Moon Palace Cancun All Inclusive

My husband and I just spent 10 wonderful days at Moon Palace Nizuc, and it was a truly memorable trip. His family has been members for more than 15 years, so we’ve seen quite a few changes over the years. While some of the membership benefits have changed and continue to be reduced, one thing that has never changed is the amazing people who work at the resort.

We ate at Bugambilias three times during our stay, and Roberto made each visit so special. He went out of his way to prepare unique Mayan desserts for us and even brought us the chef’s special. For a buffet restaurant, the personal attention he gave us really stood out. He was so thoughtful and welcoming, and we truly looked forward to seeing him each evening.

I also visited the spa at the golf course every day, and Margarita was wonderful. She took such good care of me and always made sure I was comfortable. She would make sure I stayed in the dry sauna for the right amount of time, brought me face and hair masks, and gave me a relaxing head massage before my regular massage. She was so kind and genuinely made my daily spa visits something I looked forward to.

I also had a manicure and pedicure with Evelio, and he did a great job. He took the time to help me choose colors that looked good with my skin tone, and I was really happy with how everything turned out.

The resort itself is beautiful, but honestly, it’s the people who make the experience. Roberto, Margarita, and Evelio each made our vacation a little more special, and we really appreciate their kindness and personal attention.

We left with some wonderful memories and hope to see them again on our next visit!

I’m a longtime Palace Resorts member. My husband and I were grandfathered in under the contract we purchased in 2004. According to our contract, we have access to all Palace Resorts properties, including future locations. We may be required to purchase a day pass for certain resorts, but we still have access.

Overall, our most recent stay at the Moon Palace Cancun resort was pleasant, but it could have been so much better. This was our first time bringing family members along with us, and they stayed in a separate room. Altogether, we had two Deluxe Jacuzzi rooms.

AIRPORT TRANSPORTATION Airport transportation was included with our stay, which was convenient. However, Palace Resorts does a poor job of communicating which numbered stall or meeting point guests should go to once they exit the airport.

Even if the pickup location changes frequently, it would be extremely helpful if this information were available in the Palace Resorts app as part of the reservation details. After traveling and navigating a busy airport, the last thing you want to do is walk around trying to figure out where your transportation is located.

PALACE RESORTS APP The Palace Resorts app is actually a very handy tool to use while staying at the resort. You can keep track of day-to-day activities, excursions, dinner reservations, spa services, and other information related to your stay.

We used the app throughout our vacation, and it was helpful having so much information available in one place.

MEMBER CHECK-IN The member check-in process is ridiculous, mainly because of the constant push to “invite you to breakfast” to discuss all the new things happening at Palace Resorts and their latest properties.

Let’s be clear: this “breakfast” is ultimately an push to get you to purchase more.

We’ve been members for a long time, and two of our previous vacations were negatively impacted because we attended one of these “breakfasts,” which ended up taking most of the day. This time, I repeatedly told the representative that we did not want to attend.

This is an all-inclusive resort. I can have breakfast whenever I want!

What I actually wanted to do was schedule our excursions for the week. Apparently, that needed to be handled by the vacation planners, which we weren't able to do until two days later because there was an our resort credits, and the fact that we are Palace Resorts Plus Members - meaning we get a few free items.

Because of the time of year we booked, we received 750 resort credits per room, for a total of 1,500 resort credits between our two rooms. However, the credits weren’t on our account when we arrived.

We actually had to contact Palace Resorts headquarters while we were on vacation to get the issue resolved, along with our Plus Membership Package. This was especially frustrating because, before coming to Cancun, I had triple-checked with the resort to confirm exactly what was included in our package.

The next morning, the same woman who attempted to check us in asked again if we wanted to attend “the breakfast.” Again, I said NO.

Then a man called our room. My husband answered, and he asked the exact same thing. At that point, my husband yelled, NO!

When it was all said and done, we spent three days telling different people that we did not want to attend this breakfast before they finally left us the hell alone!

750 RESORT CREDIT SPECIAL We were informed that our resort credits could only be used toward specific items at the resort and certain excursions. Unfortunately, the options were extremely limited.

