We just returned from a lovely trip to Mexico! We stayed at the Margaritaville Island Reserve Riviera Cancun Resort. Here’s everything you need to know before deciding to book here or before you go!

1. The resort is small. At first, it seems overwhelming trying to figure out where everything is located, but all of the restaurants are actually VERY close together. If you don’t want to walk a lot on vacation, ask for a room near the Beach House restaurant or close to the lobby, and you will be in the center of it all.

2. The resort is exclusively all-inclusive, so you don’t have to worry about any food cost or carrying money. We did bring a lot of small bills for tips. The staff appreciates any tips, and US dollars were fine. We tipped anywhere from $1-$10 depending on how much the server had to do. You never have to sign anything since every guest has the all-inclusive package here. We’ve stayed at resorts and cruises where you have to sign at the end of meals, but not here. You get a bracelet which acts as your room key and allows you to use your points that come with your stay in their shop. It’s very convenient.

3. The food overall was just average. We have eaten at many Margaritaville brand restaurants in the US, so we had much higher expectations of how the food would be. It took us 3 days before we actually had a hot meal. If you want delicious, hot food eat dinner at one of the 2 restaurants—Frank & Lola’s or Latino or eat lunch at Rita’s Taco House. Avoid room service or the Beach House.

There are only 4 restaurants on site, and they’re not all open at the same time. We did have some very delicious food, but otherwise it was consistently average. Here are the details of each restaurant:

Restaurant #1- The Beach House. It is open every day for breakfast, lunch, and some days for dinner, but the food is very unimpressive. The views are beautiful though, since it does overlook the beach. If you’ve been on a cruise, the Beach House is the “cruise buffet”. They do have theme nights and some entertainment. It’s easy to get a table, and no reservations are needed. The Asian night main dishes were particularly bad. They have some resident raccoons who made frequent appearances, which were adorable, but made me a little leery of cleanliness. 🤦‍♀️

Restaurant #2: Rita’s Taco House. They actually had VERY good food. We shared a nacho tower and a taco sampler that were all delicious. The downside to this spot is it’s only open from noon to 5:00. This restaurant is very small, and no one else was there but us. It also overlooks the ocean.

Restaurant # 3: Frank & Lola’s Italian Restaurant

The food was hot and delicious here! It’s only open for dinner 5:30-10 pm. It’s closed on Wednesdays. They say you need reservations, but we never made any and walked right in without a wait.

Restaurant #4: Latino

This restaurant wasn’t marked well, but is right next to Frank & Lola’s. Again, they said you need reservations, but we ate there twice without them. The food was very good here. There’s a lot of sea food options and South American dishes. Like Frank & Lola’s, it’s only open for dinner only 5:30-10 pm. It’s closed on Mondays and Thursdays.

Other food:

Room Service is available 24/7. You can only order on the app, which actually makes it very convenient. There’s no charge for the food or the delivery. The menu changes 3 times throughout the day—breakfast, lunch/dinner, and late night snacks. The food is convenient, but never very hot. You can order as much as you want. They were always relatively fast. We used this a lot for breakfast. The avocado toast was amazing!

Joe Merchants Coffee and Provisions

This is a unique mini-mart store open 8 am to 9 pm. They had coffee, pastries, and sandwiches which were part of the free, all-inclusive menu. The coffee was delicious. I had a Mexican Mocha made with abuelita chocolate. We also kept the to-go, wrapped sandwiches on hand in our fridge for snacks. They were very good!

They also give you free points to spend in the store depending on the length of your stay. We received 19,000 points for 6 nights to stock our mini fridge in the room. A can of Coke Zero is 360 points. They had mini bags of chips and various candies for 240 points each. In other words, 19,000 points can get you 79 mini bags of chips!

On Saturdays, they have a Mexican Fiesta buffet on the beach. The ambiance was very cool, but the pork was not thoroughly cooked, and none of the food was labeled. For someone like me with food allergies, it was too scary to take chances. There was also a ton of seaweed, so the smell was not good. There were also sand fleas, and our legs were covered with bites after the meal. They have a dinner show too, but we left before the show because the smell and the bugs became overwhelming.

Blended– there is a smoothie bar that’s open 7 am to noon each day. The smoothies are small, fresh, and free. Note that these are not a thick, creamy smoothie like we get in the US. They were very thin and watery, but still a nice feature – especially because they had ones with protein powder added in them.

Cheeseburger in Paradise lunch buffet- this was on the beach and was VERY good. This was also the ONLY time we had hot French fries on the trip. This only happens once a week for lunch.

4. Rooms

Our room was amazing. We had inquired about a room upgrade prior to arriving. We only ASKED how much it would cost, only to have them tell us we owed an additional $840 at check in for an upgrade. When we complained that we only ASKED how much it would be, they offered to make the upgrade a much bigger room (Presidential Suite) AND the swim out room we had originally asked about for the same $840 (or an extra $140 a night). The presidential suite was very large, and it was very nice having the pool come right up to our room. It was extra beautiful at night. I loved having my own private place poolside to read a book. I don’t think the swim out was actually worth the money we spent though. I loved it, but not $840 worth. If I had to do it again, I would have refused the upgrades. It also felt a little scammy that we just asked how much it would cost, and they just charged us for it. Also, the last day of our stay we had some noisy neighbors swimming, and they were swimming right outside of our room. 🤦‍♀️

Our suite had a VERY large jacuzzi tub and a separate rainfall shower. It also provided 2 TVs with plenty of English language programming, a king bed, a couch, a table, reading lights, lots of places to charge phones, very efficient air conditioning, plenty of storage, a digital safe, an espresso machine, a mini fridge, his and her sinks, two robes and an umbrella. The cleaning staff was very efficient and did a great job keeping our room clean and stocked with bottled water, coffee, bubble bath, bath salts, etc. You can also conveniently request any housekeeping services or items right on their app.

