We stopped for a cocktail on the way back to our rental. Drinks, food & service very good. Great…read morespot for snorkeling

Here's a punchier version with more edge and rhythm:…read more **This place is a safety hazard with a side of dead reefs.** Neglected hazards litter the property, the water is a cloudy mess over lifeless coral, and the snorkeling is a total waste. What should have been a relaxing trip turned into a frustrating, risky slog because the staff showed zero urgency when guest safety was on the line. Save your money. Pick almost anywhere else on Cozumel.

We were looking for the perfect place to spend our last day on the Riviera Maya, and we found it in…read morethe charming little beach town of Akumal. Although, finding the actual beach club was NOT an easy feat - but well worth it in the end. The Akumal Beach Club is managed by the Lol-Ha restaurant, and entry includes a palapa, loungers, access to restrooms/showers, and service from the restaurant. We had quite a bit of trouble finding the place, so here's the lowdown: When you arrive in Akumal, vendors lining the road will try to sell you their tours and parking. You aren't required to stop, although they may make you feel obligated. A simple friendly wave and "gracias" will get you past them. Soon, you'll pass a 7-11 on your left, and a little farther down an OXXO on your right. Take a hard right immediately past the OXXO (there's a small-printed sign that's easy to miss) and let the parking attendant know you're heading to Lol-Ha. You'll drive quite a way, down the very bumpy road and past the charming cottages of the Hotel Akumal Carribe. You'll maybe even think you've gone far enough, but you don't want to park until you get to the very end, where there's a short path to the beautiful, open-air Lol-Ha restaurant. You've arrived! At the restaurant there's a booth where you can buy your admission to the beach club. See, I told you it was a bit complicated - but worth it! During our visit, it was $700 pesos (about $35) each for a palapa for two, plus $275 pesos (around $14) each for additional guests in your palapa. We were given wristbands (which allowed access to the on-site restrooms and showers) then shown to our absolutely humongous palapa! It easily fit the four of us and kept us shaded all day. Soon, the waiter from Lol-Ha arrived and took our orders. We enjoyed a variety of tropical beverages and a couple of buckets of cold beer under the palapa, took a swim in the incredibly shallow and warm waters of the Caribbean, then grabbed a table at Lol-Ha for a final day feast that included some of the best food we'd tried on the trip. (Note: the food/bev isn't included in the beach club price.) We stayed as long as we could, until the sun finally started to fade, and were sad to leave. But also felt quite lucky to have found this incredible gem of a spot in lovely Akumal.

I did a ton of research before choosing a beach club for our day in port on a cruise ship that…read morestopped in Cozumel (I like to do my own thing and not do the ship's shore excursions with the masses) and Paradise Beach looked to be the best beach club - and it really was! Beach - 5 stars white sand Pool - 5 stars Restrooms - 4 stars basic yet clean Cabanas - 5 stars Activities for kids - 5 stars Inflatable obstacle course & slides - 5 stars Activity add ons (massage, parasailing, etc) 5 stars Service - 5 stars Food - 5 stars (good tasting and huge menu variety - and living in Southern CA and going to Mexico a lot I'm picky about Mexican food but they deserve 5 stars!) Drinks - 5 stars Alcoholic drinks - 5 stars (huge variety and it's worth upgrading to the premium drinks package) Food/Drink waiters - 5 stars Ease to access - 5 stars (just take a taxi from the cruise ship it's a 10-15 min Taxi ride and costs around $16 US each way (for 1-4 people) there were 4 of us and we got charged $16 and we just gave the taxi driver a $20bill to include tip Overall, I'd come back here in a heartbeat! Loved it here!

We really enjoyed paradise beach . The service was great. We had a daybed by the pool and our…read moreserver Ronnie was amazing and made we had what ever we needed . The facility was very clean . My own complain was the amount of bees but what can we do about that . Most of the food was very good only has one or two that we didn't care for but everything else was great . We definitely will come back . We really enjoyed the taco food truck . The entire staff were friendly and helpful.

