Help finding a holiday (esp Mexico!)

Mr sparkle and I went to The Excellence Riviera in Mexico (just north of Cancun) last september. Its fully all inclusive including room service, mini bar and premium spirits. Has 8 restaurants onsite, one is a buffet, theres a pizzeria, a steak/burger place and a couple of a la carte (the french one was amazing). http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g240327-d499896-Reviews-Excellence_Riviera_Cancun-Puerto_Morelos_Yucatan_Peninsula.html Sorry about the massive link!!

We had a fabulous time, dont think we'll ever have a holiday that tops it

Edited to add that its adults only, which is fab if youre looking for a couples holiday

Thanks kez, I did look at that one and it looks gorgeous but unfortunately it's about double our budget! You must have had a fab time though, the restaurants alone had me drooling!

I was looking at mexico a few weeks ago and First Choice had some good deals, certainly within your budget

ETA: they did 11 nights not 10

The problem you will find I think is that most of the package holiday companies (Thomson / First Choice / Thomas Cook etc) tend to only have one flight per week to those sorts of destinations so do 7 or 14 night holidays. When you start looking at scheduled airlines and booking a hotel separately the costs shoot up.

Can you go for 14 nights? We went to the Gran Bahia Principe Riviera Maya resort last year with First Choice and I have just looked on their website and you can get 14 nights from East Mids on 1st July for £1169 per person. It was great 3 hotels in one so loads of choice food and drink

You do realise that it is the start of the hurricane season as well. We went in mid-June and had great weather, a couple of nights where it really did rain but 2 weeks before and three after they had tropical storms go through the area.

Have a look at El Dorado Royal in Mexico. We stayed in the casita section at Christmas but I think the hotel should be well within budget although that might only be for a week. All the restaurants are a la carte except for one for breakfast.

Sorry, I have not been (yet) but we are also looking at Mexico for this years hols. I have heard great great things about the El Dorado hotels and quite fancy either the Royal (so really good to hear you had a great time Clare_M) or the Seaside Suites.

I shall keep keen an eye on this thread!

I would give it a month as its just gone on the US's list of places not to go because of the huge amount of violence. I think the prices might go down!

I'm just back from Mexico city and never saw any problems (think the problems are mostly near the border) but the security at the airport was immense.

We went to Isla Mujeres summer before last (gosh, that long ago!) and loved the island. Just across from Cancun. We swam with dolphins there and got around on a golf buggy. Great fun!

Less of the hustle & bustle of Cancun. Would recommend our hotel in an instant apart from the fact a larger hotel was just starting to be built alongside which blocked the view. Idyllic otherwise

We went to The Moon Palace in September 2006 for our honeymoon. Absolutely gorgeous!

We stayed there for our honeymoon last feb, same airport but as a last minute deal we paid half that pp. Its lovely.

We went to the Royal Decameron Tropical in Puerto Vallarta a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It's quite a big resort but there's lots of pools and restaurants/bars and the room was nice. If I remember rightly we paid £802 each all inclusive for 14 nights, but it was a few years ago. The entertainment was good if you like that sort of thing and you could get really good burgers at midnight! Gorgeous beach and beautiful sunset every night (on the pacific coast so sets over the sea).

https://www.tui.co.uk/

I think this thread really highlights the need to establish what you want from a holiday.

We did the "holiday of a lifetime" thing at the Excellence Riviera last September, first one recommended in this thread. Yes, it was posh. Yes it looked good in the photos and the service was excellent. However, I'd have happily left after a couple of days. There were about 7 restaurants, but the menu was exactly the same every day! The food looked OK but the meat was all a strange texture. There was precious little to do in the evening other than eat, no beach bar and the entertainment was dire. It was far from full but you still got people hogging the best sunbeds and the floats for using round the lazy river. Worst of all, for us, was that it was 50 dollars and an hour taxi each way to go anywhere off the resort. Cabin fever took hold big time!

We've also been to the Royal Decameron at Buscerias. Loved it. lots of different pools with different noise levels. Beach bars and entertainment till late then disco. Easy to take yourself off to other parts of Mexico either walking down the beach or on trips or local transport - We loved taking the bus to Puerto Vallarta. Only thing to watch out for it flight times, ours stopped to refuel and so took ages.

We went last September as well, wonder if we were there at the same time?

I guess it really does depend on what you want from a holiday, we really needed a couple of weeks to do nothing so it worked for us, I was ready to get home by the end though but we had left our little girl at home so I was missing her as well. I thought the food was fab, well not all of it, the mexican restaurant was a bit lacking but my god, chateaubriand at the french restaurant! Id go back tomorrow just for that!

Hello, a few tips from me.

Whilst the palace hotels do look lovely (not been there) and the eldorado ones are fab (stayed at seaside suites, alacarte all incl, no buffets and no children) they are not likely to be in your budget unless you consider a week, and then you may be pushing it for July.

Also, when in July? are you looking in school holiday times? steer clear, makes it uber expensive.

Thomson fly more than once a week so you may get 10 or 11 nights.

My last tip is to look at the websites daily, and vary the dates you put in.

For example, i started looking for our Mexcio holiday for this June back in December. The price fluctuated depending on day of flight (at different times, different dates were cheaper, i am guessing depending on how many seats are left to be sold on each flight?) the price also fluctuated wildly very regularly in general, for example, it went from a total cost of £2500 to £1712 which is the price i paid for 2 weeks going in June.

So, keep looking and then when it hits a price you like, go for it (we looked all through december and booked it on new years eve.)

I am going to one of the Riu hotels in Playacar this time.

Good Luck! (i looooooooove Mexico, mmmm Corona beer)