Excellence Playa Mujeres, Mexico

Two weeks ago today we were on our way to Mexico for what ended up being one of the most relaxing vacations we’ve ever taken. We spent six amazing days at Excellence Playa Mujeres in Cancun, and I think we both wished we could have stayed forever! We loved just about everything about our trip, I’m already trying to talk Shane into going back again 🙂

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve probably already seen some photos of our trip. (Side note: Instagram is so much fun on vacation – I love living vicariously through others when they travel!) Today I’m doing a massive photo dump with even more pictures from the trip and some details on the resort. I’m terrible about printing out photos and creating albums so this is the next best thing…

Shane is the best travel partner. He always lets me have the window seat on the plane 🙂 I love the turquoise blue color of the water in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico so much.

The rooms at Excellence are wonderful. Giant four-poster king beds, large sectional, flat-screen tv, gorgeous marble bathrooms – seriously, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

The showers are enormous! It was tough coming back home to our bathroom after enjoying this one for a week. Also, for the record, one of my favorite things about vacation is being able to leave towels on the floor and have them magically cleaned up later that day.

There are bottles of liquor in the room you can enjoy, all included in the room rate. Oh, I guess I never mentioned, Excellence Playa Mujeres is an all-inclusive resort, and once you step foot on property you won’t have to worry about much!

There’s also a minibar in the room stocked with water, soda, beer, wine, and snacks (Oreos, M&Ms, and Snickers bars). The minibar is restocked every day and again, no charge. A welcome change from the $5 candy bars in the mini bar at most hotels, no?

A large jacuzzi sits in the corner of every room. It’s technically inside the room, but windows offer views onto your balcony too.

Speaking of which, the balcony includes a table and two chairs as well as a bed for lounging. I spent every morning out there working for an hour or so.

Somehow work seems a lot better with views like this.

The grounds of the resort are immaculate. I never saw even a single blade of grass out of place.

A single large building in the center of the property houses the lobby, shops, a majority of the restaurants, and the martini bar. We heard live music there most nights too.

There were eleven total bars, and we frequented all of them, but the swim-up bar was probably our favorite. You can sort of see people sitting at it in this photo.

I didn’t get a photo of it, but there’s an open-air theater at the resort as well, and every night it hosted a show. We actually had a decent view right from our balcony, which was cool.

Let’s talk food. To say we indulged on this trip would be an understatement. There are nine restaurants, ranging from Mexican and Italian to Indian, French, Mediterranean, and more. Every day they had a special themed lunch down at the beach as well, and that was also fun. We didn’t have enough time to try all of the restaurants, but of the ones we did try, the Indian and French were our favorite. I don’t have many pictures of the food to share – I was too busy stuffing my face at breakfast and lunch, and it was too dark for good photos at dinner. The presentation and quality of the food were highest at dinner, but we didn’t have many complaints about breakfast or lunch either. With one or two minor exceptions, service was phenomenal all-around.

One of our favorite food finds was brick-oven pizza at one of the bars by the beach. Every single afternoon at 3 pm we snuck over to grab a pizza to share. So, so good!

Two of the restaurants are open air, situated above the main pool area. We had lunch there a few days. You couldn’t beat the view or the fresh chips and salsa!

Room service is available 24/7 at the resort. We ordered snacks late one night and had breakfast on the balcony on our final morning. Paradise!

You can be as active as you want while you’re at Excellence. There’s a full calendar of activities each and every day. Fitness classes, tennis courts, bicycle tours, pool tables, beach and pool volleyball, water aerobics, dancing lessons, and so much more. We took Spanish lessons one morning, which I loved, and we tried archery too. Shane was better than me, but neither of us did very well. Given the amount of alcohol flowing at the resort, I’m impressed they even let guests anywhere near bows and arrows 🙂

Non-motorized water sports are also included. I think they had stand-up paddle boarding, kayaks, Hobie cats, and windsurfing. Shane tried the windsurfing, but the wind was too calm to really get going.

We spent most of our time just lounging by the pools and/or the beach with drinks and books. Total relaxation! There are seven pools to choose from – we found all of them very quiet and peaceful with the exception of the main pool/swim-up bar area. That was the hub of activity with music, activities, etc. We liked it there, but if you wanted something more low-key, there were plenty of options.

We heard the resort was over 90% full when we were there, but it never felt like it. Plenty of chairs available by the pools and at the beach, and crowds were pretty much nonexistent.

Whoever thought of hammocks over the water is a total genius. I could have stayed in there all day!

Yes, that is my fruity drink on the edge of the pool. One of many that day…

The beach at Excellence Playa Mujere was gorgeous too. It was a little bit small, but like I said, chairs were abundant so that wasn’t a concern. The views seriously cannot be beat! I literally just sat there staring at the water and listening to the sound of the waves hitting the shore.

We made a friend at the resort 🙂

Truthfully, we did meet several couples while we were there too. We enjoyed grabbing drinks with them and chatting by the pool.

We will definitely be back to Excellence Playa Mujeres at some point, I need to see at least one more sunset 🙂

This post wound up being a lot longer than I intended and I’m sure there are things I’ve left out. If you have specific questions or want more info on anything in particular, feel free to email me.

Disclaimer: No compensation was received for this post. We paid for our own travel and accommodations.