Copacabana Beach & Spa Hotel Riviera Maya

This letter is in reference to our Apple Vacation Trip to the Copacabana Resort in Riviera Maya.

Our trip started terrible thanks to the airline Apple provided, USA 3000.  We arrived at 4:45 for our 7:15 flight.  It took as 2 hours to check our bags.  It was ridiculous.  Then the Flight took off an hour late because they were still checking bags.  That was the worst experience I have ever had flying.  When we got to Mexico we had to wait on our bus for another hour before we left.  The bus trip to our resort took another 2 hrs.  Thanks to a smelly bathroom, it only felt like 3 hrs.

So we finally made it to our hotel, expecting everything to get better.  We were finally having a little fun out by the pool when we had to attend the required orientation, which turned out to be a drawn out sales pitch.  It felt like we signed up for a time share trip.  They offered no information other than the extra, expensive packages for sale (I signed up for an “all inclusive” trip for a reason).

How in the world can they call that a 5 golden apple hotel?  The first thing we noticed when we entered our room was the floor was all wet.  We found out later that when it rains nothing keeps water from coming into the room.  We had MOLD in our shower.  Instead of getting a king or 2 queen beds, we received 2 twin beds (My feet hung over the edge and I’m only 5’9”).  The Alarm Clock was glued to the table pointing away from the beds, and needed to be reset every night.  I didn’t know alarm clock theft was a major problem in 5 star resorts.  In another room the Alarm Clock didn’t even work.  Our phone said we had a message, but we couldn’t get it.  One positive was the cleaning people did a good job (minus the mold).  We tipped them pretty well.

We also found there was not much to do on this resort and we were not very close to anything.  On the first 2 days, they had a few dart and ping pong tournaments, and some dancing, but that was it.  On the 3rd (the only nice day we had), there weren’t any activities.  They didn’t even have music playing until late afternoon.  The water in the pool and hot tubs was way too cold to use.  We had to go get all of our own drinks, which wasn’t a big deal, but at times there was a line 10+ people long.  The bartenders left something to be desired as well.  You could ask for the same drink you just had, but the ingredients were never the same.  The only recognizable liquor offered was Bacardi, but that was sparsely available.  The bar out by the pool was nice to sit at, but it closed at 6:00 PM.  So, from 6:00 to 9:30 (when the shows started), there was nothing to do except sit inside at the lobby bar.  The shows were OK.  After 10:00 PM there wasn’t any food available other than the very expensive room service.  We paid for an all inclusive to have fun ON the resort, but we were bored for the most part.

Since there wasn’t anything to do at our resort, 5 of the 8 people in our party went in to Playa Del Carmen to do some shopping.  Either we were dropped off in the wrong part of town or Playa Del Carmen is not for foreign vacationers to say the least.  So after shopping for about 30 minutes, it was time to head back to the resort.  That’s when the cab driver, who was driving way too fast, stopped abruptly because of backed up traffic.  Unfortunately, the dump truck full of cement behind him did not, slamming into the back of the van, throwing everyone into the seat ahead of them.  The collision also knocked out the driver (we had to grab the wheel to avoid heading down the ditch). All the seats and windows in the van were busted.  The very back seat, which was unoccupied, was completely crushed.  Had there been someone in that seat, they would have been dead, or at the very least severely injured.  We were shook up, but didn’t have any major injuries.  The dump truck driver fled the scene.  Another van quickly showed up and took us back to the resort.  We were scheduled to go on the bar crawl that night, but Apple did refund our money under the circumstances.  The Apple Rep had seen the accident and the story was a popular one around the hotel.  Had the orientation provided a little advice on things to do, or what sort of transportation to take, we could have avoided this whole ordeal.  Instead we sat through a sales pitch.

Fortunately the food made one person in our party extremely sick the night before, or he would have been in the back seat of the van.  We didn’t expect much as far as food, but we were hoping to avoid vomiting (which happened twice).  We also found a bug in our cup of juice or hair in the eggs on another occasion.

Then to make the whole trip complete, when it came time for check out, we were informed that we were being charged $30 for each of our beach towels we didn’t have!!!!!!  The resort obviously had the towels (because they pick them up every night), so why would we be charged for towels that we know they have?   Nobody said anything about this until that point.  Keep in mind, these were not very nice towels.  They had been used numerous times before we ever touched them.  I also didn’t realize that 5 star hotels needed to rip off their customers to make an extra couple of dollars off of beach towels that aren’t turned in.  What a joke.

And although we wrote Apple Vacations a letter explaining what happened, they did nothing.