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January 2023: My FAM trip & Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres Review
I thought I’d start my four night work trip to Cancun off with my host resort, Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres. To start from the beginning, I signed up for a travel agent group familiarization trip, called a FAM trip, with 9 other travel agents, a group leader, and a representative from the resort host brand, Catalonia. These FAM trips are exclusively for travel agents to tour, learn about, and get a feel for different resort during the trip. For this trip, we were scheduled to tour six resorts, including our host resort.
Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres Overview
Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres is an all-inclusive, all-suite resort just three years old with 496 rooms. Simply stated, this means that all of the rooms at this property will be some kind of suite with a separate living room and bedroom areas.
One of the things I loved about this resort was the small footprint and how incredibly easy it was to get anywhere on the property quickly. The resort is clean, sleek with a modern feel, yet it still maintains a tropical vibe with lush greenery.
Your all inclusive package includes:
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the buffet
Unlimited a la carte dining, reservations required
Water, wine, beer and soft drinks at all bars and restaurants
Unlimited national alcoholic beverages
Daily beach and pool activities
Non-motorized water sports
Evening entertainment and shows
Beach and pool towels
Free WiFi
Taxes and tips included (please tip extra!)
Resort Layout
The layout at this resort is pretty cool. There are a total of four room building and the short end faces the hotel. In between the two far far buildings on each side are pools and in the middle is their version of 5th Avenue. I LOVED the idea of 5th Avenue. It is truly like a little street with water features, seating, and more importantly, several different food and beverage locations and shops. At night, there are multi-colored lights giving a lovely ambiance plus evening entertainment and live music.
Rooms
These rooms are spacious, and as I mentioned before, every room is a suite. I actually wound up staying in two different rooms; a Privileged Suite and a Privileged Suite & Swim Up. These rooms are PERFECT for families. In fact, this resort also offers large family suites, some with pull-down bunk beds (think Pullman beds) with occupancy up to six - ideal for families with more than two children. Some even offer a private swim up pool. There are also Family Suites that will guarantee two beds.
In my first suite, I enjoyed the separate living room and my balcony overlooked 5th Avenue. The bathroom is open concept, and both of my rooms featured dual sinks. While my swim up pool was quite cold, the atmosphere was really nice to get away from crowds and relax with a book.
Room Categories
After my personal experience as a Privileged guest, I will highly recommend Catalonia’s Privileged room categories. Among some of the most important features of booking a Privileged room include access to the no-reservations required-restaurant Bloved, open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’ll touch on why that’s important a little later.
Privileged amenities include:
Privileged bracelet
Early check-in and late check-out upon availability
Room service
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Bloved, no reservations required
Dedicated beach and beach bar
1 hour hydrotherapy session in the Spa
Turndown service
Beach towels in room on day of arrival
Additional resort discounts
Dining
There are 11 different dining venues (including one at an extra charge). Here is where things get tricky. All restaurants require reservations for dinner and they book up quickly. While Catalonia does not have an app, they have a QR code which pulls up the website to find resort information, entertainment, and dining reservations. My tip is to try and book the hibachi for your last day as this restaurant fills quickly. Then book as many restaurants as you can for each night. Continue checking for reservations even around dinnertime as many reservations are cancelled and new slots become available.
What I loved most were the lunch options! Aside from the buffet (which features a large variety and the food is delicious) and Bloved, there are an additional five to six lunch options for either quick takeaway or seated service. Options include Mexican, Italian, Peruvian, a burger place, sandwiches, a Creperie with snacks and ice cream, plus an excellent coffee shop with pastries and snacks.
I really enjoyed the food here which was a welcome and pleasant surprise! Food can be very subjective, but I found it delicious.
Kid's Amenities
The onsite kid’s club accepts kids ages 4-12 and offers in-room babysitting on a per hour basis. An outdoor playground is attached to the kid’s club and just beyond is a small kid’s splash pool. The splash pool is a great feature for parents to take their kids.
Pool
There are two pools onsite and both feature swim up bars. However only one offers a walk-up bar attached to the swim up. One pool is the activity pool with daily scheduled entertainment and much louder music. The second pool is quieter, still with music but no additional entertainment. I tend to prefer more active pools and I enjoyed the entertainment staff’s involvement.
Beach
Costa Mujeres and Playa Mujeres truly have the best beaches! Typically they have less to zero sargassum due to how Isla Mujeres sits across from these beaches. The sand is soft and squishy and Catalonia rakes the sand daily. The water is usually quite calm and clear. While there aren’t any umbrellas or palaces, they did a great job with palm tree planting which provided plenty of shade.
Nightlife
The theater hosts nightly shows and while they are on the shorter side at just 45ish minutes, they are entertainment. A separate entertainment company puts on the shows vs. the resort entertainment staff unlike other resorts. There is also live music near the lobby outdoors depending on weather plus a musician on 5th Avenue. If you’re up for a late night and in the mood to dance, the Disco is a great place with good drink service, DJ, and plenty of fake smoke. They play a mix of Spanish and US based music, all with a good beat to dance to.
What I Really Liked:
Unlimited dining at a la carte restaurants (if you can get a reservation)
Food was really good
HUGE spacious rooms
CLEAN resort and well manicured landscape
Towel service begins at 9am, making the chair-saving towel game nearly non-existent
The beach!
The small footprint = really easy to walk
How casual the resort is. No need for long pants and closed toe shoes!
What I Didn't Love:
The reservation system; I wish they had an app or better yet, no reservations. Give me a pager and I’ll wait in the lobby with a drink.
Alcohol isn’t served until 11:00am so no morning mimosa or bloody mary
Who Will Love This Resort:
Large families and multi-generational groups
On a moderate budget
Does not want to do many excursions due to the location of the resort
Enjoys solid 4 star service and facilities
Overall Thoughts
Finally, the end of this Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres Review and my overall thoughts. This is a great resort for a “beginner” to staying at an all inclusive. The service is solid and your experience will be good - but this is not a luxury resort by any means. It is however very clean, modern, sleek, and inviting. I would stay here again - but it likely would not be my first choice because I enjoy trying new resorts.
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Schedule a complimentary consultation today to find out if Catalonia Grand Costa Mujeres is the right resort for you!
Check out my full YouTube review with even more pictures and videos of this incredible resort!
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