IV. Dining and entertainment.
There is 24-hour room service at the Maya, but as much as I wanted to take advantage of this, I was only able to use it once because there was always so much good food around! We did order a salad and pizza one afternoon. They told us 30-40 minutes, but the food came in only 25 minutes. It was fresh and good.
Breakfast and lunch are served as buffets. There is a small breakfast buffet by the Lindo pool, a larger one in the Maya Mediterranean restaurant, and the largest, freshest selection in the Lindo buffet restaurant across from the theater. You can get pretty much any kind of egg dish, waffles, or pancakes made fresh. The pastries and muffins are good, and they make fresh doughnuts all morning. Plenty of fruit, yogurt, juices, cold cuts, breakfast meats and hot sandwiches, breads, and cereals. They had regular milk and light milk, and self-serve espresso/cappuchino machines. They had great lox, but usually no bagels. I was a little disappointed not to find my usual oatmeal. They did have bowls of dry oatmeal and hot water, but I didn’t think the water would cook the oatmeal sufficiently. I ended up with more enjoyable, but less healthy, breakfasts than I am used to. I tried to be good, honestly
Other than a few minor details, I don’t really see how the breakfast buffets could be improved upon. Very good selection and quality. On our departure morning, we had to eat at 6:30, when supposedly only a continental breakfast is available. The “continental” breakfast included hot egg dishes, fresh bacon and sausage, and mimosas with freshly-squeezed orange juice. Pretty fancy!
There are small lunch buffets at the informal poolside restaurants, and a more elaborate one in the Lindo buffet restaurant. We were happy with the grilled hamburgers, 2-3 entrée choices, good salad bar, and wonderful guacamole at the poolside restaurant, but we also felt it was worth walking to the larger buffet when we had the opportunity. The larger buffet does require a shirt or coverup and shoes. I wore a sheer coverup dress over my bikini one day there, and felt underdressed. Most of the women were wearing shorts and shirts.
The Lindo lunch buffet offered many tasty choices, but honestly I didn’t think the quality was quite as good as the Iberostar Paraiso Beach buffet had been a few years ago. They could have used a little more daily variety: for example, they had tacos al pastor as the Mexican entrée pretty much every day, and also featured them frequently at the dinner buffet and the poolside grills. They were good, but I would have liked to try some other local specialties. I did get to try the well-know Yucatecan specialty tic-n-xic fish at the Lindo lunch buffet; but either it’s not as delicious as it’s cracked up to be, or maybe the cook just wasn’t having a good day.
Some other choices on the Lindo lunch buffet included thin steaks, curry chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs…. One day they had an extremely tender octopus criollo, which was the best thing I had on this buffet. Of interest to iced tea drinkers: sometimes you could get unsweetened iced tea in the restaurants, and other times they only had it with sugar added. We also visited the Iberostar Tucan and had lunch there this trip, and I thought their lunch buffet was also better than the Lindo’s. For example, the Tucan had delicious bacon-wrapped filet mignon bites, and the freshest grilled grouper I have ever tasted. The Tucan’s vegetables also tasted fresher. The Lindo lunch buffet was fine, but we did feel that the quality was a little less than we had expected.
No complaints about the desserts at the Lindo lunch buffet. There were far too many choices, all far too yummy! I really like the Iberostar’s savory and subtle cheesecake, which is light but not too fluffy, and just sweet enough. My husband enjoyed all the tiramisu and chocolate mousse he could want. All the lunch buffets, and some dinner restaurants with dessert buffets, feature several ice cream flavors daily. The ice cream is way too tempting! There is also a poolside ice cream parlor above the swimup bar, with about 15 flavors, as well as frozen juice and cappuchino drinks.
As a previous Iberostar guest, I was able to make one dinner reservation by e-mail before our trip. They told me they didn’t usually do that but were making an exception for me. I also saw the concierge our first morning at the Maya, and had no difficulty at all making reservations every night for the restaurant of our choice, at the time of our choice. However, when we later scheduled some long excursions and therefore needed to change some dinner times on 1-2 days’ notice, we did have to make some compromises on restaurants and times. You can eat dinner at the Lindo poolside buffet any time without a reservation, so that’s an option if you have problems with the reservation system.
Dinner our first night was the Lindo buffet. As with lunch, the selection was good, but we were a little disappointed in the quality. We ate there again on Thursday, when I had heard from trip report that they sometimes served grilled lobster tails and filets. No such luck. The concierge told us that the lobster was an occasional thing, not anything regularly scheduled on a certain day. I really wish we had taken that opportunity to go eat at the Beach/Del Mar dinner buffet, because I remember it being quite a bit better than the Lindo one was this trip. I don’t know if the kitchens are now overwhelmed with the greater numbers of guests, or perhaps the Lindo buffet has fewer choices simply because it serves fewer people than the Beach/Del Mar one. There were some good options, including lamb and giant prawns, cold cooked bay scallops, and 10 dessert choices. There were large crab claws, but they were uncooked.
