After saving up for a few years, it was time to book our first all inclusive vacation! We’ve only ever gone on vacations where we visit family, mostly because of a very high cost of travel with 3 kids.
But I’ve heard from so many of my friends that an all-inclusive is such a great memory to have especially when your kids are young. So this is my experience as a mom of 3 young with kids ageing from 10 to 3 years old. We also have an additional dietary restriction where my son is allergic to eggs and we only eat Halal Meat. Also, my husband is type 1 diabetic and I will share a bit about his experience as well. I hope that this will help you in planning your vacation as well.
Booking your vacation
I think booking the vacation is the hardest part because there are so many choices. We decided to book with an airline to make it easier to transfer from the airport to the hotel. It also gave us a bit of extra security as we’ve never travelled to Mexico before.
Once you start looking for a resort, there are literally hundreds of choices. I actually found it very overwhelming because we didn’t have a lot of criteria. All we knew was that we wanted a resort with big waterslides because my sons love waterslides. The pool was not very important, and the beach would be a bonus.
When you look for resorts, make sure you’re flexible on days because even shifting a day forward or backward can save you like $1000.
We also knew that we wanted to go for seven nights. I knew travel would take up an entire day getting there and so I wanted to have at least five days where we really enjoyed the vacation.
Once I start to look at resorts, I just filtered on four star resorts and looked for what was in our price range and I chose the most inexpensive resort which ended up being Sandos Caracol Nature Resort and Waterpark.
I didn’t go into detail at looking at the amenities or the activities or even the food. I was so overwhelmed by the choices, but I know some of you will go much deeper than I did.
Preparing for your trip
One thing I didn’t realize early enough is that you should make sure that your Hepatitis A/B, and Tetanus vaccine are up-to-date. You may also choose to get Dukoral to prevent travellers Diarrhea
Visit your doctor at least one month before you travel to make sure that you have enough time for immunity. We ended up getting these a bit late, but they still gave us partial immunity and thankfully nobody got sick on our trip.
Packing for Mexico
Here’s a summary of what we packed, what we used and what I wish we brought, but didn’t.
You’re the things I would definitely pack again:
- Medication – You need child and adult Tylenol, Advil, Pepto-Bismol, Imodium, restore lax, bandaids etc
- Water bottles- You definitely need a water bottle for each individual. We were told by a few people that the resort provides plastic drinking water bottles to drink and brush your teeth with. But, at our resort, each room had a 3 Gallon water jug to dispense from. So you need to fill your own bottle with those
- Multiple Bathing Suits – pack at least two pairs of bathing suits so that when you wear one, the other one can dry
- Life Jackets – If you have small children, I recommend that you take lifejackets. I end up taking lifejackets for my two older kids and as well as my three-year-old. She wore her life jacket at the beach, but the older two boys did not need it (I’ll talk more on this specifically about the beach)
- Snacks – there was definitely a lot of food at the resort but given that my son has allergies we did take some back up food for him so we took bread, peanut butter, chips, cookie and crackers in case someone got the stomach bug
- Colouring books, reading books or other downtime activities – we spent most of our day out in the sun, but because there was so much going on at the resort we tried to come back to our room around 3 PM and have some downtime where we could either nap, read a book, or do any type of quiet activity. I think this is really important for kids to help themselves regulate, especially if you’re going to be going to the evening events and they’re going to up stay late.
- Sand toys- I wish we had packed sand toys for my kids. Even if you just buy them from the dollar store and leave them in Mexico, it would be beneficial to have had them. It would’ve made our time at the beach a little bit more fun. A pack of sand toys from the resort gift shop was $30.
- Balls or frisbees – it would’ve been great to have a beach ball or a frisbee to play with at the beach
- Sunscreen, sun hats and bug spray – I wasn’t expecting it to be so hot and humid. We had a few bottles of sunscreen which we reapplied throughout the day, especially if we’re at the beach or the waterpark. Also, in the evenings if you go for a hike, you would need some bug spray as well.
- Take USD cash- I anticipated that our Canadian dollars would be fine, given that so many Canadians travel to Mexico. I learned that USD is Bradley accepted in Mexico. it’s really handy to have a bunch of one dollar or five dollar bills for your weight staff or your tour guide.
