Guest reviews for Cancun Hotels: Occidental Allegro Playacar

Guest Reviews: 7 comments found for this hotel: 6 :: 1

I just got back from a stay at Occidental Allegro Playacar (JUNE 20-27, 2005). Overall it was a pretty good stay. As it does in Florida, it rains for a bit EVERYDAY (only 1 day it didn't rain at all). The shower needs some moderate work done to it. There is a piece of glass that covers it about 1/2 the way so your floor does tend to get wet. The maid usually didn’t' leave enough washcloths but thanks to one of our leaders we always had one! Also here they don’t tend to leave but 1 bottle of water in the room for 2 people. You can go to the front desk and ask them for one though (FOR FREE)...at the gift shop they are almost $3US dollars when we were there! The beds are a little hard. They don't list either outside EVERY room is a Hammock! The Italian (Restaurant) was the BEST. The Mexican (Restaurant) doesn't give you a very big selection on Sunday Nights. The shows mostly consist of girls with VERY little clothing on, but they are very interesting. They are good with the kids. The Staff at night (around 2 in the morning) will let you walk on the beach and keep an eye on you! Fast Eddies was a fun place. And also this hotel is within walking distance of Senor Frogs and Carlos and Charlies (Both Bars) Senor Frogs has a Beach Dance Spot and inside Dance spot even though it has No AC!.. but a very good place! We saw a lot of iguanas during our stay there. All in all I had a WONDERFUL stay at Occidental and would go back... ALSO the little rodent animals called Agouti, the Security guy the night we were there, was trying to give us tips to help us catch one! They like FRUIT!... The maids also make you different towel animals/objects if your not in your room!...Another Pointer...DONT LOSE YOUR TOWEL CARD OR YOUR SECURITY LOCK BOX KEYS...Towel keys cost you $50 US DOLLARS! and LOCK BOX Keys are $100!....Some rooms you don’t need a key for the lock box they are digital and you create your own pass code! Good Luck with your visit to Occidental...Mine was AWESOME..and we were a group of 20 kids( aged 15-18) with 3 Adults and it turned out to be a good trip!
Amy, e-mail withheld, 2005-07-18

About ready to go for our fourth [or is it fifth?] stay at Allegro Playacar. The rooms are adequate, the food not five star but very good and plenty of it. The Italian restaurant is quite nice. The staff is friendly, the front desk is at times "brain dead" but usually quite up to what you need them for, which isn't much. The drinks are OK and the pool can be noisy but there is a second pool a bit more low key. Easy to relax here. There is a place where you can arrange tours as well. As far as Mayan ruins go, we have been to Tulum, Coba, and this time will go to Chichen-Itza. I always go to the private aviary, about a ten to fifteen minute walk from the hotel. I get some great pictures there. Xcaret is beyond belief. An excellent place with a lot of attractions and an excellent show in the evening. They have an aviary and butterfly garden, and orchid greenhouse. This barely scratches the surface of what you can see there! These appeal to me because I am a photographer. To sum it up, it's worth every cent of what you will pay to stay at the Allegro Occidental Playacar hotel, and downtown Playa del Carmen has gone from seedy to very nice. A trip to Cozumel and back on the ferry is also fun. For Americans, you will meet a lot of English, Italians, Germans, French and sometimes people from Mexico or other places in Central America. To me this is a big plus. I like the variety. I've been to places on Cozumel filled with noisy, ill-behaved Texans. I won't go back there. I've never had a bad stay here, never been bitten by a mosquito and never had diarrhea. If you eat and drink here at the hotel, should be no problem. If you go downtown, don't drink anything with the local ice or you may get Montezuma's revenge. Enjoy it and tell your friends!!
Tom Roach, roac2428@yahoo.com, 2004-09-29

This was the most wonderful and relaxing vacation I've ever been on. We were at the Allegro Playacar in July '04 and the weather was perfect! Every day was sunny, but not too hot. The water was DIVINE!! I'm not a big water sport person, but I loved being able to check out the snorkel equipment and play with it all day. We rented the glass bottom boat to take us snorkeling on the reef and our driver, Andreas, was a lot of fun. Don't come expecting the Ritz. The rooms are cute and clean. We spent the whole day either on the beach or lounging poolside so the room was perfect considering the amount of time we spent there. The price of the all inclusive hotel and airfare are a true value. We came home and told all our friends about our wonderful trip and they are all going with us again next summer!
Shannon, e-mail withheld, 2004-09-14

Occidental Allegro Playacar has very nice grounds, food very nice, wait staff extremely helpful, front desk brain-dead, beach great, entertainment pleasant. Fast Eddie's bar small but good bartender (Jorge), beds hard (so what), safe place.
EI, e-mail withheld, 2004-09-11

