All Inclusives, that *really* have good food?

All Inclusives, that *really* have good food? Does such a thing exist? or are many of these Tripadvisor people just crazy?

It's totally not my type of travel, and I'm guessing many people here as well. I'd much rather pay 1/3 the price for lodging and dine as I choose... be able to go to a hole in the wall, etc... so I'm generally opposed to it. But I was recently forced to stay at one in Cozumel due to a wedding... The Cozumel Palace. (The "Palace" resort chain operates a few others--in cancun I believe as well as Playa, and i think on the other coast as well). It was supposed to have been "the best" all inclusive resort in the entire area, and was priced accordingly ($300/night--and that was a large group deal, other places are half in the area). More troubling is Tripadvisor ranked it one of the top 10 luxury resorts in latin america, top 10 travelers choice, top 100 luxury resorts in the world, etc. ... list last year (again, and has in the past as well).

The resort wasn't that great overall (good service, lacking facilities), but the food.... the food is what I came for.
And the food was so bad that I feel worthy of doing an anti-PSA against it...

food... just terrible. the restaurants were only open at night, during the day it was buffet food or a grill. the grill's menu consisted of no mexican food, but rather cheeseburgers and hot dogs. the room service food was OK if you ordered the right things, but a lot of things were severely bad. Many of the entrees came with a side of chips and guacamole. The chips they served were so stale they were almost indedible.

We made it into one of the two "upscale" restaurants they had... The "Mexican" restaurant had food that was on par with Chi Chi's (not joking)... This is disappointing, given that many people had told me the chef tries to do upscale Mexican preperations, etc... We have much better mexican here in chicago... how can you get bad mexican food in Mexico??? Not sure. I ordered chicken mole, which came out as some sort of lemon pepper sauce chicken, and the chicken wasn't bone in, but rather boneless chicken breast. they didn't have corn tortillas, only flour. We asked for corn tortillas (in Spanish), and they brought us more flour. The buffet did have corn tortillas if you asked them for them. The only other table in the restaurant was a group of really midwestern looking people and they were ooooohing and awwwing and taking pictures at the dessert stand the restaurant came and set up tableside to make their banana's foster. how unexciting! :] we didn't get to try their other restaurant ("The Oriental" restaurant as they call it), but others told us it wasn't very good. There's also an Italian restaurant at night but that's not intended to be upscale, it's all buffet I think.

we were told the food would be "anything you want" and "top shelf" ... which just wasn't true, no lobster/crab or any seafood other than white fish to be found... tanqueray was the only close to top shelf liquor i found. the wines were all a Mexican house wine they had. The ingredients of everything else were not chosen with much care other than their cost.

I went with fairly low expectations, but Tripadvisor ranks it fairly decently so I held out hope... This isn't the first time I've totally disagreed with many Tripadvisor reviews, but I have to think that many people on tripadvisor either A) spend so much money they're afraid to complain or B) don't get out enough, apparently.

...Has anyone ever stayed at Ceiba Del Mar in Puerto Morelos? I didn't stay there, but last time I was in Puerto Morelos we stopped in to their restaurant and paid for food. And it was actually pretty good. I had a very French prepared salt-encrusted fish that was taken apart tableside

We had a similiar experience at the Iberostar Bavaro in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The food was pretty awful with the exception of a massive Paella that they sometimes made on the beach during the day. All of the upscale options with upcharges to match were just as bad. Unfortunately, in the DR you are pretty much stuck in your hotel.

Several years ago I stayed at the Ritz Carlton Rose Hall in Montego Bay, Jamaica which isnt exclusively all inclusive. The food was very good. We had a meal package and it was worth the extra price.

One exception might be cruise ships. We had pretty good food on the Zuiderdam, a Holland America ship, not exactly fine dining but some of the dinners were very well put together. I have heard that the Crystal line has very nice food. I have also heard that the food on Carnival and other less upscale lines is glorified gruel.

I tried an all-inclusive south of Playa del Carmen (because the conference was there) and the food was horrible... seriously horrible... I was tempted to catch fish that were schooling in the lagoon, just go off resort by a few feet and roast my own fish... it was that bad...

Mike and I go to Cozumel every year. Even though he has options at the Palace family of all-inclusives, we always get our own accomodations. The first year we rented a condo and shopped at the nearby supermarket.

In my opinion, Cozumel has some stellar restaurants and at reasonable prices which makes all-inclusives more expensive in our books!

I generally think all inclusives are good for non-adventurous eaters, or people with weaker stomachs!

dddane wrote:All Inclusives, that *really* have good food? Does such a thing exist? or are many of these Tripadvisor people just crazy?

Your experience reminds me of my one and only cruise ten or fifteen years ago.

The food was pretty decent - reminded me of a first rate college cafeteria. Generally, that would be "good enough." However, when the cruise line advertises "Cruising Italian Style" and the pasta is overcooked and much of the food is uninspired, it is pretty depressing, especially at the price.

I want nothing to do with another trip where all the meals are included.

I think the TripAdvisor reviews are a valuable reminder of what passes for "good food" with most people.

This is probably not going to help you, but some of the best all-inclusive food I've had has been at:

http://www.konavillage.com/ (Big Island, Hawaii)

http://www.pearlresorts.com/raiateahawa ... l/main.php (Tahiti)

http://www.paraisodelabonita.com/ (Mayan Riviera)

The problem: the average room night at these three places is about $800, and the only way I was able to stay at any is because I was setting up contracts for an event planning company.

