The Fives Beach Hotel and Residences

It is a great place specially to travel with kids. I would recommend it for extender stays with kids. I am however disappointed that it has been extremely hard to obtain a valid TAX INVOICE (Factura). I have never had that issue in any trip worldwide or in Mexico.

I have been dialing and sending numerous e-mails but I have not yet received an invoice; which I need for tax purposes at my company.

We just had a wonderful week at The Fives! First off, everywhere we went, the people were just so wonderful. Service was consistently excellent, and always with a smile. And our ambassadors, Diana and Iliana, were so friendly and helpful. We also have to thank them for a very nice upgrade! They checked in with us every morning with a friendly text with the days activities and if we wanted to make any plans. They coordinated snorkeling, jet skis, a spa visit, and even helped us navigate a trip to the mall to see a movie.

And thanks to Manuel and Rafael for making the snorkeling trip so memorable - we saw a zillion colorful fish, amazing coral, a few Manta Rays, and a massive sea turtle.

We also really enjoyed the food. The Mexican fiesta was fantastic, as were the Sushi and French restaurants. The Italian restaurant was just ok - the appetizers were amazing, but most of the entrees were a bit lacking in flavor. (We heard the pizza was excellent). The real hidden gem was Santa Sirena, the restaurant and the other Fives property next door. That was totally a gourmet meal, with top notch service. Get in there if you can. And we had a blast at the Thai restaurant - special call out to Banardo, who was a total hoot. Once he heard it was our last night there, he gave us this amazing drink for dessert, and even gave us a special Tres Leches cake with “Have A Nice Trip!” Written in chocolates late in the plate for us. Room service was also excellent, as was the pizza and burgers by the beach.

The pools were wonderful. We really liked the quieter one near our room, which had a bar and a great restaurant. The two swim up bars were a ton of fun. Towels were always available, but lounge chairs were hard to find (we were a group of 6 though).

The grounds are also lovely. It’s a small place, which we liked. There are a few wooden paths through the banyons where we saw Koati, turtles and monkeys daily. That was really cool.

Spa was lovely too according to our one visit.

As for nits, the desserts were pretty bland all week. Only the occasional dessert was sweet enough for our American sweet tooth’s. But we did make up for it at the ice cream, which was really good. Secondly, The beach was just ok - the sargassum was really bad, and it’s really rocky in the water. The real bummer was that the resort puts these $180/day Bali Beds all in the front few rows of the beach, so if you are sitting in a lounge chair, you can barely see the water. That is pretty poor form.

All in all, we had a great relaxing time and highly recommend The Fives!

We're back from a week with family staying at the Fives Beach resort near Playa del Carmen. We were seven in two two bedroom suites. This was to be a try at a different resort from Vidanta (I took the family to the GL NV last year). Overall I would say that this resort is an excellent alternative. However, there are some differences in the two resorts.

The Fives is much smaller than the big Vidantas in RM and NV. That's not a bad thing, however, as there is so much less walking to go to the pools and the beach (especially using Vidanta's NV MP, GB). All the buildings have pools and many of the pools run long between the buildings. They are well kept and the water is not cold (a problem I always have with getting into Vidanta pools!). There are swim up bars at all the pools that I saw. The pools give a sort of lazy river feel running between the buildings, long and good for swimming longer distances.

The main attraction for the family was the Fives Plaza, which is close to all the buildings. Our walk to the Plaza was only 1-2 minutes. At the Plaza were several restaurants (Sushi, Thai, French and Flavours, which had a buffet that changed every night). Besides breakfast, lunch and dinner at the restaurants, there was a taco stand, bar(s) and ice cream and smoothie stores. The food was varied and very good quality. Every night there was some sort of entertainment performed in the Plaza (ending at 10 PM). There were a couple of retail shops, a spa, and a 24 hour gym.

The suites are modern decor with no (and I mean no) dishes, utensils, glasses and cups, except for 2 mugs and a single serving coffee machine with coffee packets, sugar, sweeteners and creamer powder packages. This is the deal. If you want all of the above, there is a $50 charge for them to bring all that in. We did not need that, as I decided to splurge and go for the all inclusive, which everyone enjoyed. It was $90 pp each day, $45 pp each day for my 12 and 14 year old granddaughters. With three meals a day, and all drinks I think we got our money's worth. If one doesn't take the AI, then you would have to have a car (valet is free) or a cab to get all groceries. There is a microwave, 4 burner stove and dishwasher all unused by us. The AI replenished the drinks (water, beer, soda) each day.

The beach, which was a 5 minute walk had the usual Sargasso seaweed problem, but the pools were excellent near the beach. Pizza, burgers, tacos, drinks were all included. They have an Italian restaurant near the beach. The service throughout the resort was top notch. We had two ambassadors which we could reach with WhatsApp with prompt replies, and we would continually see throughout the day walking around. They got us a comp beach bed one day, saying because we were RCI. They offered a sales presentation which was easily declined.

From what I could see, everyone seemed to be AI. AI bracelets were checked at meals, but not at swim up bars, or pizza, burger or taco stands.

Like Vidanta, transportation from the airport to the resort is included. Taking the AI included transportation back to the airport ($100 for the van otherwise).

My youngest granddaughter early on said Viva Vidanta, but by the end of the week changed her view.