At the resort, there was basically one store where we could use the credits, and even there, they only applied to certain beach hats and purses. You couldn’t use them for snacks or many of the other items in the store.

They had some really nice tumblers that I would have happily purchased with the credits, but nope—you couldn’t use them for those either.

The excursion options weren’t much better. There was only one excursion available where we could use the credits. I honestly can’t even remember what it was because it wasn’t interesting enough for us to consider.

So while 750 resort credits per room sounds great when you’re booking, the restrictions significantly reduce their actual usefulness.

EXCURSIONS As members, our benefits included two tours, along with a 25-minute massage, manicure, and pedicure.

However, only certain tours were available for free to members, and they were offered on specific days of the week. That part wasn’t necessarily a problem, but the sargassum situation meant we couldn’t do many of the water activities we might have otherwise enjoyed.

That sucked!

There were some other interesting tours available, but to be honest, it was extremely hot. I really didn’t feel like spending eight hours of the day outdoors in that heat.

VACATION PLANNER Unfortunately, our vacation planner royally screwed up both tours we planned with our family. He booked the excursions in the Palace Resorts system, so they appeared in the app and everything looked confirmed. Except they weren’t.

He apparently never contacted the actual excursion companies to complete the reservations. That meant two days in a row, our family woke up extremely early, got dressed, got ready, and waited for transportation that never showed up. Only after the fact did we discover that we had never actually been booked with the excursion companies.

What the hell?!

This was probably one of the most frustrating parts of the entire vacation because these weren’t simply activities for my husband and me. We had brought family members with us, planned these experiences together, and scheduled our vacation time around them.

RESORT-LIFE Moon Palace Cancun is made up of three resort areas: Nizuc, Sunrise, and The Grand. Nizuc was built first, followed by Sunrise and then The Grand. Guests can move between Nizuc and Sunrise, but The Grand is different. If you aren’t staying at The Grand, you’ll need a day pass to access it.

We stayed at Sunrise, and despite the issues we experienced, the resort itself is great.

The property is beautiful. The food is awesome. The housekeeping staff is awesome. The lobby transportation drivers are awesome. The entertainment is awesome!

There is a lot to enjoy about Moon Palace Cancun, which is why some of the other problems were so disappointing.

My biggest complaint about the actual resort is that the rooms seriously need to be updated. We purchased our membership in 2004, and honestly, the rooms still look very similar to what I remember from back then. Yes, Palace Resorts has added more restaurants, expanded areas of the property, and created more pool areas, but the guestrooms themselves need some attention.

And speaking of the pools—the water was warm as hell!

When you’re outside in the Cancun heat, you want to jump into the pool and cool off. Instead, the pool water was so warm that you weren’t getting much relief from the sun.

Overall, Moon Palace Cancun is still a beautiful resort with great food, entertainment, and hardworking staff. We enjoyed spending time there with our family, but several avoidable issues kept this vacation from being as great as it could have been. Between the aggressive push to attend the member breakfast, the missing resort credits, the extremely limited ways to use those credits, and our vacation planner completely messing up two excursions, there were some major frustrations.

My biggest recommendation for the resort itself would be simple: update the rooms. For the amount of money it costs to stay at Moon Palace Cancun, the accommodations should feel much more modern and updated.

There is still plenty to love about Moon Palace Cancun, but after being a Palace Resorts owner for more than 20 years, I also know there are areas where the experience could—and should—be better.

I am submitting this as a formal complaint regarding my experience at Moon Palace and the way your resort handled multiple serious issues throughout my stay.

At this point, this is far beyond a complaint about cold food, a delayed drink, or an unpleasant sales presentation. This involves misrepresentation of the amount of time I was expected to spend, financial loss caused by your sales process, repeated disregard for clearly stated boundaries, an employee attempting to access my personal phone, and an apparent failure by your management and PR/Guest Relations teams to appropriately address the situation.

I went to your PR team twice. Nothing was resolved. Best part. There is trash on the floor and dirty socks sitting in the bathroom. Showed them pictures. Told them about the broke shampoo and conditioner as well.