Our meals at the a la carte restaurants were excellent. Our first reservation meal was at the Maya Gourmet restaurant, L’Etoile, and it was the best AI meal we’ve ever had! The atmosphere was extremely elegant, with elaborate chandeliers, exquisite food presentations, and white glove service. My husband had a pheasant and lobster salad appetizer, which was as good as anything I’ve tasted in expensive big-city fine restaurants. I had a well-prepared cream of asparagus soup. There were no salad choices, oddly. We were served an amuse-bouche of melon sorbet (formed into a dense little Popsicle on a toothpick) on a melon slice, accompanied by a china shot glass of “melon essence”. Most diners appeared more bemused than amused by this effort, but you’ve got to give the chef credit for trying something out of the ordinary. I had a delicious duck with two different sweet sauces, elegantly presented, and my husband had the tenderloin. My miniature green beans were wrapped in itsy-bitsy sachets with the tiniest vegetable bows I’ve ever seen on a dinner plate. For dessert, we both had the chocolate surprise with chocolate and berry mousse, and it was out of this world! It was so good, we asked for another serving to share. The waiter brought two more servings, so obviously we had no choice but to eat them both so they wouldn’t go to waste.
On Monday we had dinner at the Lindo Cajun restaurant, Jambalaya. We had read so many rave reviews of the coconut shrimp on Jambalaya’s appetizer buffet, we just had to try them. They truly are excellent! The secret is in the breading, which is sweet and spicy at the same time. The appetizer buffet included many other excellent dishes: a nice salad bar with hearts of palm and peeled tomatoes, tender calamari, delicious “Acadian vegetables” in zesty tomato sauce, breaded Portobello mushrooms and eggplant, and smoked salmon. My husband had the spicy fettucine with shrimp and scallops, and I had the seared bay scallops. Normally I prefer sea scallops, but these were the best bay scallops I’ve ever had! The dessert bar was also excellent, including a very tasty cake soaked in hazelnut liqueur, and that delicious Iberostar cheesecake topped with fruit. The prettiest dessert on this buffet (and on many others during the course of the week) was a beautifully decorated chocolate cake. It was dry and virtually flavorless, every time we tried it. In fact, it’s the only dessert we didn’t like. So if you’re a chocoholic like me, get your fix from the ice cream, syrup, or mousse, not the cake. Conversely, the least visually attractive dessert at Jambalaya, a pear tart, was absolutely delicious; a must-try.
Tuesday our dinner was at the Maya steakhouse, El Rancho. Right away they brought us a blooming onion. Great appetizers on the buffet: carpaccio, chicken wings, pork ribs mole, tuna, and tender conch. My husband had the salmon and shrimp entrée, and enjoyed it very much. I had the ribeye, which was also very good (and we live in the Midwest, so we are used to good steak!). The dessert buffet included the dry chocolate cakes again, chocolate mousse, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and caramel apple pie tartlets with ice cream.
We ate at the Maya Japanese, La Geisha, on Wednesday. They start each couple with a sushi plate of about 5 common rolls. I would have liked more of those! The miso soup and tempura vegetables were good, and the fried rice was excellent. I have a bad back and a bony behind, so I was not thrilled with the backless, unpadded blocks of wood that were the only seating option. The chef knew one egg trick, so it wasn’t really show cooking. I also thought the entree was tasty but average—a simple stir-fry that I could easily make with my run of the mill cooking skills. My husband, who doesn’t usually care for teppanyaki restaurants, enjoyed his beef and shrimp quite well.
Our last a la carte dinner, on Friday, was at the Maya seafood restaurant, La Marina. They really do seafood well at this resort. Even on the lunch, dinner, and appetizer buffets, the items I enjoyed most were often the seafood choices. Not surprisingly, then, La Marina had an excellent hot and cold appetizer bar, with crab claws, shrimp cocktail, and octopus that wasn’t the least bit rubbery. We ordered the grilled seafood platter for two. Since I am intolerant of many shellfish, my husband ended up with both the rock lobster tails and the giant prawns. But I wasn’t disappointed with my grilled tuna, grouper, and tender squid. Very well prepared!
House wines were typical choices for a higher-end AI: nothing a wine connoisseur would praise, but decent “best buys”. Some varietals I remember are a Mexican Blanc de Blancs, and a Spanish white wine labeled “XB”. We were offered a premium wine menu for a surcharge at the gourmet restaurant. The resort had Dos Equis on tap. The Maya and Lindo lobby bars serve similar assortments of moderately priced “top shelf” brands—for example, Bacardi, Absolut, Beefeater, Jack Daniels, Canadian Club; but no Grey Goose or Stolichnaya. The Maya bar did offer a few extra liquor choices that were not at the Lindo, such as Absolut Citron. The Maya bar is incredibly impressive with its immense ceiling and hanging snake sculpture, but the giant cylindrical saltwater aquarium in the Lindo lobby bar was even prettier and more interesting. The bars feature a wide variety of tequilas, and a Mexican anise liqueur, Xtabentun, which is sweeter than a million packets of saccharine.
The lobbies feature an assortment of small shops offering souvenirs, toiletries, clothing, tobacco and tequila, jewelry, and candy. Iberostar is building a shopping center on the Paraiso property, but it looks like it won’t open for a few months. Save your real shopping for Playa del Carmen (there is a free shuttle there and back 9 times per day) or the airport duty-frees. There are vendors east of either the Maya or the Lindo lobby, most nights. The resort shops don’t have a great selection of regional goods, but they can satisfy most minor needs. I bought a cute coverup tunic and an Iberostar shirt, and my husband found a great T-shirt with the Mayan calendar on it. Also in the lobbies are a cigar bar, game room, and Internet café (10 pesos/$1 for 5 minutes, minimum 15 minutes).
After all our excursions and beach time, we were usually too tired to stay up for the nightly shows in the theater. We did catch the kids’ show at 8:00 as often as possible. They were so cute! Sometimes they presented a show or skit they had rehearsed that day in the miniclub, and other times they participated in games or competitions such as hula hooping or limbo dancing. We also enjoyed the lounge acts after the kids’ shows.
To be continued in Part III....
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