Great Resort... Shame about the WIFI
We stayed at the Marina El Cid from Nov 2-9 and found the resort to be a great family vacation with one HUGE exception. The WIFI is terrible and on top of that ridiculously expensive. The going rate was $60 USD per person per week. That's more than I pay for high speed WIFI in Canada! Luckily @westjet had a promotion where we got 2 free WIFI passes but access and speed was terrible. I'm so glad we didn't buy two more access codes only to find it sucked.
For a resort wanting painting itself as a top tier resort, the Marina El Cid needs to invest in WIFI infrastructure and then make it part of the room fee. It's 2019 and people expect good, free WIFI.
Besides the obvious WIFI issue, the rest of the trip was fantastic. The resort is very clean and the workers spend a lot of time cleaning (like washing the chairs and tables by the pool) and maintaining the plants around the resort.
There is mosquitos in the morning/evening, so bring bug spray. We did see the staff spraying for mosquitos and this did seem to keep them down, but obviously doesn't get rid of all of them.
The food was quite good, with our favorite restaurant being the Marina. Luckily enough we got in on the last day before it was to undergo renovations.
The Market buffet on the Ventis side is good with lots of stations to pick from. We ate there most days for lunch.
The pool area at the Marina side was lots of fun for the kids with pool activities, water slide and cliff jump. There were plenty of chairs around the pool and as long as you get out to the pool by 0830, you can easily get a seat.
The beach is quite nice and there is a net to catch all the nasty seaweed that is invading that area of Mexico.
Our room was the standard room with a murphy bed and we found that with the four of us there was plenty of room.
All in all, I would recommend this resort to families with one big caveat, the crappy, expensive WIFI.