- Learn some basic Spanish- I thought the resort staff would speak basic english, but they didn’t. Only the front desk or tour guides spoke really good english. The staff at the restaurants, or cleaning staff did not. It is helpful to know how to say things like “hello, thank you, can I please have ____” etc
What we didn’t need
- Hair straightener or curling iron- I did not anticipate how humid it would be in Mexico. My hair was a frizz ball the entire time even when I put strong whole product so after day one I just gave up and let my hair be natural. I usually just braided it.
- Makeup- I also brought my full makeup kit expecting that I would get dressed up in the evenings when we went out for dinner. Again, it was so humid that it made make up very uncomfortable. So I really didn’t end up using much makeup except for a little bit of blush or mascara.
Travelling to Mexico and Getting to your Resort
The flight to Mexico is only 3 hours and 40 minutes from Toronto but expect a full day of travel. We left our home at 4 AM. When we arrived in Mexico, the airport was so busy and it took about an hour for our luggage to just get off the plane. After that we had to find our transport.
When you exit the airport there’s tons of independent transport companies, but if you’ve pre-booked through a vacation package you need to find your specific provider. We travelled with Air Canada so we found the Air Canada provider. We had booked a private van because we were going to Mayan Riviera, I heard that if you go on the standard transportation, they provide they stop at every resort so it could take 2 to 3 hours to get there.
So we spent a little bit of extra money booking their private resort, but it was totally worth it because everybody slept on the bus and nobody got carsick.
The check-in process
Once we got to the resort, I was surprised at how long the check-in process took. It took about an hour to wait in the line. There is a little snack bar right next to the lineup so my husband, I switched off periodically. We had some snacks and drinks snacks while we waited.
Each family member also gets a wrist band. Be sure not to lose these because you will be charged $100 at checkout. If it rips, you can go to the front desk and get a replacement. We also got 5 towel cards. At each pool, you give your towel card and when you return the towel, you get the card back. Lost towel cards are also charged $50 upon check out.
Our room at the Sandos Caracol
As a family of five, we were limited in the resort options. We were forced to book a suite. At the time of booking, I was a bit annoyed because it cost much more than a regular room but once we got to our room, I was so grateful. The room had one king bed and attached was a smaller room with a bunkbed and trundle bed. We could all sleep very comfortably.
But what was even better about the room is the bathroom. There was two standing showers two toilets and two sinks. That made it so much easier when there’s 5 people in the morning getting ready, or when we came back to take showers at our room. We were never fighting over who had to use the washroom for the shower first!!
The resort food was good enough
Every resort is going to be different so this part may be more specific to Sandos Caracol.
The resort had 2 sit down restaurant that you could book 3 days in advance. The booking system opened at midnight and it was easy to get a reservation even if you woke up the next morning at 9 AM.
There was a few different restaurants for breakfast, but only one buffet restaurant for lunch. The food was the most fresh if you went when it had recently opened. I was really conscious that one of us would get food poisoning, but they were replenished the food often so it wasn’t sitting out there for long.
There were fewer fresh cooking stations than I have heard of from other friends. There was only breakfast egg stations. I have heard of other resorts having a pasta or crepe station as well.
Eating with an egg allergy
Allergies are predominantly a North American health issue. When we tried to ask the wait staff if any of the breads or pasta has been cooked with egg, they just didn’t understand the question because their English is so limited. So they would look closely at the dish and say no, there’s no egg if we ask them if it was cooked with egg as an ingredient, they just wouldn’t know.
So because of this, we had to be pretty cautious with my son. He mostly ate rice, french fries, or pizza for his carbs which for a kid is OK. We didn’t have any accidental exposure with him.
Eating Halal food in Mexico
Eating Halal was more challenging for my kids than and it was for me and my husband since we eat all seafood and shrimp. My kids only like salmon and after the third day, they were tired of eating smoked salmon for breakfast or salmon for lunch and dinner.
I would say that the main reason we went on this vacation was not to eat so the food wasn’t that important to me. It was just important that my kids had eaten enough that they wouldn’t be hungry. We also did end up finishing our entire loaf of bread that we brought from back home, especially for my son with the egg allergy.
