said were good, but they only brought two. That's another thing about Azul, the dinners really are gourmet, from the ingredients down to the portion size. So, as a lessoned learned, don't feel afraid to order multiple entrees. The presentation of the food was amazing, each dish looked like a work of art.

The other three nights (yes 3!) we went to Tainan, the Asian restaurant. It honestly was some of the best Asian (more Japanese than Chinese) food that I have ever had. Especially the Angus steak teriyaki, man it was fantastic. They had a full sushi bar, to which my wife said was excellent. Also, and most importantly about Tainan, was the wait staff. One person in particular, Pamela, was amazing. She gave so much attention to our son, kissing him, playing peak-a-boo, etc. She was amazing. Also, Adrinna and Gilberto were very good. Giberto especially because he has the understanding of eating with a toddler; get him food fast, and he did. We were very impressed with Tainan and really liked everything we tried, including the banana and vanilla ice cream tempura.

The nightly activities were good. Brazilian dancing one night, Cirque de Soleil another, casino night and finally karaoke. Where our room was was kinda of noisy, but what can you say, it was right next to the bar area. It did die down around 11 each night. Our son had no problem sleeping with the noise. It was nice to being next to the bar, since we brought our baby monitor and we were able to go enjoy the shows, while he slept in the room because we were in range.

Other than that, the only issue that we had was that I had surprised my wife with a moonlight massage on the beach for our last night, however when the time came, they had lost the reservation and sent the massage tech home. I was very, very upset. They compensated us with a bottle of champagne (not the free stuff, but the kind you could buy. I think it was Donmaine St. Michelle, so it wasn't the best, but not the worst either) and chocolate covered strawberries. It was a nice gesture, but of course what could they have done? Call her back to the resort? She probably doesn't have a phone. So that was a bummer, Lessoned Learned: always confirm your massages. Doh!

There are a few other concerns that other Trip Advisor people have complained about that I want to address. First are the ants/bugs. We saw one bug in our room, which I terminated. And a small number of ants (only because we left our son's food mat out and un-cleaned, dumb!). Once that was fixed, there were no further ant/bug problems. There was no problem with our A/C, and in fact, someone we talked to said that theirs had broke and within minutes of calling, two technicians were there, working on it and chipping away ice from the condenser. The other concern someone wrote about was them losing your reservation, and sending you to their other resort. Didn't see that happen, in fact this time of year (after Easter) is the low season, so the hotel was only about 60% full. Also, there were complaints about the wedding parties "taking over" the resort. They had two weddings (Sat. & Sun.) during our stay. The first had about 45 people (or 25ish rooms out of 97), so yes, there were a lot of them. I don't think that they took over the resort. They were everywhere, but hey, it's a small place. Most of the time, they wedding people were behaved. We heard stories that security had to escort a few to their rooms late, late one night. Finally...the nude beach. Someone wrote that it was a quarter mile, it's more like 200 yards. You can make out that they are naked, but they stayed at their beach and we stayed at ours. And from what I could see, it wasn't the fantasyland that all you guys reading this may think it is....lots of old man butts. Finally, someone posted about how they get you for an hour to talk about timeshares or VIP club at the concierge’s desk…just don’t do it. We didn’t.

We really enjoyed our stay at Azul Beach; by the end of the trip most of the employees we saw consistently knew us by first name. Most spoke English, and well. They were very good at explaining anything and would encourage you to speak Spanish if you knew just a little (so brush up on your Espanol). We went to Sandals Royal Bohemian for our honeymoon in 2003, this place was much better: food, beach and amenities-wise. I encourage all of you to consider Azul Beach for your stay; I think you'll find that it is a nice relaxing and enjoyable resort. Thanks for reading.

We have just returned from our wedding on the beach and had an incredibly beautiful wedding. I had some hesitations in booking a wedding in a place I had never been to, but being able to read all the wonderful reviews about the Azul made it an easy choice.

When we arrived we received a very warm and friendly welcome. My family had arrived before we did and were in love with the resort and service they had received as they were at a different resort for a week before meeting up at the Azul. They thought they had died and gone to heaven!

If you are planning on booking a romantic wedding and want things to run smoothly - this is the place to go!! Our wedding co-ordinators Carolina and Gilberto made sure everything was in place and ran smoothly. I had always been warned to expect hiccups on your wedding day, but I can honestly say the event went even better than I imagined! The details from co-ordinating our music, to the flowers, to the photographer, right down to the judge - exceeded our expectations! They make sure to section off the beach so that uninvited guests cannot interrupt your ceremony. The beach area that we got married on was carefully smoothed over with a rake so it looked pristine. The taped event (DVD) turned out beautifully and was well worth the money paid as we will now show our wedding at our reception we will hold back home for those that couldn't attend.

The staff at the Azul are very accommodating and will take very good care of you. The beach butlers are very friendly and make you feel like royalty.

The beach is stunning - we found this out the hard way. We had booked our honeymoon at a different hotel as the Azul was booked for the second week and when we got to our next hotel we were disappointed in the beach as it looked like it had beached whales along the waterfront.

If you can afford a private function for your reception dinner, this is the way to go. However we went with the included reservations in the restaurant and had to share tables with other diners. We thought we would be able to have the restaurant to ourselves as it is advertised that the restaurant holds up to 25 people - and our wedding guests including ourselves totalled 21 so we figured we would have the restaurant to ourselves. The restaurant held closer to 60 people so our reception dinner was shared with others. This was the only minor disappointment of the entire day.

Our photographer for our cermony was named Goran and is apparantly the owner of the wedding photography company for Karisma Hotels. We didn't set our expectations high for the photography, but were pleasantly surprised by our photos! They turned out beautifully!

I can't say enough great things about our wedding and our holiday at the Azul. We really didn't want to leave when it was time to go home! We hope to go back for a honeymoon!

We had a large group that stayed at the Azul in Feb of 2007 for 7 days. We first waited from 10 in the morning to 7 at night before most of us were able to get into our rooms. They never were able to give us a second key however I guess we were lucky because people that checked in near the end of our stay were unable to get a key at all and their children were climbing the balconies to get into their rooms. Their key machine was broke. We loved the restaurant at noon time and could order pizzas, burgers and nachos but the other restaurants were too gourmet and we longed to be able to order a regular meal. Servings were very small and if you are expecting alot from their lobster menu they advertise you will be disappointed. We often were unable to even see the lobster meat. The rooms were very small
and flooded with the rain if you were on the ground floor or took too long of a shower. The toilets plugged on a regular basis.

On the positive side their staff were great. The beach butlers were wonderful and so were the bartenders.