Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe - Trip Review with kids

We recently spent 5 nights over spring break in Cancun. We booked our stay at the Hilton Mar Caribe all-inclusive resort with points and were so excited for our trip!

I want to share a complete recap including what we loved about the resort, what we wished was different, and the points that we used to make this trip nearly free.

Quick Trip Snapshot

• Location: Cancun, Mexico
• Resort: Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe
• 5 night stay
• 2 adults, 2 kids ages 7 & 5
• Booked with: Hilton Points (from Hilton + AmEx)
• Overall verdict: We loved it!

We flew from our home airport of Charleston to the Cancun airport (CHS to CUN) with a stop over in Atlanta (ATL) via Delta Airlines.

There currently is a direct flight from Charleston to Cancun on Breeze airway, but it only flies on Saturdays. We were able to grab the direct flight back, but since we only stayed five nights, we flew a different airline there.

I will say that if you have the option for the direct flight, it was so much easier and I had never flown Breeze before, but it was a breeze, pun intended.

Prior to the trip, we booked transportation to and from the hotel using Tropical Elite. This was the company recommended by the hotel (and who has an area inside the hotel lobby) and a private van cost $68 each way. They were waiting for us outside of baggage claim and the ride was about 20 minutes without issue.

I will warn you that there are a lot of vendors outside the Cancun airport. They will be there offering rides and goods and drinks. I don't blame them for the hustle, and none of them physically bothered me, but you definitely want to keep your kids close.

After a 20 minute ride, we arrived at the resort. There are 2 gates checking IDs before entering, which felt very safe.

Upon arrival at the hotel, we were greeted with cold towels and a doorman who took our bags.

We then were able to check in. Because we had pre-upgraded to Enclave (I will talk about that later!) we were able to bypass the normal checkin line and check in at the Enclave desk. I'm not sure if it really saved any time but it was easy.

The lobby of the hotel includes a main bar, the Enclave bar, and a coffee shop that serves coffees, baked goods, grab and go snacks, scooped ice cream, and made-to-order crepes 24 hours a day.

We passed through the lobby and checked into our room! We arrived pretty late in the afternoon but woke up the next morning and headed to the pools.

The Pools

The Hilton Mar Caribe boasts of having 15 pools, and while that is technically true, it is VERY misleading. There is essentially one large pool and a bunch of small rectangle pools.

The pool complex includes:

• 3 large pools, that seem like 1 pool but are separated by 2 bridges. There are walls under the bridges so you cannot swim underneath, technically making them separate pools. The middle pool has the swim up bar.
• A splash pad area for kids.
• 6 adults only pools - these are what I would call plunge pools or micro pools.
• 4 "whirlpools" which were really 3' deep pools with a few jets (NOT heated) in the Enclave rooftop area, only accessible to guests with Enclave access.

Of course, I have to address the chair-situation, which is a hot topic at any pool resort.

There are absolutely people who go out and reserve chairs first thing in the morning. We walked to breakfast by 8am each day and there were tons of chairs with a single towel or even a towel clip on them. There are signs saying no reserving, but that was definitely not enforced.

That being said, we were usually able to find 2 chairs together somewhere, just not in a prime spot under an umbrella.

There were also cabanas available for $150 for the day, and the cabanas on the beach and in the Enclave area are free and first-come-first-serve.

I was pleasantly surprised that the pools never felt overly crowded, even though it was spring break. The swim up bar would sometimes get backed up, but never too terribly.

The main pool is 4 feet deep, so if you have small kids I recommend packing floats. We purchased 2 new floats for this trip so they would be folded very compactly for packing. Someone who was leaving actually gifted us their floats so we had 4 floats for the week. We gifted all 4 of the floats to other families when we left.

The Beach

If you are going to Mexico for a resort vacation, it is likely that you want to go to the beach. I have mixed feelings about the beach at the Hilton Mar Caribe in Cancun.

The Good

Let's start with the pros! The beach has beautiful white sand. We were told this was because of the limestone in the soil nearby.

The sand is soft, white, and without rocks or anything painful underfoot. The beach was a nice depth and great size.

The water is super clear with a beautiful turquoise color. It really is beautiful!

Our hotel in particular had tons of chairs and daybeds on the beach, as well as a walk up bar, so you could continue your all-inclusive drinking at the beach. It was never very crowded and very comfortable.

