The Fives Beach All Senses Inclusive

We recently stayed at The Fives Beaches Resort in Cancun as a family with a 4-year-old and a 9-month-old, and overall I’d describe the experience as mixed. There are definitely elements of a 5-star resort here, but unfortunately the service and restaurant management meant that wasn’t the experience we consistently received. One thing worth being aware of before booking is the tiered experience within the resort. There appears to be a strong distinction between standard guests and “Premier” members, who are able to reserve restaurants and seem to receive a noticeably higher level of service overall. As a standard guest, the inability to reserve restaurants became one of the biggest frustrations of the holiday. In all honesty, after seeing the differences in treatment during our stay, it became much easier to understand why some reviews describe a completely different experience to others. The positives first. The resort itself is beautiful, with a really unique natural jungle running through the middle where you regularly see monkeys and other wildlife wandering around the grounds. That was genuinely special and unlike anywhere else we’ve stayed. The pools are good with plenty of choice, the beach location is excellent, and the resort is easy to get around. The food quality overall was very good, with some strong restaurant menus. We also had some standout staff members who really made an effort, particularly Alberto from the entertainment team and Antonio in the Thai restaurant whose service was excellent. Unfortunately, the dining system was also the biggest issue of the holiday. The evening buffet was extremely limited, with only a small section open each night and seating for roughly 10 tables. On top of that, restaurants cannot be booked in advance for standard guests and operate entirely on a first come, first served basis. By around 6:30pm the waiting times were already huge, regularly reaching 1 to 1.5 hours. This became especially frustrating travelling with young children. One evening we went to the Mexican event but there was nowhere suitable to sit as every table was reserved, so we went to the Italian restaurant around 7pm instead. We then waited approximately 90 minutes just to be seated. Once seated, nobody came to take drinks for another 20 minutes, and it was after 9:15pm before we received any food. We eventually left well after 10pm with a 4-year-old who had been unbelievably patient throughout. What made this more frustrating was that the restaurants often never appeared full. Most nights they looked only half to three-quarters occupied, so it was difficult to understand why waits were being allowed to become so excessive. To make matters worse, some restaurants were closed during our stay, including the Mexican restaurant, with menus combined elsewhere, which only increased the pressure on the remaining venues. To their credit, the team did try to respond when issues were raised, but resolutions were very slow. We had problems with the air conditioning in our room which took 3 days to partially resolve despite repeated assurances it was being worked on. After our restaurant complaint we were eventually offered a reservation at the premier restaurant the following evening, but were told we had to dine at 6:30pm because 7pm would be “too busy”. In reality, the restaurant was nowhere near half full at 7pm, which honestly left us feeling like families with young children were being pushed toward earlier dining slots. Service throughout the resort was inconsistent. At times it was excellent, but overall it lacked the standard you would expect from a resort positioning itself as luxury. There is the potential of a great resort here underneath the operational issues. With better restaurant management, proper reservation systems, fuller restaurant opening schedules, and more consistent service, I can absolutely see how this could deliver a true 5-star experience. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the experience we had.

