Best places to stay:
Cancun and the international airport are less than 20-minutes’ drive away, yet this opulent hotel on a quiet, secluded white-sand beach feels a world away.
Most Riviera Maya hotels are big blocky resorts or toes-in-the-sand casitas. But with its stately terracotta Paraiso feels like a millionaire’s hacienda. Long open-sided corridors are decked out with antiques collected from Asia and the Americas, including a panoply of Balinese stone lions and temple carvings from India.
Suites are plush and vast and divided into a bedroom, sitting area, a terrace with a beautiful ocean view and a bathroom with a plunge pool-sized square stone tub, filled by a tap in the shape of a lion’s head, carved from a single rock. The pool is huge, the Thalasso spa is superb and the hotel has a choice of great restaurants.
The property is set in 14 acres of tropical forest, amid shady gardens busy with hummingbirds, and bright with hibiscus and heliconia flowers. It overlooks a long broad, powdery-fine white sand beach and a shallow turquoise Caribbean Sea.
There are a few other resorts nearby, but they don’t infringe on the resort’s privacy and feeling of seclusion. The village of Puerto Morelos is around 5km south; the nightlife of Cancun is 35 km north.
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Bucket list experiences our writer says you must do in this destination, closest first
Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico
A stunning cenote with spectacular cave formations and glassy water, passing through caverns encrusted with stalactites. Mind-bogglingly beautiful for both snorkellers and PADI divers.
Best for ages: 8+ | £12
Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico
An adrenaline-pumping close encounter with this top of the food chain predator, in glassy-clear water.
Best for ages: 16+ | £150 | 6-8 hours
Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Lily-covered, glassy-clear and filled with terrapins and tropical fish, this cenote near Tulum is easy to reach and fabulous to swim in. Big caverns make for spectacular cave diving.
Best for ages: 6+ | £7
Quintana Roo, Mexico
An authentic, atmospheric and less-visited Mayan site, set in lush, wildlife-rich forest. Climb to the summit of the 126ft-high Nohoc Mul pyramid – the tallest on the Mayan Riviera.
Best for ages: 13+ | £5
Other worthwhile experiences in this destination if you have the time or the interest, closest first
Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico[22.7 miles]
British artist Jason Decaires Taylor’s underwater art gallery feels like a latter-day Atlantis – with statues covered with wispy sea weeds and baby coral, fish swimming all around sitting on the sand in vodka-clear water off Isla Mujeres.
Best for ages: 18+ | Free
Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Designed by Greg Norman, the course weaves its way through dense jungle, beautiful stretches of white sand and mangrove forests, with cenotes – natural sink holes – providing natural hazards.
Best for ages: 13+ | £125
Akumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico
A simple nature-based theme park with a safari-park zoo, a cenote for swimming, a spectacular cave and a rainforest canopy zip-line adventure.
Best for ages: 4+ | £30
Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Small, touristy and mediocre aquatic theme park offering swims with dolphins, sea lions and manatees. Fun for kids.
Best for ages: 4+ | £21
Destination guides including or relevant to this place to stay
Mexico
Talc-white beaches, reefs teeming with life, ruined temples in misty rainforests – the Riviera Maya offers a family or romantic beach holiday with a dash of Indian Jones adventure.
![Cenote Dos Ojos [swimming, snorkelling & scuba diving]](https://familyhotelfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/Yucatan-Cancun-and-Tulum-Cenotes-Dos-Ojos3-SH.jpg)
