Неплохо, но в следующий раз выбрала бы другой отель Not bad, but next time I would choose a different hotel

We traveled as a family with a 4 year old child from 12/18/11 to 01/01/12. There are enough reviews for this hotel, so I would like to note only a few nuances.
Standard rooms, of course, are simple, but we did not expect anything else. Riviera, with decent rooms, was not chosen because of the distance from the beach. An unpleasant surprise, especially for my husband, who is sensitive to vibration, was the constant noise in the room, probably caused by the ventilation system, and this was with the air conditioner turned off and the ice machine in the hall below was NOT working. Tried to change the number, but it turned out the same. If you get a room on the 1st floor next to such an ice-machine, then you are provided with a much greater constant hum. In general, a room on the 1st floor will also be unsuccessful because of insects. We lived on the 2nd floor, and then we were overcome by small ants, despite the fact that we did not leave anything edible in the room.
The territory of the hotel, of course, is large and green, but the entry into the sea is really disgusting. 2 pieces of beach more or less suitable for swimming. One opposite the Colonial - a little wider, but still not completely cleared of stones, the other - opposite Kantenach - better, but quite small, even considering that everyone bathes there, and it is cleared only to a depth somewhere under the chest. For me it was a big disappointment. Of course, I knew from the reviews that the beach is not very good, but what is it? ! In fact, in mid-November we tried to book any of the Iberostars in the Riviera Maya zone, for the week of Catholic Christmas they were all on the stop, so we had to take the Colonial, and they barely managed to take it until we received negative answers for Iberostars, because. hotel reservations take a very long time due to the fundamental time difference with Mexico and a large number of requests during this period. Book early if you can plan your vacation!

A red flag hung on the sea for almost the entire time of our stay, but even children calmly swam, the waves are not that big, despite the fact that there is really no depth to the buoys.
The food completely satisfied us. Christmas and New Year's dinners differed from regular dinners only with festive decorations, flowers for the ladies at the entrance and a little more seafood (shrimps and lobsters) and sweets (chocolate fountains with berries and marshmallows). We considered that it was not worth our money, additionally paid by us without fail. Of the a la carte restaurants were in the Brazilian, a steak house. In our opinion, the menu is not fundamentally different from the main restaurant, if you have free time, you can spend it on these restaurants (you will have to wait in line from 10 minutes to an hour). We, at the request of our daughter, had to attend the show from 20 to 22, so we did not have special time.
The shows are not bad, they take place directly in the Colonial, at 20 o’clock for children, at 21 for adults (then a show in the Riviera, but we never got to it). Next week - exactly the same. Children's animators work well, my daughter, not knowing either English or Spanish, participated in these shows. I was amazed at the ability of the animators in a short time to organize a crowd of children of different ages and speaking differently and show quite a decent show with their participation. In general, children are good here. An excellent playground with a trampoline, a mini club (however, it would be nice to know a foreign language).
There were quite a lot of Russian-speaking people in the hotel. Considering that foreigners mostly prefer to relax by the pool, on the beach in the area of ​ ​ the "cleaned piece" of Russians it was only one. With children, of course, few, and those with schoolchildren. At the airport we discussed with the Russians the topic where we liked it more in the Dominican Republic or in Mexico (and most of them, like us, have already visited both the Dominican Republic and Miami - as other options for a winter beach holiday). Somehow, no one singled out Mexico, although the travel agent said in Moscow that after Mexico no one wants to go to the Dominican Republic. And I, now, want to, and not just me. Although objectively, in which of these countries the travelers had the best company, the weather, they liked it more there.

In general, I was satisfied with the trip to Mexico, but nothing excited me (and in other reviews they often write simply about the delight of this country, of excursions), maybe they just “got drunk”.
From the excursions we went to Chichen Itza (the Transaero tour guide Alla is a professional, she told everything competently and interestingly), for some reason I was more impressed by diving into the Ik-Kil cenote (swimming in the cenote is an integral part of this excursion) for some reason.
To the Shkaret park - here I didn’t understand at all what they were enthusiastic about. There are very few animals in the park, the nature is ordinary, like in a hotel, the shows are interesting, but nothing more. Of course, you can visit, but don't expect much. Swimming with dolphins is, of course, impressive, but very expensive if the whole family. The cheapest tickets 99 dollars quickly run out in the morning, we had to buy at 149 dollars, this is at 13 o'clock, they also ended. There are no safes for storing things and issuing towels at Dolphinarium 2, towels are also not issued at the River, and things are picked up and transported to the end of the route. Take towels from the hotel or in advance at the entrance to the park, leave valuables there if necessary (for a fee). It’s extremely boring to swim along the River, there’s nothing interesting either around or under water, swim better on a boat, otherwise it will turn out like ours - just a test of one’s own strengths - I’ll swim, I won’t swim (we still swam the whole route with a child). As it turned out, you can swim up to Dolphinarium 2 from the side of the free beach and watch the dolphin show, however, through the bars. In general, after reading the reviews on Shkaret, I made a mistake. Many wrote that if you go in the morning, you will be very tired by the night show, and so you will have time to see everything if you arrive by 15 o’clock, when tickets are much cheaper. We arrived at 13 o'clock, and did not manage to do anything on the first day. The territory is quite large, if you swim with dolphins, along the river, walk everywhere, watch the show - you need the whole day, because at 16:30 everything starts to round off, and people pull up to take seats for the night show. My husband and daughter had to come back again. It's better to have a show schedule so you don't wander around like we did on the first day (we drove ourselves). As it turned out, children under 5 years old go for free, although the first time we were told that we had to pay, allegedly only those whose height is less than 1 meter go free.
We went to Cancun to see and shop. Do not count on shopping, there is nothing. After reading the reviews, I went to the recommended places, but only in one small shop in Plaza Kukulkan on the ground floor I found a place where branded clothes were sold at discount prices. In other places I didn’t see ANYTHING (although there were a lot of high-heeled model shoes, I didn’t look closely at them). Who and what buys in Cancun remains a mystery to me.