I had such high hopes for this holiday but I was so disappointed. This hotel has a long way to go before it can be classed as the five start resort, that we booked and paid for. We travelled as a group of three adults and a two year child. We had read a few negative reviews about the queues for dinner before we left on our holiday, but nothing could have prepared us for the pandemonium that we experienced. You can expect to see queues spiralling around the outside of a restaurant by 17.30 pm. If you try to go for dinner after 18.00, expect atleast a two hour wait. It is absolute chaos. What makes it all the more frustrating, is that there are plenty of empty tables, reserved for members. We tend to eat early due to having a young child and even arriving at a restaurant at 18.00, both the Brasserie and the Italian restaurant told me they didn’t have a table available for the four of us. There was zero appreciation for the fact that this kind of system did not work for a two year old child, who would likely be in bed by 19.30. I managed to secure a table for us on both occasions, but this was only as a result of me severely losing my temper with them. I don’t like doing this, but I wasn’t going to accept my child not being fed before he went to bed. In the Brasserie they shrugged and said “we have a lot reservations” (only members can do this). It was only at the point where I told them to get the hotel manager down to the restaurant, that they miraculously found me a table for the four of us to eat at. We were quite frustrated that the only lunch options available were at the beach - burgers, pizzas, tacos etc. There were occasions when we didn’t want to walk down there and would have expected food options in the main area of the hotel. We were surprised that there wasn’t a buffet open for lunch or dinner, as were a lot of guests there. A lot of people would like this as an option, so that there is variation in the food they eat. There was a restaurant called Lizzards open but this served food like chickpea burgers, which just wouldn’t have been suitable for our son. So the only option is we had was to serve him hot dogs or pizza for lunch each day, hardly five star food! A number of the restaurants were not open, as the hotel said it was low season. Frankly that’s not my problem. I paid for a holiday expecting all the amenities to be available. The forest area in the hotel is good and you can expect to see monkeys, turtles and coaties. Please do take care with the monkeys, when we were there we know of atleast two incidents where guests were bitten by monkeys - in one case a child. There are also a number of uneven and loose panels in this area, some with holes in it, which really need replacing before someone hurts themselves. One of the adults that accompanied our party was a single woman. There were several times where she experienced issues of rudeness from the hotel staff. We had both booked penthouse rooms. When she checked in, the man behind reception made a couple of judgemental comments “you’ve booked this just for you ?”. Not a particularly nice thing to say to a single woman. In Lizzards when she went for lunch one day, the staff allowed another group to be seated before her despite the fact she was ahead of them in the queue. When she politely questioned why and explained that she was first, they told her she wasn’t, even though it was quite clear that she was. Thankfully some other diners witnessed this and intervened, as they didn’t like seeing her treated this way. I will add that I had some help from a very nice man called Geovenni (I think he was the food and beverage manager) on the last two days of our holiday. He assisted with getting me a reservation at 17.30 pm on the last two nights of our holiday. He understood the fact that our son couldn’t wait for dinner, and I’m very grateful for the help he gave us. There a lots of nice things about this hotel but frankly until they solve the ridiculous dining situation, that overshadows all the good things.

Marcus, Alexis, and Margarito are the best at the plaza bar!!! Made our whole trip and were the best:)

Alexis, marco and Margarito sooo incredible best bartenders in the whole world. Best bartenders at the plaza bar. Muy muy guapo!!

Not particularly a great experience of a holiday. Starting off on a positive, the rooms, pool and bar were great, so as a hotel itself it’s lovely and probably 4 stars. However, the hotel is hugely let down by its restaurant management, if you’re planning on eating at any point past 6pm (as most would on holiday) you can expect over a 90 minute wait for a table, now this wouldn’t be as much of an issue if there was a nice bar or waiting area but as given a buzzer you have to sit extremely close to the restaurant, one of which requires you to sit on deck chairs, the other of which has a few tables but with a constant 15+ group waiting list those tables become occupied and you’re forced to stand and wait. What’s even more disappointing is the amount of tables not being used, as seen in the photos i took at the time of being told we had 16 families in front of us on the list. On top of this, once in the restaurant all the staff seem overly stressed, one night we had to wait 30 minutes for water and a drink order, 20 minutes later our drinks still hadn’t come so we had to go to the buffet bar to get them ourselves. The buffet itself is poor and hence puts more pressure on the restaurants; it has FOUR options for main meals/sides and a salad station, so not really an option if you don’t want to wait! To even more disappointment, prior to arriving we emailed the hotel as we were celebrating a big birthday, asking if we could book a restaurant just for this night as something special, we were told no. Upon arriving we later found out (after the birthday and from a guest not hotel staff) that there is one restaurant we could book, this restaurant was lovely and even did a special birthday desert with a sparkler, why wasn’t this mentioned to us when we enquired i’m not too sure - seems as if the hotel didn’t care. We also asked the room to be decorated for the birthday as we saw this is something they did, upon checking at 3pm it wasn’t and we had to contact the hotel staff and ask again for it to be done, they replied “we can sort it for tomorrow maybe” - pointless (they did end up sorting it that day after we complained) The issues of restaurant wait times were sorted once we kicked off, the restaurant manager was then able to book us in to whatever restaurants we wanted for the rest of our trip, however we met plenty of families who had the exact same thoughts and issues as us - seems to be unless you complain you’re forced to wait This review has no exaggeration, to summarise; want dinner later than 6pm? be prepared to wait 1.5-2 hours!