Sandos Caracol Nature Resort & Water Park

I wanted this hotel to be good, but it turned out to be below average. Here's the good, the bad and the ugly... The good: - Rainforest is mesmerizing, 99% of the resort paths are covered in shade making your walk comfortable and interesting - Animals are super cute and they are everywhere. Especially coatis. Monkeys were harder to spot, but we still managed to see them most of the days. Lizards are mostly chilling on Plaza del Sol, but you will find them near the paths too. - The walk is a necessity that you enjoy. We had 15-20K steps per day without really going on hikes. You just go on and enjoy the view and animals and don't even notice just HOW MUCH you walked that day. - Cleaning service was good, cleaining daily and with a good attention to detail. You won't get a swan made out of towel for you, but you will get your room nocely cleaned in all corners. - We didn't get sick. After reading all the reviews we were really afraid of picking up a stomach bug, but we didn't. Which is an achievement with 7 year olds. If I could point out anything about it is DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH TAP WATER. And use of hand sanitizers of course. Bring yours, because the local shop ran out of them. - Local souvenir shop was surprisingly well priced. But the popup market was a complete ripoff. - Las Mascaras was the only buffet we enjoyed eating at - food was fresh, hot and a lot of it was native. Tepaniaki restaurant put on a great show for kids and adults. The bad: - Schedules. The don't make sense. Toscana buffet is listed in the weekly schedule as always closed for lunch. Same thing with closing - often you are stuck with wet towels, because the towel station is closed already. All buffets have different start and end time, just to make it more cofusing for you. Towels open much later after the pool opening. E.g. water park kiddie slides opens at 9am, bigger slides at 10am, but towel station opened only at 11am. On top of that ther weekly schedule from the app is not matching with the schedule on the web site - we found out that the waterpark is NOT closed on Fridays by passing by. - Not enough staff. The fact that the major features like water park need to be closed for the whole day is ridiculous. No cleaning mid-day either. Few hours of operations and the stairs to the slides were all muddy. There are no lifeguards near the pools, so no one enforces the rules. - Water pressure. Before dinner water pressure in the shower is basically a drip. I wasn't able to shave. Water temperature drops as well towards 7-8pm. But since we always wanted to wash off the pool/sea water before going to eat we had another shower around noon and that was always a pleasure. - Sea is tricky. Not just rocky. Wearing coral shoes helps you to avoid pain, but it's easy to lose your balance and fall. The staff is trying to get rid of the seaweed, but with being so understaffed they can't do it often enough. - Las Mascaras was closed on Fridays and moved to the Market for a street food, which created lineups, safety issues (street food on +28C and with noravirus outbreak in the region?) and removed one good buffet from the list. - Queues. You gotta wait for everything. There's usually only one bartender and it's not rare to see 8 people waiting in line. Coming to a buffet you better come within 15-30 minutes after the opening, otherwise you may have to wait for 20-30 minutes just to get in. - Reservations. As already stated by many here, you can book up to 3 days in advance, but all the spots are taken within 15 minutes after midnight, so I had to set up an alarm and wake up at midnight to book 1 restaurant quickly. And you have to do it every day and you have no options for the first 3 days. As I stated below - except for the Japanese restaurant it's not worth it. Dinner at Las Mascaras buffet was always good. little choice, but tasty. - Age restrictions. For a FAMILY resort there are many age resctrictions that are weird. Bike ride? 12+! Kayak ride? 15+!!! SPA didn't let us in with 7 year olds. What in the world a 7 year old can do in the SPA that is not allowed? So we were stuck with the only activity being Water Park with 5 slides for the little kids. But it's closed once a week as well... And now the ugly: Food generally is horrible (ecxeption Las Mascaras). I am not a foodie and get blamed for eating everything :D I can enjoy fast food of any type. I am not a chef either and whatever I cook at home doesn't take me more than 30 minutes. So when I am going to the restaurant my expectations are already low. - La Laguna buffet was just horrible... It was also the only place I felt nausious after and got really scared that I picked up a bug. Fast food is overfried, ham and cheese look like they spent all day on that stand, steak section was often empty and whatever was cooked was sometimes both burnt outside and raw inside (see picture). There was literally half raw chicken steak in the bowl waiting for someone to eat it! Unfortunately this is the only buffet place open for lunch. So you are stuck with it even though it's the worst place to eat. - La Toscana didn't impress either. Ordered a salmon steak since it's hard to ruin a salmon steak, but they managed to overcooked it to a complete loss of taste. Since we knew that the Japanese restaurant would have a show we kept it, but we cancelled the Brasilian reservation because it wasn't worth the hassle. For an a la carte restaurant Toscana was very poor. The kids ordered a kids burger (yes, it's a "kid's menu" in the Italian restaurant) and we got a burer cotlet with a melted cheese in a dry bun. Worst burger I've ever seen. - Snacks. I considered a normal practice in the all inclusive hotel to have some buns or fruits at every bar at all times. Here you don't have that. Snack bar near La Laguna offers dry tacos (meat in a shell, only hot sauce, no veggies), in the waterpark snack bar offers hot dogs but it open at noon only, when you can go and eat proper food already. So the only option was to go through the whole resort and get some buns in la laguna. As much as I enjoyed walking through the premises it was annoying to leave your family near the pool and waste 20+ minutes to bring your kids a snack.

Omg the salon was fabulous 👌 my husband and I came to Sandos for a vacation and decided that we never got photos done when we got married so he brought his tux and my wedding dress and decided to get a photo shoot done at the last minute I wanted to get my hair and makeup done. I am a simple gal and they made me look and feel like a queen 👸 OMG they were so professional and I am so excited for what they did! Price was reasonable and i couldn't ask for fabulous . The salon is a must visit for any needs that you are looking for!

Very friendly. Great food. Great (and quick!) cocktails compared to the other restaurants at the resort. Generous and beautiful variety at the appetizer, primi, and dessert buffet. You order your main course. Nice high ceilings and consistent cozy lighting with the rest of the resort.

We are on day 3 of 7 and honestly having the best time so far. Tonight we got to enjoy the fire show which includes dinner. Highly recommend this experience. Dani was great along with everyone else who was supporting the amazing show and dinner. We are impressed with everything here so far, it's been great to relax and unwind a little, the added jungle experience with wildlife has been a great perk so far, and the adults only pool is a nice spot to spend your day is you want a low key relaxed vibe. Would recommend!

Fantastic service, excellent hotel and amazing staff - Arturo & Jesus