Excellence Riviera Cancun - Adults Only - All Inclusive

“Why You Should Choose ERC”

Stay #20 is in the bag! We had a wonderful 16 night stay early April and have now racked up 232 days on property since 2016. After our January stay I posted a detailed TA review commenting on the many staff (our ERC family) we've come to know and respect. I won't write about them again in this revi… more

Stay #20 is in the bag! We had a wonderful 16 night stay early April and have now racked up 232 days on property since 2016. After our January stay I posted a detailed TA review commenting on the many staff (our ERC family) we've come to know and respect. I won't write about them again in this review but all were there again in April with the exception of Leylan (former Guest Service Manager), and they continued to deliver a very high-standard of customer service. I will speak to a couple of additional staff well worth the mention later on in this review. If you are reading this review, are searching for a great adults-only AI resort, and have never stayed at ERC or any Excellence property, I'll try to tell you why you should consider them as opposed to, say Sandals. For ten years my wife and I vacationed at Sandals resorts in Jamaica (Whitehouse) and St. Lucia (La Toc). In 2016 we had an extra week off work and decided to try something different and went to ERC. A decade later we still kick ourselves over the time and money we gave to a company (Sandals) that pale in comparison to the guest experience we've enjoyed at ERC. A few examples...if you arrive late morning at Sandals Whitehouse (now rebranded as Sandals South Coast) there was not a pool towel on property to be found as their laundry was done off-property, had to be trucked in, and replenishment throughout the day was non-existent. Need face cloths, hand towels, or basic toiletries? Good luck. We spent a good part of every morning hunting for these on housekeeping carts AFTER our room was supposedly done. It was like gambling in Vegas. Public washrooms at Whitehouse often had dirty, overflowing toilets and no paper towels or washcloths. Plumbing in our rooms was a constant problem...again, roll the dice. There was broken concrete in several places on property with rusty rebar sticking out. There was one Vitamix blender on the resort shared by three bars...I kid you not! We would often see staff running with the blender from bar to bar early evening. If a stage for evening entertainment was set up, at 10 or 11 the next morning that stage was still there. We often saw furious guests wanting to set up their pool chairs in areas by the main pool in the morning but couldn't because the stage had not been taken down and removed overnight. We are early risers. At 6 or 7 AM, litter, straws, empty glasses, plates, and cigarettes butts were still all over their public areas. Nothing was cleaned up overnight. Service in restaurants was often painfully slow (not that we're in a rush) and orders sometimes screwed up. During our final stay we would sit by the Dutch Pool every day, all day, and in a two week period we never saw it vacuumed or cleaned even once. Need something? Be prepared to wait. Many Whitehouse guests we met accepted their fate and referred to it as Jamaican "island time" but when you pay top dollar you should expect timely execution of your requests. These are just a few examples and we have more. In comparison, the folks at ERC execute. Housekeeping is timely and thorough. Public washrooms and communal areas are spotless no matter the time of day. Bars and restaurants are fully equipped. We typically awake at 5:30AM to do 5KM on the resorts walking/running track. It doesn't matter what event was held the night before, EVERYTHING is knocked down, put away, and cleaned and scrubbed like it never happened. You won't find one piece of litter anywhere. The hustle staff demonstrate is truly impressive but as guests we never feel rushed. And the attention to detail and the guest is exceptional in every department. It is remarkable how different we feel about the superior quality of the ERC experience over how we felt at Sandals. We could write a book. And as for the entertainment and food...top notch!!! We often tell people that ERC isn't perfect, no resort is, but it's perfect for us. Another tell as to why ERC and the Excellence Group are superior to Sandals is advertising. Sandals spends millions advertising in North America and the UK; not Excellence Group. Why? They don't need to. Unlike other adults-only AI's that must advertise extensively as their guest churn-rate is high, Excellence relies to a great extent on repeat guests and word-of-mouth referrals to fill their rooms. The number of multi-stay repeat guests we've met at ERC over the past ten years is impressive. It's almost rare to meet a first-timer. Now to a few additional staff that mattered greatly to us this past trip...Marlene (pic) the Manager trainee at Oregano. In all our years of travel in Europe and Mexico we've rarely met a woman as wonderful. Her warm attention to each guest is amazing, perfectly natural, and a joy to watch and experience first hand. Then there's Kevin (pic) a server at Oregano who knocks it out of the park. It's rare to see a guy this young be able to connect with guests on so many different levels. And finally Alejandro Villalobos (pic) the new Guest Service Manager who came from Beloved (another Excellence property) and had only been at ERC a few weeks when we arrived. He carries himself with confidence and a focus on the guest as if he'd been at ERC for years. The company made a great decision giving him this opportunity. Enough rambling. It was another wonderful stay thanks to all our ERC family with a special shout out to Alejandro, Fernando, Padron, Maritza, Stephanie, and Carla at The Grill who couldn't do enough for us as they made their daily rounds. See you all next winter!

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