Hall's Vacation June 20-27, 2017

We stayed in the Royal Suites Yucatan for a week last month. This was our 7th visit to RSY and our 8th visit to a Palladium Property. I will break it down into sections:

Arrival/Departure: We arrived in the Cancun Airport around 2 p.m. and were out the door within 20 minutes. Nice! Since we were fortunate to vacation through a friend’s travel club membership, we had a private transfer to and from the Palladium. We waited about 20 minutes for our car, and then were on our way. On our return trip, our car and driver were there and got us to the airport in plenty of time.

Accommodations:  We requested a third floor suite and got just that. We were in building 71. The suite is very nice with a separate living area and two balconies—one off the bedroom and a smaller one off the living room. The larger balcony has two lounge beds and double person Jacuzzi tub. There were plenty of snacks and beverages including liquors: vodka, rum, tequila and scotch. New in the mini fridge were candy bars and crackers in addition to the peanuts. I asked for club soda and did get it on day 4.

Beach: Beautiful as always. We did have very windy conditions for most of the stay. I was able to snorkel on one of the days as the wind had died down a bit. There was very little seaweed.

Travel Club: We spent most of our beach time at the Travel Club Lounge on the beach. They have expanded the area since last year adding beach beds with thatched roofs.

Royal Beach area: We hung out here a couple of times but preferred the TC area as it was not so far down the beach.

New hotel next to Kantenah beach: We walked the beach, and saw very few people laying out at this hotel. Maybe there were more folks at the pools? It did not appear crowded at all. There was a makeshift bar out on the beach in front of the hotel with about 6 people on loungers.

Turtle Nest Enclosure: There were 314 nests while we were there.

Food: All the food was good to great. For the first two mornings, we ate at the larger buffets in the other sections of the hotel. Food was plentiful and good. The last five mornings we ate at El Jardin. It was much quieter and the food although not nearly as much choices was better.

We ate lunch once at El Hacienda. The cold soups were amazing. The rest was so so. Most days we made our way to the Royal Pool and had chicken, beef or shrimp kabobs with guacamole and chips. One day we had nachos at the Travel Club.

Sumptori—We ate here twice. On our first night since we did not have reservations, we decided to visit the sushi bar. The chef made us three AMAZING rolls. I have no idea what was in them but they were DECLICIOUS! We also ate dinner here one of our nights with a reservation. We did not do the show table as we have done it more than once before, and both of us prefer the menu. Again, we had some amazing rolls as an appetizer. I had chicken and he had shrimp. Both dishes were good.

Thai Place– Dinner here was great. I had the chicken dish with curry and coconut. It was yummy. My husband had shrimp fried rice. Dessert here was mango crème bruile. This was the best dessert we had all week.

Steak House– The food here was very good. We had steak. I chose a blue cheese sauce. Salad bar was also great.

El Jardin—We did two nights here. One night was Chef Night. They have changed this, and now Chef’s Night is held every night. You must make a reservation at least the day before. We were served a starter, a soup (cream of corn), surf and turf. The last night we were there we ate off the menu. Steak again. Husband got steak and lobster.

Italian–Food here was good. The salad bar was also very good.

Wildlife: We saw very few Kotis this year. Maybe they took them all off. We did see one little family on the Kantenah side under the covered walkways. We saw no raccoons at all. We did see lots of Agouti. And the Yucatan Jays were abundant and loud and fun to watch as always.

Weather: We go yearly in June at the beginning of the rainy season. We had rain showers intermittently during our 7 nights there. Upon arrival it had been raining for several days. It did rain most of our second day. However, it was mostly sunny after that. The showers we had in between our sun were actually very nice. The first two days we were there due to the rain, it was very nice and not hot at all. Since we are from South Texas, we get a lot of sun and heat (almost all year long) so neither of us mind the cool rain.

People/Service: The people are wonderful! Antonio, Lucy and Jonathon at the Royal Bar are so much FUN! We loved hanging out there before dinner! Antonio would make really interesting drinks for us to try. Happy Hour (5 to 7) was really our favorite time of the day because of these three people!

Our housekeeping person was wonderful. He left us towel art every single day! We also had turn down service every night.

Excursions: We canceled our TC excursion and opted for a massage instead. We payed extra for the couple’s deep tissue massage, and it was so worth it. Both women gave an excellent 50 minute deep tissue massage.

Renovations at the Royal: Renovations had not started yet so this did not affect our vacation. We walked through the Riviera section a couple of times, and some renovations were in progress there. Palladium staff said the renovations would be complete by November. Apparently, they will have three crews working around the clock in order to get this done. It will  be interesting to see what next year looks like when we go back next year!

As always we had a great and relaxing time. We met new people. We enjoyed the Palladium staff. Looking forward to next year!