Probably the most underwhelming snorkeling experience that I have had. This was my first time…read moresnorkeling in a lagoon and I was really excited because the water looked clear and beautiful on land. We came here with a tour guide around 11am in February, and the water was not only cold, but there were not many fish. When there were fish, it was the same type of fish over and over again. Maybe she just didn't take us to the right places, but I didn't see anything that excited me. I probably wouldn't want to come here again to snorkel. There are probably much better places for it!

Super fun experience. On a recent trip to Cancun for a wedding my friends and I decided to book an…read moreexcursion from our hotel and decided upon one that takes you to both a cenote and a laguna for snorkeling. Yal Ku happened to be the lagoon our guide took us to. Didn't get to explore the area too much but theres a parking lot, small changing rooms, bathrooms, and a small restaurant. Several other groups were there trying to snorkel at the same but it wasn't overly crowded. We first went and got our supplies...lifevests, goggles and fitted them. Once everyone was fitted we jumped into the water and were instructed to go to a certain area of the lagoon. Some areas had slightly poor visibility--I mean, it is a lagoon, can't expect too much. Some cool things I saw included this huge school of sardines swimming right next to me and some rainbow colored fish in another area. Almost didn't want to leave the water because I was so excited to explore. Made me want to book a snorkeling trip to an island asap... Anyway, when you do come out to the parking area, you might run into the ice cream man with those pinwheel crackers~get some!

We walked in off the beach and had snacks/drinks. It couldn't have been better. Great view right…read moreon the beach, not packed, excellent service, and no cover charger to sit and relax while we dined. You can complain about the prices, but it's RIGHT on the beach, so I'm willing to pay a bit more. I'm not sure why this place isn't getting better reviews because it was excellent. It was so excellent that when I read all of the back reviews it made me write this one. Please go and see for yourself. You won't regret it.

Akumal beach is such a great beach for exploring the sea turtles and snorkeling! Not great if you…read moreare looking for white sands and no shells though. Weather is always amazing and so many things to do with the little town and dive shop there. Also several restaurants to eat.

Beautiful white sand beach, turtles in the water, minimal seaweed, what more could you ask for!…read more I understand why people make this beach their home base for their Quintana Roo vacation.! I'm not entirely sure one must pay for the guided tour to get in the water and see the turtles. I want to support the local economy, but perhaps there's a trick to enjoying this beach without paying for guided tour, think life jackets, and locker rooms. There is a restaurant on site, and my friend and I just gave a really big tip to the waiter so he would let us leave our bags at the table for 15 minutes while we snorkeled with our own gear to see the turtles. kind of hush hush, we did it very discreetly and quietly and quickly. I attached the screenshot I showed to the taxi driver upon arrival to get us to the restaurant without going through the Disneyland style entrance line and fee. I'm not sure I recommend this method, however, as I can imagine multiple ways this theory could have gone wrong. Side note, perhaps we were off season in late may, but we actually saw no turtles. maybe we should have paid for the guided tour after all.

This place came highly recommended on social media of moms who have littles in swim diapers. We…read moredidn't book an excursion through the cruise line but found a great option right at the pier before reaching the Cozumel sign. A gentleman had a booth for Playa Mia. You can purchase the $15 day pass to access the beach. There was another package that included food, but it seemed unnecessary since we didn't plan on staying too long. My goal was getting a spot where the kids can play with sand. The weather had been iffy too. It was raining on the taxi ride there, but thankfully it let up by the time we walked to the beach area. Once we arrived, we did have to pay $6 for an umbrella to use with our beach chairs. The umbrella kept closing so we had to get somebody to keep opening it back up. Finally, they told us they had to close the beach umbrellas for 30 minutes due to the wind that was coming. That was my sign to leave since it had already poured on our way there. The bathrooms are located to the left of the open buffet area. They have a feet washing area in front of the bathroom. There are two entrances. The left is for the toilets and the right is for the showers. Inside the shower area they have the baby change table. The beach area itself was clean and well maintained. Once you get there, keep going all the way inside. There were will be stores and excursions you can purchase. The ticket area to show you paid and to get your wristband will be on the left. We purchased a sand bucket that came with a toy from a store there for $10. They offer fun inflatables in the water for the older kids and banana boat rides. We apparently had a server who was helping our area. The gentleman who served us was friendly and attentive. My little one was thrilled to have chicken wings. We asked for the sauce on the side and the wings were crispy. We also tried the fajitas and they were pretty good. The salsa had a nice kick. I would definitely skip on the bean and cheese nachos! Overall, it was a great, affordable way to enjoy some time at the beach without committing to a full day excursion. I'd recommend this for anyone looking for a low-key, budget-friendly beach day with the kids.