5. The property

This resort has absolutely beautiful grounds which are very well kept. Being a small resort, it was very quiet, and many times, we would feel like the only people at the resort. There were hammocks, hanging beds, swings, and all kinds of relaxing and comfortable seating throughout the property. There was always seating available wherever we went. I was able to easily take these pictures with no people in them.

6. Entertainment

The resort offered some activities. Our favorite was the live music. We had a lot of fun singing along. The live music tended to be VERY short from what we’re used to – about one hour only, and they only had live music 3 times during our week stay. We go to Hollywood Beach, Florida often. They have a Margaritaville bandshell there with nightly live music. The music in Mexico was NOTHING close to the quality of the US Margaritaville bands. The Mexico resort had very low-budget and short shows, but we still enjoyed them!

We also enjoyed the salsa-making class AND the salsa dancing lessons. Many events during our stay were canceled due to rain or an unknown reason. The events are listed in the app. You can select ones you’re interested in, and the app sends you a reminder 15 minutes before.

In general, the activities seemed to be a lot less than other resorts we’ve been to. Maybe it was due to the amount of rain we had?

7. The beach was much smaller than other resorts we’ve stayed at. The seaweed was also a problem as it smelled and was so thick that we didn’t want to walk through it. There were parts of the beach that had a mountain of seaweed. The ocean and the sound of the waves were still beautiful.

8. Airport Transportation– I’m not sure if it was Expedia or Mexico Travel Solutions (MTS) that messed up, but our transfers from the airport were a mess. I booked them with the trip as part of a package on Expedia, but after waiting for 40 minutes at the airport for our shuttle, they took us to the wrong Margaritaville. They acted like it was a HUGE ordeal only to find out our resort was less than 10 minutes away on the driver’s way back. We thought we had it corrected after that, but they tried to pick us up at the wrong Margaritaville again on the way home. We were supposed to be ready 15 minutes early for an 8:55 am pick up (8:40), but they didn’t arrive until 9:30 am, so we waited a total of 50 minutes for our pick up. The bellman at our resort was wonderful and so helpful through all of this, calling the other resort and MTS for us. He did say MTS was frequently late.

So, I would recommend double checking your transfers. The 2 resorts are so close in names:

Margaritaville Island Reserve Riviera Maya OR Margaritaville Island Reserve Riviera Cancun- you can see why it’s confusing!🤪

It has Cancun in the name, but it’s not really in Cancun…🤦‍♀️ it’s closer to Puerto Morelos than Cancun.

9. Side trips– since we had been to Mexico so many times, we had already visited many sites and many of them several times. But if it’s your first time in Mexico I would recommend the following side trips and in this order: Chichen-Itza, Tulum, Xcaret or Xel-ha, and Isla Mujeres. Because we have been to all of these several times, we opted to explore the city of Puerto Morelos and revisit the city of Playa del Carmen.

Puerto Morelos was delightful! We took an Uber there easily from our hotel for about $13 US. There was a cute pier, many small shops, restaurants, and cafes. Since all of our food was included at the resort, we didn’t eat there. We enjoyed walking around, exploring, and taking in the ambience. I really found the town charming.

Playa del Carmen is a city we started visiting in 1997. Back then it was a gravel road with a few shops, now it’s a very busy, modern city. The Main Street – La Quinta Avenida or 5th Avenue- is painful to walk down with workers calling for your attention constantly. A popular scam is for them to note people’s wristbands to see what resort they’re from. They will say that they know you from the resort. Just keep walking. It’s a scam. Playa has definitely gotten much more crowded than it used to be, but it’s still a fun city to visit. We took an Uber there, but there were absolutely no Ubers available to get back to the resort. We had to take a taxi back for $50 USD.

Prestige Travel Club – the resort has a concierge. They act like they are there to help you make dinner reservations and travel plans, but they are really trying to sell you a membership in the Prestige Travel Club. They offer you discounts on side trips in exchange for going to a 90 minute presentation at the resort. Other guests said it was actually 2.5 hours long. I would avoid this and make your own plans unless you truly have an interest in the travel club.

Use of Spanish– You absolutely do not have to speak Spanish to stay at this resort, but being a Spanish teacher, I had so much fun talking to everyone in Spanish. They would ask me a question in English, and I would shock them when I answered in Spanish. They often looked visibly relieved to not have to speak in English, and they were so happy to talk with me. I think we often got better service because they appreciated me talking to them in Spanish. One waiter even shared pictures of his family with me, and I had many very nice conversations with many of the workers. It definitely enhanced our trip!😁

Online, they describe the resort like this:

Overall, I enjoyed the resort, although I feel it was overpriced at $3,500 for airfare and our stay+ our $840 “upgrade” fiasco. Also, I would NOT agree with their above claims that it has “exquisite cuisine” or “dazzling entertainment”, but…if you are looking for a small, quiet, all-inclusive resort that’s very clean and well-kept, then you will enjoy this resort. 😁