Playa del Carmen

Our friends Faye and Fred recommended the Iberostar Tucan Resort as an alternative to the large Cancun and Cozumel resorts. It was a great recommendation. The coastal area of the Yucatan peninsula south of Cancun and across the strait from Cozumel island, known as the Mayan Riviera, is home to several small towns and dozens of relatively small resort hotels. The Tucan is within walking distance of the town of Playa del Carmen. Iberostar is a Spanish resort chain, so the hotel drew a fair number of Europeans. We visited in December 2002.

The Tucan is twin sister of the Quetzal, each with an entrance like the one above. The two sit back to back on 26 acres sharing the same restaurants, the gardens and pools between them, and the common beach. Much of the public area had thatched roofs, which were just adequate as the rainy season persisted weeks after it should have ended.

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The bulk of the land between the hotel buildings was natural and stocked with a variety of birds and reptiles.

There were also a large number of free flying birds, like this oriole.

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There are several Mayan ruins near Playa del Carmen. These pictures are from Coba, where only a small fraction of the structures have been cleared of jungle.

After a pleasant day at Coba, the rain caught up with us at Tulum and we got soaked.

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Dining is an important part of an all inclusive resort, and our plan included 3 dinners at any of the 4 restaurants. We chose the Mexican, Italian and Caribbean seafood, leaving the steak house to others. The other meals were at the buffets - hotel, beach-side or pool-side. We were impressed with the food quality and variety at the buffets, so much that we were disappointed that the restaurants were not that much better. The wine selection was dismal.

This page was created by pjmoyer and sbottorff.
The last update to the page was on February 19, 2003

Playa del Carmen,

Quintana Roo,

(Yucatan Peninsula)

Mexico