My husband and I have ownership in a timeshare (that we can’t figure out how to get rid of) and feel obligated to convert points to RCI and use them at properties in Cozumel on occasion. It’s not a great financial ‘deal’ as the ‘all inclusive fee’ is nearly as much as what anyone else would pay to stay, but it motivates us to do something ‘different’. This time we decided to give the Explorean a try.
The Explorean property is pretty much in a jungle behind the Fiesta Americana property. As a sister resort the people staying at Explorean can use all the facilities as FA but not vice versa. Explorean has a nice restaurant, pool and covered poolside beds (4, in total) and is very quiet (when there are no kids around). There were a fair number of little ones but the parents seemed to generally have them well under control.
The rooms are all exactly the same size. We got a king bed, and I’m not sure how they got two full/queens in the same room. The bed was not as comfortable as I’d hoped. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as Casa Mexicana, in my opinion.
By 7am each morning the staff delivers a basket of two little breads (mini banana bread muffins), a thermos of coffee (wasn’t warm enough to melt the powdered creamer) and two small glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice. We generally walked past it on the way to the restaurant for real food. If we drank and were hungover it might be an excellent perk to get us going in the morning.
Explorean offers daily excursions that are included in the all-inclusive fee. We were really hoping to visit the San Gervaiso ruins, but that is only done in the winter months due to the heat. We only did the dune buggy ride to the east side of the island, which included a visit to a Tequila Museum (with very expensive tequila) and then a bit of time on the rocky, wild side of the island. May is not a good month for sargassum so we couldn’t get to the water because it was so thick and dense. It was beautiful to see the other side of the island with the big waves. We stopped at a place I think the guide called The Five Gates. It was where Cortez allegedly docked his ships to off-load soldiers. (If you take the tour, the year they landed was 1521). As much as we love diving, neither of us really like hanging out at the beach or in direct sun – and the other activities were built around either beach, snorkeling, biking (in MAY!), or getting on a boat for a long ride to a beach. I’m sure we missed out on some beautiful scenery but I have a feeling we’ve seen something similar between diving locations and visiting Isla Mujeres.
The Fiesta Americana is a very nice property as well, but it’s more noisy and has organized activities during the day and into the evening – ending usually by 9:30. They have the beach with beds (I think I counted 20 covered beds) as well as hammocks and the beds that are over the water so you can jump in to snorkel and come back up the stairs and lay on the beds.
The food at Explorean was more Mayan/Mexican. At FA they have Asian, Mexican, Italian, a sushi bar, a grill (burgers, hotdogs, fries), a cevicheria, a restaurant on the beach for breakfast and lunch – and a Coffee Corner for lattes, pastries and ice cream. The resort has an app to make reservations at the restaurants (no waiting in line in the morning like at the Grand Park Royal – ugh). I don’t think we had a bad meal at any of the restaurants. I was really happy to see huevos motuleños on the menu at the Explorean restaurant.
Diving – we went out with Jungle Divers, as usual (yay!). There is NO PIER FEE to go out with dive ops from the FA pier!! I was so happy about this. I understand Secrets is still charging $10 a day. Shame on Secrets – and bravo Explorean/FA.
If you have young kids I would absolutely recommend Fiesta Americana as there’s so much more for a family to do there. They even have a ‘teen room’ with a pool table, arcade machines and foosball table, right next to the pool area. I don’t know if they have a kids camp or care.
Let me know if I missed anything. I’m attaching pics of the room, but will add pics of the resort as well.
EDIT: We get the impression that both Explorean and FA attract a lot of Mexican travelers, and as a result the staff doesn’t typically speak as fluent English as, for example, Casa Mexicana. Brush up on your conversational Spanish phrases.
Also, we were spying other tables at dinner and didn’t see anyone else tipping - but we always left something. We may be doing it wrong but feel that as long as we can, we will.
The Explorean property is pretty much in a jungle behind the Fiesta Americana property. As a sister resort the people staying at Explorean can use all the facilities as FA but not vice versa. Explorean has a nice restaurant, pool and covered poolside beds (4, in total) and is very quiet (when there are no kids around). There were a fair number of little ones but the parents seemed to generally have them well under control.
The rooms are all exactly the same size. We got a king bed, and I’m not sure how they got two full/queens in the same room. The bed was not as comfortable as I’d hoped. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as Casa Mexicana, in my opinion.
By 7am each morning the staff delivers a basket of two little breads (mini banana bread muffins), a thermos of coffee (wasn’t warm enough to melt the powdered creamer) and two small glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice. We generally walked past it on the way to the restaurant for real food. If we drank and were hungover it might be an excellent perk to get us going in the morning.
Explorean offers daily excursions that are included in the all-inclusive fee. We were really hoping to visit the San Gervaiso ruins, but that is only done in the winter months due to the heat. We only did the dune buggy ride to the east side of the island, which included a visit to a Tequila Museum (with very expensive tequila) and then a bit of time on the rocky, wild side of the island. May is not a good month for sargassum so we couldn’t get to the water because it was so thick and dense. It was beautiful to see the other side of the island with the big waves. We stopped at a place I think the guide called The Five Gates. It was where Cortez allegedly docked his ships to off-load soldiers. (If you take the tour, the year they landed was 1521). As much as we love diving, neither of us really like hanging out at the beach or in direct sun – and the other activities were built around either beach, snorkeling, biking (in MAY!), or getting on a boat for a long ride to a beach. I’m sure we missed out on some beautiful scenery but I have a feeling we’ve seen something similar between diving locations and visiting Isla Mujeres.
The Fiesta Americana is a very nice property as well, but it’s more noisy and has organized activities during the day and into the evening – ending usually by 9:30. They have the beach with beds (I think I counted 20 covered beds) as well as hammocks and the beds that are over the water so you can jump in to snorkel and come back up the stairs and lay on the beds.
The food at Explorean was more Mayan/Mexican. At FA they have Asian, Mexican, Italian, a sushi bar, a grill (burgers, hotdogs, fries), a cevicheria, a restaurant on the beach for breakfast and lunch – and a Coffee Corner for lattes, pastries and ice cream. The resort has an app to make reservations at the restaurants (no waiting in line in the morning like at the Grand Park Royal – ugh). I don’t think we had a bad meal at any of the restaurants. I was really happy to see huevos motuleños on the menu at the Explorean restaurant.
Diving – we went out with Jungle Divers, as usual (yay!). There is NO PIER FEE to go out with dive ops from the FA pier!! I was so happy about this. I understand Secrets is still charging $10 a day. Shame on Secrets – and bravo Explorean/FA.
If you have young kids I would absolutely recommend Fiesta Americana as there’s so much more for a family to do there. They even have a ‘teen room’ with a pool table, arcade machines and foosball table, right next to the pool area. I don’t know if they have a kids camp or care.
Let me know if I missed anything. I’m attaching pics of the room, but will add pics of the resort as well.
EDIT: We get the impression that both Explorean and FA attract a lot of Mexican travelers, and as a result the staff doesn’t typically speak as fluent English as, for example, Casa Mexicana. Brush up on your conversational Spanish phrases.
Also, we were spying other tables at dinner and didn’t see anyone else tipping - but we always left something. We may be doing it wrong but feel that as long as we can, we will.
We were in 210. FYI, things didn’t dry overnight outside or inside the air conditioned room - so if you want to put on dry stuff in the morning bring a second set of swimwear.
