El Cid Mexican Resort Family with Kids Review

Cancun All-Inclusive with Kids

The joy of a relaxing family vacation full of sunshine, waves, and good food renewed our souls before Winter. We loved our trip to the all-inclusive El Cid in Mexico. Here’s what you might want to know before your visit.

---

Our family stayed at the El Cid Ventus Ha resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico, for a week in the fall of 2022. As of 2022, Ventus Ha is the newest built hotel complex of the three resorts interconnected with the El Cid Cancun-Reviera Maya area, all-inclusive. An all-inclusive package at any of the three results gives you full access to the grounds, pools, food, amenities, and entertainment at any of three resorts: Hotel Marina El Cid Spa & Beach Resort, Ventus at Marina El Cid Spa & Beach Resort, and Ventus Ha’ at Marina El Cid Spa & Beach Resort.

Our favorite pool at the large resort is the family pool at Hotel Marina

The most family-friendly pool is the large pool located at the Hotel Marina. I would recommend reserving a room at Hotel Marina rather than at one of the other hotels on the property simply for the ease of access and proximity to this large, family-friendly pool. This pool also has access to the resort’s beach area. The beach area is very small, so if you’re looking for a resort with a large, walkable beach, this is not it.

Our favorite restaurants

Our kids loved the two restaurants on-site at Ventus Ha. The hibachi grill dinner, Kobo, was their favorite because of the show! A’akat had good food and ambiance. A swamp area and a small pond with multiple crocodiles are in the back of these two adjoining restaurants, and the kids loved watching the crocodiles from the deck.

We were able to eat and schedule dinners at any and all restaurants at the resort. Breakfast was served from 7:00am to 11:30am; lunch from 12:00pm to 5:30pm and dinner with reservations after 5:30pm. Room service was included.

Marina El Cid Resort Map – Cancun Riviera Maya

It takes a while to learn the layout of this sizeable multiple-hotel resort. We wandered around looking for buildings for quite a bit of time. There are golf carts that travel the walkways that you can flag down as needed. The kids love riding on these! Here’s a map. It might help to have a sense of the space before arrival.

The evening entertainment is typically outdoors beside the building shown as R/S on the map. R/S is the Mercado de Delores (international buffet) and Aromas (coffee and treats). The beach was minimal, but there was still a tiny beach near M – the Scaramanga Bar. This beach area also had a sand volleyball court. We spent the majority of our pool time at the pool connected to J on the map, the Wet Bar. This pool featured the rock jump, water slides, pool volleyball, mid-day dances, aerobics, and a foam party!

Xel-ha Excursion

A day trip to Xel-ha was the only time we left the resort. We booked our excursion directly with the resort, and a bus came to the front entrance to pick us up and drop us off. It was a long day at this natural water park, but it was a fun day (and an all-inclusive for drinks and food) that we would do again and recommend!

Note: We spent a lot of money on special sunscreen to apply during our visit, which protects the natural park. However, on this visit, the park did not check or enforce any special sunscreen rules.

On-Site Activities and Events

Here’s an example of a week of activities and events at the El Cid Resorts in Mexico. The only activity that stood out to us during the week was the Foam Party at the Marina Pool; other than that, we found that the nightly entertainment was not geared to us, mostly too late for our families or during our dinner times. We didn’t try out any of the Kids or Teen Clubs, so I can’t speak to those activities. I do wish there were consistent yoga classes offered throughout the week; there’s something about yoga on the beach that feels like a vacation to me!

Getting to El Cid, Mexico

Best Discount Airline to El Cid

We found that Frontier flights were the best direct flight deal to Cancun. The only issue we ran into was that our return flight was delayed, and we were waiting at the Cancun airport for 6+ hours. While waiting, we had to pay exorbitant prices for food and drinks. There were no options even to fill up water bottles.

Best Shuttle Transfers for El Cid

We took advantage of a one-way free shuttle ride for our family provided by El Cid Vacation Club Members and timeshare users. We contracted Happy Shuttle for our other round of the trip. We were pleased with the service for both the free and paid shuttle and the price with Happy Shuttle. In November 2022, we pre-paid $50 online for 4 passengers to travel from El Cid, Puerto Morelos, to the Cancun Airport. Our only complaint was that the shuttle to return to the airport picked us up earlier than we wanted to leave. We were told it was mandatory because we could run into traffic on the way to the airport. Note: it’s worth adding What’s App to your phone as that is a free and preferred way to communicate with your shuttle company and other services while in Mexico.

Discounted Stays (November 2022)

If you’re looking for a great deal, check out any organizations that you may be part of, such as USAA Travel Privileges. We were able to purchase a package that is available to USAA Travel Privilege members once every three years. The package included 4 sleeping in the Balcony Suite with Hammock for $731 USD and with taxes, fees, all-inclusive for 2 adults and 2 children and VIP membership for the week came to $1,319.00 for a week. We were over the moon with that rate!

Tips: A few things we learned

Bring Cash

As an all-inclusive resort stay, you are not directly paying for much day-to-day, but hotel staff greatly appreciate tips. We made sure to tip our restaurant servers, bartenders, room cleaning staff, golf cart drivers, and others who provided daily services.

Make sure to bring enough cash for the entire week with you. The on-resort ATMs have high fees. We got USD 100 out of the lobby ATM on the last full day and paid an additional USD 18 in ATM bank fees. You can easily convert your twenties to $1 bills at the front desk, but getting extra cash out can be expensive.

Bring Pool Toys

Our elementary/middle-school-aged boys played pool football for hours daily. We forgot to bring a ball for the pool. We bought a cheap plastic one next to the pool for around USD 7. We lost one football mid-week, so we purchased another football. Let me tell you, we love these footballs! We’ve been playing with them and similar ones for years! (Get your own on Amazon). If you have room in your luggage, pick up one or two dollar-store balls and other pool toys, kid’s goggles, sand toys, etc., to bring.

Before arrival, book restaurants

We were able to email with the platinum concierge team before our stay. A week before arrival, you can make your first dinner reservation; this is especially great for the night of your arrival. The team was able to make one reservation for us before our arrival. Other reservations must be made after check-in, and you can make two reservations at a time/per day. You can reserve for other members of your party who you may be traveling with, too. We could reserve all the restaurants we wanted to dine at for the week. The French restaurant had the best dessert!

What this resort didn’t offer (November 2022)

There were no a la carte breakfast restaurants – only breakfast buffets

The buffet was good. There were hot options and a made-to-order egg chef. There was hazelnut spread galore (Nutella), which the kids loved. The staff brought hot coffee drinks and were willing to accommodate lactose-free options. (Ask for “Soya.”)

My only true complaint about our stay is that I missed the luxury of a sit-down waiter-served breakfast. Previously, I had been spoiled with relaxing outdoor breakfast dining with endless gourmet coffee drinks at the Magna at the adult-only Excellence Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. At El Cid, the breakfasts are buffet. However, there are waiters who will make and bring you freshly made specialty coffees – even ones made with Soya!

No Free Wi-Fi

Wi-fi was not included in our all-inclusive package; however, I appreciated the week of disconnection from my typically highly connected world. We did purchase a $40/weekly single device Wi-fi package.

No food is served around the hotel pools.

Food was only served and consumed inside restaurants; however, there were servers who would bring drinks poolside.

Happy Traveling!

We loved this trip to El Cid near Cancun, Mexico. If you have questions, just ask below.