Eating Halal was a little bit of a challenge during lunchtime because the waterpark had a snack bar, but at the snack bar there was only hotdog and burgers which we could not eat. We had to plan our day so that we would be done our swimming activities before the lunch buffet closed at 3:30.
My kids are also picky eater so there were days at dinner time we would go to multiple restaurants to make sure everyone got what they wanted. But instead of thinking that it was annoying, we actually had a lot of fun with it and we called it “restaurant hopping”
We completely avoided eating any salad or fruits and vegetables with the skin on. I just didn’t want to take the risk that someone would get sick although I did see plenty of people eating that. We did eat an abundance of watermelon, papaya, guava without the skin, dragon fruit, passionfruit, and lots of other exotic fruit!! That was my favourite part!!
The Activities at the Sandos Caracol
Before we went to the resort, I wasn’t sure if we would have enough activities at the resort to fill our time, but there was plenty! We did not book any excursions or leave the resort at all. My kids absolutely loved the waterpark so we spent three of our days at the waterpark.
The waterpark had 3 different sections – one for small kids, one for older kids and another for older kids/adults. I went on the adult waterslides and they were THRILLING!!!!
One other thing, I didn’t realize when I booked the resort, but we were really lucky is that this resort has a rock wall barrier about 50 feet out from the beach. This means that the waves are very tame. I learned from other vacationers that many resorts don’t have that and so their kids can’t even go in the water because the waves are so huge. I had no issue with my kids going in the water. My two older kids didn’t even have to wear a life jacket. I would definitely check on if your kids like to swim in the beach.
We spent the least time at the pool. I did a water aerobics class one day, but other than that we really didn’t go to the pool at all.
There was a lot of wildlife at the resort including turtles, pelicans, monkeys, and coati’s. My kids had so much fun exploring the beautiful wildlife and lush greenery.
Every night there was a night show, which I hear is pretty common at most resorts. There was a Michael Jackson tribute show, a Disney show, there was a traditional Mayan show (which was really amazing!), an acrobat show and lots more. Be sure to go early if you want to get a good seat because they do fill up.
There was also a kids club at the resort and parents were not allowed to stay at the kids club. You had to drop your kids off, which I was a little bit uncomfortable with. So we let our kids play there for like 15 minutes. They weren’t that interested anyways, they would much rather spend time with us instead.
You could also rent a tennis/ pickle-ball racket and book a time slot for tennis and pickle-ball, which my kids really enjoyed. We booked that for the evening at 7 or 8 PM because it was so hot in the day that it would be hard to play. Even in the evening, it was still so hot.
The petting zoo was probably one of my kids, favourite activities. We went there on 3 separate occasions and fed donkeys, pigs, and bunnies. It was a really cute experience that my husband, and I even got to do it too.
There was lots of other activities at this resort, including a hike to the Mayan ruins, sensory experiences (which were for adults only), a night carnival, hiking, bike tours, and more.
Travelling to the resort as a Type 1 Diabetic
My husband has been diabetic for most of his life. Travelling as a diabetic has some special considerations that I will cover here. I am no no way a medical professional, but this was his expereince
The one thing that helped him enjoy the trip the most was getting an Apple Watch to connect to his Dexcom. At home, he uses his phone to check his sugars. However, we wanted to be present and off our phones as much as possible. The Dexcom app on the Apple Watch can pair directly to the sensor without requiring data. It just has to be paired to your phone for the initial set up. This also made it a lot easier for him to enjoy the water activities like the beach and water slides. Then, we left our phones in the room for the most part.
Diabetics know how important eating whole grains, fibre and protein is. There was almost no whole grains available. It was a lot of white pancakes, pasta, bread, pastries, etc. This was obviously something my husband knows how to deal with, but for an extended period of time, he did see more spikes because of the heat in his sugars than he would have at home.
He took extra insulin and Dexcoms on our trip, but thank goodness, he did really well overall.
Would I recommend Sandos Caracol resort?
I would absolutely recommend Sandos Caracol resort for a family with young kids. It was fun. It was very clean and there was so many activities to do. I did feel like it was a bit expensive, but I know those memories are really precious for our family and I think that we would go back to Mexico again and try a different resort!
If you have any questions about Sandos Caracol, or anything about travelling to Mexico, please let me know in the comments below. I know it’s a big purchase that family save up for so I’m happy to help!
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