The Bad

While the beach was beautiful, in reality it was not ideal.

My first beef with this beach had to do with the ocean itself. The waves are pretty rough and there is a strong tide. It was definitely not safe for our kids to be in the ocean by themselves.

In fact, the majority of the ocean in front of the resort was marked with red flags and you were not allowed to swim - a lifeguard would call you out.

Our kids love to swim in the waves so this was a bit of a bummer.

There was also quite a bit of a drop off where the tide was eating away at the sand, making the whole area difficult to use if you weren't a strong swimmer.

The second bummer that I was not necessarily expecting was all of the seaweed at the beach.

Cancun is known for having Sargassum seaweed wash up certain times of year. I was told that typically it comes a bit later but this year it came early. We were there the first week in April.

The first few days of our trip, there was not much seaweed in front of our hotel. The sand was freshly raked and the sea was 90% clear.

But, day 4, a lot of sargassum came in. That day, it was pretty heavy in the water, enough that it bothered me while wading (although my husband and kids didn't mind). That afternoon and night it washed ashore and the next day there was between 6 and 8 feet of seaweed on the sand at the shoreline.

A mechanical rake comes by once every morning, but not again. The rest of the day, there were 2 guys with a rake and trashcan cleaning it up. It was a big job for them and they worked on it all day.

Overall, it was better than no beach, but my kids much much preferred the pools. My husband kept saying we didn't come all the way to Mexico to swim in a pool, which we have at home, but we were still not super enthusiastic about the beach.

Food & Drinks (Realistic Family Review)

The next thing you might consider for an all-inclusive resort is the food. I will say that I found the food to be totally fine - nothing spectacular, but nothing bad. It was very comparable to cruise food.

Breakfast

For breakfast, we went to the buffet each day. It was a very big buffet with anything you could want - from the donut wall to fresh made eggs, to chilaquiles and Mexican food, to traditional American breakfast finds. There's cereal and juice and so many pastries. You will not go hungry.

Additionally, you can get (free) room service breakfast. The coffee shop and Enclave bars also have a few slections for breakfast.

Lunch

The primary lunch option was the poolside grill. There was a grill with hamburgers and hotdogs and a wood fire pizza oven. There were bars with some cold salad type items and nachos + cheese.

Additionally, several days they had a giant wok going where they did meat, rice and veggies by the pool. I had heard they did paella some days like this, but we never saw it.

The indoor buffet is also open for lunch with a large spread of cold and hot foods. This is a great option for the kids!

We actually ordered lunch most days at the Enclave bar. They had offerings like fish tacos, salad, Philly cheesesteak, and hamburgers. Kind of seaside sports bar type food. But it was very non-crowded up there and I thought the fish tacos were great - I had them 3 times! However, it was a bit of a wait for the food when they first open up for food service at 12:30.

You could also order room service for lunch, though we never did so I cannot comment.

Dinner

Dinner is where the options get interesting. The Hilton Mar Caribe has several restaurants including:

• The main buffet (Vela)
• Mexican restaurant (Maxal)
• Steakhouse (Flama)
• Italian restaurant (La Luce)
• Sushi/Hibachi Restaurant (Noriku)

The most annoying thing about the restaurants is that you had to have a reservation to eat there. You were able to make reservations 48 hours in advance so you could wake up in the morning and make reservations for tomorrow's dinner.

Talking to other people who were staying at the resort said when they went in to make reservations it was very common for the only option to be 10 PM. You could try to walk into a restaurant and I think people who had small groups were able to do that successfully, but if you have a large group, people are being turned away.

If you have the upgraded Enclave stay, you could make reservations for every night of your trip when you check in (except for hibachi which can only be made starting 48 hours before). This is a huge benefit if you want to get reservations that are child-friendly.

In addition to these restaurants there is the buffet and room service available every night. We went to the buffet our first night because we arrived right at dinner time and obviously there were no reservations available. The buffet had a lot of Mexican food that night and it was totally good, no problem.

I don't know that I would've really wanted to eat buffet for breakfast and lunch and dinner for a week, but it was not horrible.

Our favorite dinner was definitely the hibachi at Noriku. The food was really good and the show was fun too!

Snacks

There are a few options for snacks around the resort.

