Reviewers Rating: 
Excellent
Aventura Palace is amazing. Beautiful grounds, ok but plentiful food, awesome rooms (though it is definitely worth it to upgrade your room category- we saw a few rooms on the base category and they were a little run down). Amazing staff, Spa Palace right next door- a 2 minute walk- with breathtaking pools, gyms, etc. They did a great job creating a lagoon to swim in the ocean (without the lagoon the water would be way to rough for swimmers).
Skip Cancun- it's a tourist trap- although when you stay at a Palace Resort you are permitted to visit any of the other Palace Resorts for free, so if you do go to Cancun, make a pit stop at Moon Palace or Beach Palace.
Take a day trip to Playa del Carmen- what an amazing little craft village! Especially beautiful after dark. We rented a car for a day, was WELL worth it for freedom to site-see.
DO NOT take the "free tour" of Spa Palace (they offer you money to do it) unless you don't mind spending a couple hours being pressured into buying into a Vacation package. (We knew what we were in for so we did it for the free cash, but they really grilled us- even insulted us for not buying into the package.)
Also, we saw a lot of stupid American tourists- who thought it was OK to insult the Mexicans- you know, calling everyone Paco, putting an "a" on the end of every english word as if that makes it spanish, and stuff like that- they locals were so wonderful it's a shame that they have to put up with ignorant tourists.
Learn a couple basic words in Spanish (Gracias, hola, pardone me, etc)- it goes a long way!
So other than the stupid tourists and the high pressure sales pitch the trip was a DREAM- our favorite ever!
Scott & Julie
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