My husband and I just got back from a 4 night stay at the Hard Rock, Heaven side. I can not say enough good things about this trip. The food was delicious, the drinks were made well and the service was outstanding.
We upgraded to rock royalty and it was worth every penny. One major feature that comes with it is a butler service that helps you with all your plans and scheduling throughout the trip. The two gentlemen that helped us throughout our stay were Pichardo and David. They both did an extraordinary job working with us. On several occasions they found us on the resort to make sure everything going well as well and was in contact with us through text messaging to help us from afar. Pichardo, personally set up our room for our Anniversary and David helped us with adjusting our reservations for the Bali beds and restaurants to best suit our needs. Both butlers were very professional and friendly each time.
The one name I want you to take away from this review is JOSE PANANA. This man completely made our trip! He was our waiter out on the Bali Beds for two out of the 3 days we had them. PANANA made it possible for my husband and I to completely relax. His professionalism showed through each day with a huge smile and warm greeting. He personally took the time to make our drinks, and helped us with little tasks such as new towels and fresh ice for the waters, just to name some, without being asked. He never let our cups go empty for long and was generally a good person to talk too. Thank you thank you PANANA for everything!
Caio and Le Petit Cochon were my two favorite restaurants for dinner. Le Petit Cochon service was out of this world and Gerry gave us a performance during dessert to remember. Definitely ask the the strawberry jubilee. It’s delicious and quite the show!
Caio surprised me by how they were able to change its atmosphere from the morning rush buffet breakfast/lunch to a nice romantic enjoyable environment in the evening. The food was delicious and once again the desserts are amazing. Definitely try to hit up both of these location on your stay.
Thank you Hard Rock for a wonderful vacation! We are already trying to figure out when we can come back next ????

It’s a long one, make a tea and get your reading glasses on ;)

We returned yesterday from an all inclusive week vacation at Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya (Nov 3-10) Our trip was to celebrate my 40th birthday. I went with my husband and twin 8 year old boys.

This is my first ever review. I’ve read a million before booking trips and I’m going to try and hopefully give some good pointers for any family thinking of going.

We stayed on the Hacienda side as the Heaven side is adults only, with the exception of Toro Restaurant which allows kids for dinner.

Before booking our room, I got really sucked into the idea of upgrading our Gold Double Bed Room to a Family Suite and Rock Royalty. I’m glad I didn’t though, as we didn’t need any of the extra bells and whistles that comes with the other rooms. I found the rooms to be spacious, comfy beds, jacuzzi tub in the room that the kids enjoyed and a good sized balcony with a hammock we used a a lot. The kids had juice boxes in the fridge at all times and with 24 hour room service we were never hungry or wishing we had extra snacks. They also offer an XBox or PlayStation, but the wifi in the hotel is free and really good, so whenever we had “iPad time” the kids were fine with that. There’s a big TV with cable and there was always a kids movie on to watch while I was getting ready for dinner.

We travelled with AirTransat. Good flight, the captains let my kids go say hi and even leg my son Ben sit in his seat! Super friendly staff. Hint-if travelling with Transat, sign your kids up for the free Kids Club. They get a bag with free headphones, beach ball and some other cool stuff. It’s free!

The transfer from Cancun Airport to HRRM was long, we waited about 30 min with our luggage to be assigned a van and then we were off. It takes approx 45 min to get to the hotel. We got to the hotel around 5:00pm. The staff at the front take care of your luggage and show you where to check in. Very nice staff behind the counter. Very welcoming. The guy who checked us in could tell we were all a bit overtired and offered us water right away. Easy check in. Our room
Was in block 7 which is super close to the main building/lobby. It had a view of the kids club and Ipanema Restaurant. Excellent location for us. It does get loud in the evenings when entertainment is in the lobby, but never enough that we couldn’t sleep.

Right after checking in, they assign someone to you as a “welcome person” these people are from “legendary” and they will offer you $500 resort credits to sit through a 90 min presentation about joining the time share club. I appreciated that she was honest about it, some other resorts try to tell you it’s not a sales pitch.
They feed your breakfast, show you some rooms and then do their pitch. For me, it was worth the time for $500 in resort credits. We used that to do an excursion. We had to eat breakfast anyway, so I listened to Jose talk. He was not pushy at all. We declined the offer. Then another guy came in and tried to sell us another package. We said no thanks. He backed off right away, but still sent us to the third guy for the last sales pitch. You can put a deposit down on another vacation with any of the HRH (Cabo, DR, Vegas) and they will cap the price off.