Foodies are much better off doing Puerto Vallarta on your own (see many posts in "Beyond Chicagoland") or Aruba, which has a dine-around program at the various island steakhouses. A good balance between a la carte and all-inclusive is a partial mealplan at a really good resort. Gourmets I worked with liked:

http://www.lacasaquecanta.com/ (Zihuatanejo)

http://www.oneandonlyresorts.com/flash.html (navigate through to Palmilla, Los Cabos, though Los Cabos bores me out of my mind)

http://www.tikaye.com/ (St. Lucia)

If you can stomach a split between a more social resort in your big coast city and then a totally-captive all-inclusive way back from civilization, former clients raved about these two in Mexico (just not for the only stop on your trip, or you might get cabin fever)

http://www.verana.com/ (downcoast from PV)

http://www.hotelito.com/ (inland from PV)

Finally, I have to plug Trinidad since I was blown away last year. There are fantastic Indo-Caribbean (Indo as in curry, mon) mealplans (in very rustic surroundings, at the end of broken roads on an island with terrible inland infrastructure) at:

http://www.asawright.org/

http://www.acajoutrinidad.com/

I still dream about the fresh-baked bread, scotch bonnet salsa, dhal, and ginger-garlic-squash soup at Asa Wright. Every single thing there is made from as scratch as you can imagine (like, things pulled off trees or dug up from the ground on premises). Not fancy, just good.

Again, not true all-inclusives with activities and booze (though Asa Wright includes birding hikes and rum punch), but just a list of accessible places that either I or foodie clients have really liked as food destinations as much as culture / relaxation.

If anyone here knows of a true gourmet all-inclusive (like one of the Dorados, Barcelos, or Rius, which occasionally bubble up in lists like this) based on recent personal experience, I'd love to hear about it.

Interesting topic in that I am booked at Excellence Rivera Cancun (Actually in Puerto Moreles) for Christmas week.

The reviews on Trip Advisor were an influencing factor as well as a couple we know who stayed there during the summer and, knowing we are "foodies" told us we would LOVE the food!

We'll see...

http://www.excellence-resorts.com/all-inclusive-resorts/riviera-cancun-mexico/cancun-overview.htm

This place has great food, great service, great rooms, etc.

As an added bonus, there are trails where you can walk to here and enjoy some reciprocal priveleges.

I would add that the entire area (North Sound) has a number of fabulous resorts, including what many people consider the world's greatest resort.

DMChicago wrote:Interesting topic in that I am booked at Excellence Rivera Cancun (Actually in Puerto Moreles) for Christmas week.

The reviews on Trip Advisor were an influencing factor as well as a couple we know who stayed there during the summer and, knowing we are "foodies" told us we would LOVE the food!

We'll see...

http://www.excellence-resorts.com/all-inclusive-resorts/riviera-cancun-mexico/cancun-overview.htm

I stayed there on my honeymoon at this time last year. I thought it was average to above average food. Nothing that will knock your socks off, but certainly not offensive or repulsive. The Mexican restaurant was probably my least favorite and the Japanese the best. The buffets for breakfast and lunch were good. They had a mixture of local specialties (chilaquiles, nopales, cochanita pibil) along with American. They would cook eggs any style or omlettes fresh for you if you didn't want the pre-made buffet eggs.

One of the plusses was the stocking of the mini-fridge every day with cans of Mexican Coke, Sprite and Snickers. I brought back about a 6 pack of Mexican soda.

They had shuttles that would take you into Puerto Morelos if you wanted to go. We chose not to, because our Spanish is non-existent and just didn't feel comfortable not being able to talk or understand people.

All in all that is a great resort. The entertainment staff is awesome. Some of the shows at night are a little cheesy, but I had a great time. I would definitely recommend it.

This might be outdated information (as the company has changed drastically over the past decade), but about 10 years ago I stayed at a Club Med in the Bahamas. The food was very good at the high points and merely "good" at the low points.

There was a staff bread baker who had a presentation every evening at dinner of at least 10 or 12 different excellent freshly baked breads.

There was one night where dinner was grilled swordfish steaks, cut to order directly from the whole swordfish (which was caught that day) laying on ice right before you at the buffet. I wish I had a photo of it. It was quite a sight.

There were quite a few other meals that I enjoyed that week, but the bread was certainly the standout for me.

Best,
Michael

I have to respond to the poster who called Carnival food gruel...
About a year ago, I took a week long Carribean cruise with a group of 10 teenage girl scouts and moms
on a larger ship(blanking on which one).
While I will easily admit the buffet offerings were nothing special,
The sit down dinners served in the dining rooms were surprisingly good.
We chose Carnival primarily for price, so I wasn't expecting much, and I was very pleasantly surprised.
Food was carefully prepared, beautifully plated, perfectly seasoned,
and cooked as ordered ,(no small thing to get medium rare when you order it IMHO)
IF you wanted to try both apps all you had to do was ask...
Servers could not have been more gracious,
and everything was delicious, with many of the entrees being what I would consider to be fairly "upscale"
I was really surprised, because I really wasn't expecting much.
Maybe it just goes to show that you can have different experiences in different places at different times...

the wimperoo wrote: I thought it was average to above average food. Nothing that will knock your socks off, but certainly not offensive or repulsive.

These are my expectations going in...

DMChicago wrote:

the wimperoo wrote: I thought it was average to above average food. Nothing that will knock your socks off, but certainly not offensive or repulsive.

These are my expectations going in...

Well, my expectations were almost met. The food is average at best. A few items that are good to very good but most dishes are overcooked and under seasoned. The menu descriptions sound great but the execution just doesn't match. On the plus side, decent cognac was available. A glass of cognac can round out a good meal but it takes two or three to dull the memory of a bad one...