The most concerning part is that I was told I could not have the report number because it was considered “internal.” Let me make this very clear: your employee attempted to access my personal phone, I reported that conduct, and then your PR team refused to provide me with the report number associated with my complaint.

That is an unacceptable way to handle a guest complaint involving personal privacy and employee conduct.

THE “TOUR OF THE GRAND”

I was invited to what I was explicitly told would be a 90-minute TOUR. A TOUR OF THE GRAND RESORT! Wow!!

It lasted more than two hours.

That is not a minor difference. I agreed to give your resort approximately 90 minutes of my vacation time. Your representative disregarded that agreement and continued the presentation well beyond the time I was told to expect.

As a direct result, I was late to a jet ski rental that I had already paid for and scheduled. Because of your sales presentation running over the promised timeframe, I incurred an additional fee. Also they seem to know more about my reservation than I did. Apparently I had golf credits that nobody decided to tell us. Nor was on my reservation which I showed PR. And PR stated that we don’t tell you that you have it because it’s just $100. So your own team knows this is not anything.

I expect Moon Palace to address that financial loss.

I should not have to absorb a cost created by your employee’s failure to respect the time commitment your resort gave me and the ones they disclosed.

THE SERVICE WAS POOR — EVEN WHILE YOU WERE TRYING TO SELL ME SOMETHING

You offered complimentary breakfast as part of the experience at the GRAND.

The food was cold and we were pressured to eat quickly because they wanted to show us the venue.

I ordered a drink that took approximately 45 minutes to arrive.

Again, these issues alone would not necessarily justify the level of complaint I am making. But consider the context: your resort was asking me to spend additional money while simultaneously providing an experience that demonstrated very little regard for my time or expectations as a paying guest.

That is a serious disconnect.

THE MOST SERIOUS ISSUE — PERSONAL BOUNDARIES AND MY PHONE

The behavior of your sales representative was completely inappropriate.

Instead of simply presenting the product and allowing me to make my own decision, she repeatedly focused on my personal finances, my employment, my bank account, and what was on my phone.

Most importantly, she attempted to look at my phone.

Not once.

TWO times and touched my sister to PAY ATTENTION.

I want that documented accurately because this was not an isolated misunderstanding.

I did not give your employee permission to access or inspect my personal phone. NOR TOUCH ANYONE.

I did not invite her into my private communications.

I did not authorize her to inspect my personal information.

And I certainly did not agree to have my privacy treated as another sales tool.

There is a very clear difference between asking a prospective customer questions about their purchasing ability and repeatedly attempting to cross into someone’s private personal information after boundaries have been established.

Your representative crossed that line repeatedly. FIVE TIMES. FIVE SALES PEOPLE.

As someone who works professionally in Training and Development, I spend a significant portion of my career teaching employees how to communicate with customers, understand boundaries, manage expectations, and properly represent the organization they work for.

What I experienced at Moon Palace was the opposite of those principles.

If this is considered acceptable behavior by your sales organization, then this is not simply an issue with one employee. It raises questions about your training, supervision, sales culture, and management oversight.

Guests are not walking bank accounts.

They are not obligated to disclose their financial circumstances.

They are not obligated to disclose their employment information.

And they certainly are not obligated to surrender access to their personal devices simply because they agreed to listen to a sales presentation.

YOUR RESPONSE TO MY COMPLAINT MADE THE SITUATION WORSE

After all of this, I finally received a call Saturday night from someone named Isabel.

The call consisted largely of her asking the same questions repeatedly and apologizing.

Then she asked me:

“What can we do to make this better?”

That question was particularly frustrating.

I am the guest who has already spent thousands of dollars at your resort. It is not my responsibility to design your company’s remedy for its own failures.

If Guest Relations is responsible for resolving complaints, then your team should have an understanding of what reasonable corrective action looks like.

Instead, I was offered a taxi to the airport for when my family and I were leaving Sunday.

A taxi.

After my family had spent more than $8,000 at your resort.

That was presented as though it were an appropriate resolution to everything I had just explained.