First of all the buffet only closed for an hour in the afternoon so you could really hop into the buffet anytime and grab a little something if you wanted to.

The coffee shop in the lobby had crêpes, sandwiches, salads, and ice cream. Our kids got ice cream every day and I really really loved the fresh made crêpes. This was the only food option open 24 hours a day.

You could also order a room service and they had some snacks that looked pretty good like a Caprese salad.

Finally, our room had a mini fridge that was re-stocked daily with drinks, chips, peanuts, and a few little items perfect for snacking.

If your family wants specific snacks like goldfish or granola bars, I would pack them or order an Uber Eats delivery from Walmart!

Overall food thoughts

Overall, I was happy with the food at the resort. Like I said, nothing blew me away, but there was definitely a large quantity and nothing we ate was bad at all.

I thought that the kids menu could've been a little bit more robust. It was the same menu at every restaurant and it had four things – spaghetti, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and quesadilla. My kids would never touch a fish stick and they got a little tired of the rest of the rotation over the week. But that's on them for not wanting to try new foods!

I will definitely say that the best thing about the food was that it was prepaid. You can try new things or order multiple entrées or appetizers. Plus you don't have to worry about your kids ordering something and not eating it. Having the food feel free just made the trip a lot less stressful for our family.

Kids Club

This resort does have a kids club called the Beach Bunch that is free to use. I believe it was for kids up to age 12, though I would say anyone over nine or so would probably be bored there.

There is a playground inside and out, they had crafts and activities going on, and there were TVs where kids were playing video games.

I was a little bit frustrated that my kids didn't participate in any of the crafts or activities and just watched another kid play video games while they were there. We don't play video games at home so I guess this was novel for them, but I wish they had participated in more of the games.

I don't know if any of the counselors tried to get them to participate or not. We only took our kids once while we went to the spa.

Overall, it is a simple but effective kids club that is free to use.

There is also a teen hangout near the coffee shop. In there, there was more video games, a foosball table and a ping-pong table.

Every time we walk by, there were a little kids and adults in there. I never saw any actual teens hanging out.

It looks like a cool space and the teens definitely need a spot so I wish they would do a better job of enforcing the age in there, but the space did not look staffed to me.

On-Site Entertainment & Activities

While swimming at the pool or hanging out at the beach is the main activity, there are some activities put on by the resort.

One of the pools was deemed the activity pool and they had something going on there pretty much every hour of the day.

We had swim up Spanish lessons one morning. We saw paddleboard yoga one day. There was cornhole and dance competitions, and lots of silly games. This was fine but we mostly stayed away from it.

Every evening there was a show up in the Enclave rooftop bar (called Chala) that was open to everyone. You did not have to be an Enclave guest to go.

There were dancers and contortionists and similar performers.

Not to hate on anyone's art, but I found the entertainment kind of mid and definitely very small scale with something like two or three dancers being the whole performance.

If you were looking for a big show, this is not the resort for you. If you are the kind of person that might pop by and catch a glance of a show, it's totally fine. It was entertaining and the bar is open during the show.

Cenote Tour

The first tour was an all day tour that I booked in advance of our trip. I actually emailed the concierge at the hotel who connected me with the Tropical Elite tour company with a booth in the lobby, and he recommended this tour based off the age of my kids.

The tour was through Aventuras Mayas. They picked us up at our hotel and then picked up people at a few other hotels as well. We got in a van and rode about an hour and a half outside of Cancun towards the jungle.

Our first stop was a cenote. A cenote is a fresh water body of water surrounded by limestone. We had the opportunity to jump off a cliff into the water, ride a zip line down, and then snorkel for about 30 minutes.

The water was crystal clear and while there wasn't a ton of wildlife underwater, there were fish and it was perfect for little kids. The water was very calm and easy snorkeling.

Then we walked around the corner to a cave. Our group went into the cave and swam and snorkeled in the cave. It was super cool. I love caves and had never swam in a cave before so it was a new experience for me.

After that, we got a full buffet lunch that was homemade style Mexican food. It was delicious, but there was nothing for the kids.

Then we got back on the van and rode about 30 minutes to a saltwater lagoon. We were able to snorkel here and we saw a lot of fish and wildlife.

It was a eight hour day in total but we had an amazing time. I highly recommend this tour.