Ok, moving along. The staff put a banner on my door for my birthday and decorated the room with lots of balloons and banners a card and cake! Super nice surprise. Our room cleaned/maid was Javier and he was awesome. Our room was spotless every afternoon. Fresh pillowcases & sheets every day. Fresh towels and planets of toiletries. Scented toilet paper. Our bottoms were spoiled! Big walk in shower, not one thing to complain about. Safe in the closet to lock up valuables.
You get bathrobes and slippers for the adults.

You don’t have to make dinner reservations, but I recommend making them at the reservation tables as I heard people having to wait an hour if they just walked up. We are at Zen (Asian) Ipanema (Brazilian steak house) Toro (steak house on the heaven side) the rest of the evenings we ate at The Market, which is their buffet. Every night was a different theme and they did not disappoint. I highly recommend the pizzas. They are made in a wood burning oven, thin crust and delicious. We always tipped the cooks. They don’t get enough credit for all their hard work, especially by the pool. I’ve read reviews where people complained that the food was not “authentic” Mexican cuisine. I thought the food was awesome (I had to specifically ask for the burgers to be cooked well done as I bit into a pink slider burger, but other than that, the food was plentiful in selection and flavour. The coffee at “Cafetto” in the lobby is freaking delicious. I recommend brining a reusable mug though as their cups are small. They have cookies, ice cream, fruit and sandwiches 24 hours. The carrot cake is so yummy, I had a piece Every. Single. Day. There is also a churro station in the Market and Crepes in the lobby every night.

Hint-they don’t have fruit in their crepes, so I took a banana from breakfast and made my own with bananas, chocolate sauce and ice cream. Also, Every. Single.Day.

The drinks were great. I had some fantastic waiters by the beach who kept them coming. They offer to bring you lunch to the beach. We always got our own. These guys work their butts off in the piping hot sun. They deserve every dollar. It’s hard to watch some people order drinks and. It tip, I understand the idea that it’s “all inclusive”
but we still tip with every order. I left a reusable water bottle by the beach one day and Jose sought me out to tell me he put it at the concierge desk for me. He even made me a bouquet of flowers on my bday.

They don’t supply straws as the resort is eco-friendly. You can bring your own reusable straws if you like, the gift shop sells them for $10/each.

WOODWARD/WRECKTANGLE/ROCKAWAY BAY. This was a definite factor in booking this hotel. Kids stay free, you pay for their flights. Woodward is a massive indoor skateboard/bike/scooter ramps, trampoline park and it has arcade & air hockey table. It’s extra$$. You can use the limitless resort credits towards the ticket. It was $17.50USD for 2 hours. My son had a one on one skateboarding session for 1.5hrs. The guys who work there are awesome with kids. There is also a paramedic station there in case anyone needs it. They have a little restaurant and bar that’s also included. WRECKTANGLE is an outdoor parkour type structure that was super fun for the kids. We paid $5 for 3 round, but the employee working there let them play as much as they wanted.
ROCKAWAY Bay is the outdoor water park. It has 4 water slides with mats and two slides you can go down on that are very steep. I was too much of a wussy pants to go on those ones, but the kids loved it. Also, little to no line up so my kids went down over and over while the hubby and I watched from lounge chairs. There is a kids club on the resort that we checked our kids into, but they only stayed an hour. I was impressed with the activities they had planned for all the kids, but they were pretty young kids in there so I think my boys got a bit bored. They had a Nintendo set up and the kids did a Super Marion Brothers competition. I noticed some kids in the kids club every day, so kudos to the staff at the kids club for keeping them busy!!!

I had a massage on my birthday at the Heaven side. Beautiful spa, go see Philippe. As he was walking me out, a lady hugged him and told me this was her 8th visit and she sees Phillipe every time!!

Shout out to Jonathan the Scuba instructor. He offers free lessons at 11:30. He was so awesome with the kids.

Ok, that’s all the good stuff. I only have a couple of things to squawk about....

The AC in the rooms are up in the ceiling. When the AC clicks on, it blasts really cold air right over your heads. It would wake me up and I quickly learned to “take cover” and hid my body under the blankets. If you turn the AC off, it will get hot and muggy in the room. They had a dehumidifier in the room so I used that to keep the room cool and for some white noise at night.

The beach is not your typical beach you can take a walk down. They are man made lagoons, but they are crystal clear, shallow and there are fish that swim right up to you. You can rent out snorkelling gear, kayaks...(you name it!) so, if you are looking to take a long walk on the beach, you can’t really do that here.

They offered to let us use Hard Rock Cancun resort, but it was over capacity every day. So we stayed put.

Other than that, it was hands down one of my favourite resorts. Will definitely be going back.