It wasn’t.

It came across as completely disconnected from the seriousness of the complaint.

Then I was asked whether I wanted dinner reservations.

Again — I had already been staying at your resort for days. I was already eating at your restaurants. If I wanted a dinner reservation, I could make one myself.

These offers did not address the actual issues I reported.

They felt like attempts to provide generic “guest recovery” gestures rather than actually listening to what I was telling you.

SUNDAY CHECKOUT — AND ANOTHER SALES PITCH

Unfortunately, the situation did not end there.

Sunday morning, during checkout, we were escorted to an area with chairs. The individual assisting us began asking about our experience.

We repeatedly made it clear that we did not want to discuss it.

He continued pushing the conversation.

Eventually, he indicated that he would look into it. Given the circumstances, I assumed the information on his tablet was related to our complaint and that someone was finally going to address what had happened.

Instead, he proceeded into another sales pitch.

I genuinely could not believe it.

After everything we had already experienced, after repeatedly telling your employees that we did not want to continue discussing or participating in these sales interactions, your resort still attempted another sales presentation.

Then came the offer: $299.

At that point, we simply got up and left.

We were furious.

We had already spent thousands of dollars on our vacation. We did not travel to Moon Palace to spend our vacation repeatedly being pressured into additional sales presentations.

And then, as we left, another employee was sent outside to apologize to us.

At that point, another apology was not what we needed.

We needed your employees to have listened the first time we said no.

THIS IS NOW A MANAGEMENT ISSUE

The pattern here is what concerns me most:

I was promised a 90-minute presentation that lasted more than two hours. I missed a previously paid and scheduled activity as a result. I incurred a fee because of that delay. Complimentary food was served cold. A drink took approximately 45 minutes to arrive. A sales representative repeatedly questioned me about my finances and employment. An employee attempted to look at my personal phone five times. I reported the matter to PR twice. I was not provided the report number because I was told it was “internal.” Guest Relations eventually contacted me but did not provide a meaningful resolution. I was offered a taxi instead of an appropriate resolution. I was offered restaurant reservations despite already being a paying guest staying at the resort. During checkout, after repeatedly indicating that we did not want to discuss the matter, we were subjected to another sales pitch. After we left that interaction, another employee was sent outside to apologize. At some point, this stops being a series of unfortunate coincidences.

It becomes a question of training, management, communication, accountability, and the culture your resort has established around sales.

I am not interested in another generic apology.

I am not interested in another employee asking me what they can do to fix it.

I am asking Moon Palace management to actually review what happened and determine how your organization intends to address it.

I want the following addressed:

The report associated with my complaint, including an explanation as to why I was told the report number was “internal” and could not be provided to me. The conduct of the sales representative, specifically the repeated attempts to look at my personal phone. The training and supervisory process surrounding your sales representatives. The financial loss I incurred because your sales presentation exceeded the time commitment I was given. The repeated attempts to continue sales conversations after we clearly indicated that we did not want to participate. Why Guest Relations believed a taxi and restaurant reservation were appropriate responses to the issues I reported. What corrective action Moon Palace intends to take regarding this experience. I paid Moon Palace thousands of dollars because I expected a vacation — not to spend my time managing your employees, correcting their behavior, explaining personal boundaries repeatedly, and then having to chase your organization for an appropriate response.

Your resort had multiple opportunities to turn this situation around.

You didn’t.

At this point, I am asking that this complaint be escalated beyond the individuals who have already handled it and reviewed by appropriate corporate management, Guest Relations leadership, and whoever is responsible for overseeing your sales operation and employee training.

I would also like a written response rather than another verbal apology.

I expect the response to address the specific issues above rather than provide a generic statement about how Moon Palace “values its guests.”

Because if the experience I received is what Moon Palace considers valuing a guest, then the problem is considerably larger than my individual complaint.

I paid for a vacation. I did not pay to have my time wasted, my privacy challenged, my boundaries ignored, and my concerns repeatedly dismissed with superficial apologies and irrelevant gestures.

I expect this matter to be taken seriously