I've read many reviews about Allegro Playacar both before and after our holiday there (20/7/04 to 3/8/04). At one end, some have been very scathing about relatively minor faults (eg. condemning the place because a knife was missing from the dining table!). At the other end, others thought it was heaven on earth. I thought it was pretty good. The kids said it was their best holiday ever and would love to go back. If you allow a bit of leeway and don't blow up every time something is not just right, then I'm sure you will enjoy it there. It was our first trip across the pond from the UK. The first thing you notice is how different the atmosphere is compared with Europe, quite a heady experience. We were a bit wary at first, obviously thinking of the safety of our kids etc, and it took us a few days to get into the swing of things. It was in fact very safe on the site and you could leave your stuff on the sun bed unattended while you went to eat. There is a veritable army of native cleaners, gardeners, labourers and security staff constantly at work on the site. They are all quite friendly and like to greet you if you give them a chance. There were a few minor irritations, but not enough to say it was bad. Plus points: Location, friendly staff, poolside entertainment, plenty to eat and drink, proximity of rooms to beach, pools and facilities. Minus points: Long flight, Cancun airport, rooms a bit too basic, a bit seedy outside of the site, excursions seemed a bit on the expensive side. It is mathematical certainty you will be bitten at least twice and have at least one attack of diarrhea so go prepared! It was very hot and humid and it rained several times. There is a quiet pool and a noisy one where the games are. The entertainment guys were great with the children. There were evening shows on stage which did get a bit monotonous after a while. Try the different cocktails in the Aqua Bar, eg. Banana-mama. The only beer is Corona on draught which is a bit gassy and tasteless. The food wasn’t brilliant but it was good enough - a large buffet in the main dining room with theme nights, eg. Chinese, Hawaiian, plus 2 speciality restaurants (Italian and Mexican) which you have to book for. The Italian is a bit posher and men need to wear long trousers. There is also a lunchtime buffet at the Aqua Bar and a separate pizzeria and burger stand. The landscaped gardens are very pleasant and you may come across iguanas basking in the sun and strange looking rodents called Agouti. The beach was pretty good but there was some rubbish on it. The sea is warm and clear blue. The heat and humidity was a bit oppressive at times. Must haves: anti-mosquito lotion and wipes; a can of insecticide to spray the rooms; diarrhea tablets; I would also advise starting a course with anti-malaria tablets if you are planning on going on excursions. My wife was bitten in Coba (Mayan Indian village) when she went to the loo. Nice to have: Bring your own straws for your cocktails. Get some citronella candles to light in the room or place on your patio table if you want to sit outside in the evening (they keep the mozzies away). Arrival at Cancun airport wasn't very nice. After a flight of over ten hours, we waited for ages, sweating in the heat, for our luggage to come through. We were pestered by porters with trolleys demanding tips and each item of luggage was hand searched. The rooms have bare, white-washed walls. I found the beds nicely firm, not hard. The A/C and fan worked fine. Not a great deal of storage space if you have kids. A lot of our stuff stayed in the suitcases. The toilets block occasionally and our shower leaked water over the side of the bath and flooded the floor. The lighting was also a bit dim. The rooms smelt musty at first but after the A/C had been on for a while, they were OK. Also, during the first week, labourers were cementing the paths and closing them off around our accommodation. They always seemed to be right outside the door. Around the pool, they play a manic sort of Mexican pop music (salsa?) all day but you get used to it after a while.The location is basically sub-tropical - next to a rain forest. The sunlight is so bright at times, you can hardly open your eyes without sunglasses. My wife and kids went into Playa del Carmen a few times. I walked there once and found it a bit seedy with grotty looking shacks (which were shops) lining the road and touts coming out trying to draw you in to buy something. It was a bit too much ‘in your face’. I didn't feel comfortable at all walking around. Overall, a good family holiday and an interesting change from the usual European destinations.
Dan Murphy, e-mail withheld, 2004-08-11

Well, at Allegro Playacar the grounds were very nice, the food was real good (able to trust it all!), there is coffee makers or irons as the brochure states, also fast eddies bar well that’s all I can say fast to leave maybe!, only 2 pool tables no foosball, no darts, only 6 or 9 TVs all sports of course, and if you like old music you will like it, other than that real small, 20 people and it looks a little full. The staff that served you is nice people, you may be even able to slip them a little cash and get your own bottle alcohol. But with all that said in the end me and my girlfriend where scammed at the time of check out, as we where handing in the keys we where told we have a bill for 250$ us for window we broke, (don’t remember that), no matter what we said we had to pay the cash or be arrested, they even had security take our stuff off the bus, so I wouldn't trust this place at all, others on our bus were complaining of extra phone charges to the room they had to pay, and if you go Mr. Peters lies through his teeth, well I sure hope you see this if you are thinking of going there don’t you will probably have to pay extra on the all-inclusive.
Mike, mikegthro@hotmail.com, 2004-05-20

Just came back from Allegro Playacar, (feb-2004) the grounds are beautiful. As nice as any park you could go to. The beach was very nice. I liked the room although my boyfriend didn't. He felt it was too small and worried about the birds taking the roof for their nest. I thought it added to the charm. The entertainment staff was strictly for entertaining the young girls. Could not separate themselves from acting like a tourist. The food was not very good, but there was the pizza bar (after 10:00 pm.)
Judy P, e-mail withheld, 2004-03-15

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