One of our best vacations
We booked a 5 night stay at the Fairmont Heritage Place Mayakoba during our daughter's high school spring break vacation, March 16 - March 21, 2024. We live in Manhattan and are fractional owners at the Fairmont Heritage Place (Inspiration by the Bay) in Miramar Beach, Florida. This year we decided to try a Heritage Place somewhere new for her spring break vacation within the Fairmont/Accor resort options. With several non-stop flights from NYC to Cancun, Mexico, the Fairmont Mayakoba was an easy choice. The Cancun airport was crowded but we were out of immigration in about an hour and easily found our driver from Mayakoba (booked through the Fairmont) once we got our bags. Once you enter the main gate and enter the Fairmont property, the Heritage Place is a separate community of residences. The HP lobby clubhouse is beautiful with open air seating overlooking the pools. Our 3 BR villa (a middle villa) was perfect for the 4 of us on this trip. We had enough bathrooms for my daughter and her best friend and my husband and I were in the main bedroom and on the other end of the villa. Our villa was clean, everything appeared to be new and nicely furnished, just like you see in the photos. We had breakfast most mornings at the Heritage Place clubhouse (9am - 11am?). The HP is walking distance to the main lobby of the Hotel (the Hix bar-lounge was open until 11pm) and is also an easy walk to the La Laguna area (once we figured out our way around). We liked the location of the HP because we did not have to always rely on the golf cart shuttles to get to the Hotel restaurants, gift shop, pools, or La Laguna, even though they run constantly throughout the resort to pick people up. With that said, we were never waiting long for a pick up to/from the beach area. It is hard to pick a favorite restaurant, but the Sunday Beach Food Fest at the Rosewood Aqui Me Quedo restaurant was hard to top! It was a great experience outside on their beach and a lot of fun. The food at each food truck "station" was different and there was live music. Book in advance! We also enjoyed our dinner at the Fairmont Ki Korean Bbq dinner which we did our first night upon arriving. Drinks at the rooftop bar Cielo (beach) are a must with the beautiful view. We also had very good meals at Tauro, Fuego and La Laguna. The food was great everywhere we ate at the Fairmont. We ate at Saffron one night (Banyan Tree) which was nice for the atmosphere outside on the canals but the food was mediocre. However, it was nice to go to one of the other resorts and was something different to do so I am glad we went. It is obvious the Fairmont has just gone through an expensive renovation because everything is new and beautiful with impeccable landscaping, open air restaurants and a nice flow. We had great service everywhere we went and the staff could not have been more friendly. One of the benefits to staying at the Heritage Place is having a butler help you with resort information, reservations and transportation when you need it. Alejandro was our butler at the Heritage Place and we enjoyed getting to know him during our trip! He arranged our dinner reservations (I gave him a list of where we wanted to go) and transportation to/from Rosewood and Banyan Tree. You really need this personal liaison at a resort this big and we were grateful we had him for questions and for information. He made sure our Villa was stocked with the few things we asked for too. We ran into Alejandro a few times at the beach area during our stay, discussed restaurants and he always came over to say hello and ask if we needed anything. Thank you Alejandro!
From what we saw, the Fairmont has the most expansive, nicest beach and beach set up of the 4 resorts, and is right in the middle. Despite how crowded the resort was (we were told it was at full capacity), we could always get chairs at the beach and there was never a long wait for lunch service or drinks at our chairs. There are enough pools for everyone. All in all, we had a fabulous beach vacation and we will definitely go back. Our daughter and her friend had a great time too and were never bored. I would highly recommend a vacation at the Fairmont if you are considering the Mayakoba. The Heritage Place was a great choice for us and is a beautiful villa property for a great vacation experience.