Speed Boat Ride

While we were sitting at our resort, we saw a lot of people parasailing off the beach. My kids wanted to parasail, and I was shocked because they usually don't want to do anything that could be scary.

I went to the sports desk in the hotel to book parasailing and found out that the minimum age was 10. Since my kids are five or seven, we couldn't round up to 10.

However, the employee recommended that we do a speedboat tour at Puerta Maya.

To get there, we had to exit the resort and walk across the street. I was worried it would be a little sketchy, but it was a super easy walk even with the kids.

There we had a two hour tour. The first part of the tour was a Mayan experience where they had three dancers who did a Mayan dance in traditional attire. Then they walked us to see a replica of a Mayan temple. It was honestly a little bit cheesy and part of it was that this was a group tour and there were a bunch of college age kids in our tour who are not taking it seriously so it made it a little hard for anyone to take it seriously.

But after that, we got to do the speed boat ride. The speedboats seat two or four people and so you get to drive your own speedboat. I especially appreciated this because we got to get away from the aforementioned college kids.

We rode in a little train of speed boats through the gulf and into a river through the jungle out to the reef and snorkel for about 30 minutes on the reef. The water was very calm and extremely clear. There wasn't a ton of sea life, but there was definitely coral and fish to see.

Then we drove the speedboat back. This was super fun and I appreciated that it was a short excursion and that we did not have to ride a bus to get there.

If you were staying at the Hilton Mar Caribe, this is a super convenient, easy excursion to do. It also was only about $250 for four people, but we then had to pay another $80 in "port taxes" when we arrived.

Why This Was an Easy “Yes Mom” Vacation

If you know me, you know that I strive to be a yes-mom. By that I mean a mom who says yes when their kids want to do things that are fun and safe.

This vacation made it really easy for me to be a yes-mom.

• No constant spending decisions
• Food/drinks (ice cream!!) always available
• Built-in entertainment
• Low mental load = more present time

We had a fabulous time and I would definitely recommend this resort to anyone with kids, especially if you can pay for it with points.

How We Booked This Trip With Points

Obviously, a huge part of this trip was that we booked it with points. We booked the flight there with Delta points and the stay with Hilton points. We actually booked our flight home with cash because I wanted to fly on the direct Breeze flight.

I have a complete guide to getting started with family travel on points here.

But I wanted to share some specific details relevant to this resort hotel stay.

• At the time of booking, the Hilton Mar Caribe cost 100,000 Hilton points per night
• If you book 4 nights with Hilton points, you get 1 night free. So, 5 nights cost us 400,000 Hilton points
  • If you use a Hilton Free Night Credit, these nights do NOT count towards buy 4 get 1 free. They must be paid in points.
• American Express points transfer to Hilton at 1:2 ratio. So, 1,000 American Express points will get you 2,000 Hilton points.
• Sean and I each opened a Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card before this trip for 130,000 bonus points. We earned some Hilton points from spending on the card (6x on dining and restaurants, 4x on retail, 3x everything else).
  • The rest of the points needed I transferred from American Express at that 1:2 ratio.

I recommend you start earning points 12-18 months before your trip so that you have time to earn them and book while there is still availability!

I love this redemption for families because you are able to cover hotel AND food for the whole stay - making it an almost-free vacation!

What did we pay for?

Outside of the flight home, our costs were:

• Enclave upgrade - $500 ($100 a night, pre-paid)
• Cenote excursion - $496 ($139 per adult, $109 per kid)
• Speedboat excursion - $360 ($70 per person plus $20 per person port tax)
• Ride to/from the airport - $136 ($68 each way)
• Souvenirs - about $200

It's worth noting that we upgraded to Enclave right after booking by emailing the hotel and it was 1000% worth it for the ocean front rooms, advanced restaurant reservations, and access to the enclave rooftop.

Final Verdict: Is Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe Worth It for Families?

We loved this resort and think that it was a great spot for us. That being said there was nothing specifically about this resort making me dying to be back there.

As we really get into points in miles, there are so many places in the world that we want to travel. I don't know that we would go back here. But, if I had a reason to or an opportunity to, I would not hesitate to visit again.

I will say if you were looking for an adults only or child free vacation, I would not pick this resort. It is crawling with kids. But if you're traveling with your family, it's a great spot.