I want to caveat this review straight away - we visited on a pretty quiet day. We came in on a…read moreDisney cruise and I checked before booking and only 1 other cruise ship was in port on the day we visited and that ship was a more adult oriented cruise line. Because of that I was fairly confident Playa Mia would not be overly full and I turned out to be correct. After doing some research before going there are other offerings that are better for pure adult visitors and Playa Mia strikes a good middle ground for everyone. We picked this beach park because it was the only one that didn't nickel-and-dime you on every little add-on: for example the obstacle course/water park is included with the all-inclusive package we bought. As I mentioned, we did get the all-inclusive package including travel. Some of the other guests were not on all-inclusive visit and most opted for their own travel. Having already been once, next time I may handle travel myself as I am an experienced traveler and the taxi's were very friendly, however with a young one in tow I must say the friendliness and helpfulness of the people who met us and arranged our travel in both directions was amazing and I absolutely do not regret paying a little extra for the included travel. Ultimately they did just put us in a taxi that they paid for but they met us super close to the boat exit and walked us all the way to the taxi stand and dealt with telling him where to go, etc. That was nice while we dealt with our hyped up kids in a new environment. I can't speak to the non all-inclusive experience but if you don't plan to drink a lot (including water/soft drinks for the kids) I think it can be a bargain. However, with the full package we bought, the only thing I ended up paying for was a deposit on the towels that we ultimately got back. I did tip our server (Alberto was awesome) decently well because of how much work he did during the almost full day we were there - so tipping is an additional expense that happens in any kind of place like this. One note, I did go for the top level all-inclusive package and with that the adults got a Tequila tasting and the kids got a chocolate tasting. Obviously the intent of these is to sell some goods but don't skip out on these if you get them - both tastings were delicious and even though we never buy anything at these things, in retrospect we still wish we had picked up some coffee Tequila. Because the day we visited wasn't super crowded, we had such a great time. The facilities are on the older side and the landscaping isn't perfectly manicured but it's on a beautiful beach and there was at least a little something for everyone: from 5 years old to 40. If it were considerably busier, that might pose an issue but they have a lot of room for people to spread out so except for the buffet being busy, I think it would take a lot of people for it to ruin your day.

The best Cenotes I've been to in the Roo. Only a few local families visiting not a tourist trap,…read moreonly 1.5 km off the highway, about $20 per person. Clean facilities, good parking, I cant say enough good about this place! They have both open and cave cenotes, guided scuba tours available too for serious explorers,

5 different Cenotes in one area. Many options for what you can choose - self admission and access…read moreor guided tours that include lunch. As an English speaker, I'm not sure that the guided tour was worth it as the Spanish portion and explanations were long and the English versions were condensed (my bf understood both and said we got shortened versions). Most of what we got we already knew from googling. However, the all inclusive tour included food - which might be more worth it finances wise. The tour guide will walk and talk and show you each cenote, swim together in cenote 5 (you can't have access here as a self guide) for exactly 25 minutes. Then once the tour is done you're free to explore in your own. That lasts about 1.5 hours. We then had lunch - choice of pork chun, fish fillet or fish tacos. On the menu it ranges from 130 to 200 pesos a dish already. But included in tour, we got chips and salsa, fruit water (pineapple this time), our meal, and ice cream! After, we went back to swim and check out the spots really quick. Truly, it was pretty quiet and for the most part we had it to ourselves. 3 hours is plenty of time