Tulum is a beautiful destination.  It is about an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half south of Cancun’s International Airport (CUN).  It is well worth the hike, as the beaches are beautiful.  The Tulum Ruins are also worth a visit, but make sure to come early to avoid the long lines of tourists as well as the heat.  Ok…below are some photos of the resort.  A review will follow.  Enjoy.  Back to Mexican Resorts.

Dreams Tulum is an excellent family-friendly, all-inclusive, beachfront resort set on a lovely stretch of beach.  It is an easy drive to the Tulum Ruins, so if you stay at this resort, please make sure to visit the ruins.  You can also get to Koba and Chichen-Itza from Dreams Tulum, but they are a bit further away.

Size:  Dreams Tulum offers 432 guest rooms and suites.

Star Level:  In terms of service and overall property, we would rate Dreams Tulum 4 Stars.  Please keep in mind we were only here for the day (from about 8am to 11pm) and did not stay overnight.   We are basing our rating on the interactions and service we experienced during our visit.

The staff was polite, friendly, and always gave us good eye contact.  Especially friendly was the female staff member working in the pool area, making sure everyone had food and drinks as desired.  Despite the fact that she was really busy, she always took the time to interact with us, asking us questions about where we were from, etc.  It was a pleasure to be served by her.

Category:  This is another upbeat, lively, fun family resort.  It reminds me of a smaller El Dorado Royale, with all of the lush landscaping, but at a smaller scale.  It’s great for family, friends, and multi-generational reunions.

Beach:  The highlight of this resort is it’s location on Tulum Beach!   What a lovely “playa.”  It’s possible to snorkel at this location, because there is reef here.  It’s definitely swimmable but you may want to consider reef shoes as well.  Because there is a lot of space on this beach, they do offer volleyball and soccer right on the beach.  This is great for families who are active and enjoy playing sports.  Just beware.  You may find yourself relaxing on the beach quietly when suddenly, a few crazy young guys (and by young, I mean in their 20’s) come along and have a fierce game of soccer, kicking, diving, and yes…even swearing competitively just feet away.

Activities:  As with other AM Resorts, there is always plenty to do at Dreams.  There is a calendar of events they have daily, so you can be as active or as quiet as you want to be.  Normal activities include non-motorized water sports, dance lessons, yoga, water aerobics, etc.  At night, there are theme parties, live entertainment, and excellent dining.  They have a kids’ club and also activities on the beach for kids.  For example, they had a fun bungee jumping/trampoline activity available to kids up to 12 years old, but it was only open for about a half hour, so my younger kids never got a chance to try it.  They also had a floating climbing wall in the water (see photos above) which the kids really enjoyed.  And if you want a little adult time, your kids can be entertained in the kids club area during the day, which is really beneficial for families with younger children.

Pools:  There are two main pools at this resort.  The first is lively and active and offers different activities throughout the day.  They even fill the pool with bubbles for the kids (well, let’s face it, the adults too) at times.  The atmosphere at this pool is fun.  If you’re looking for something a little quieter, head over to the pool just a few steps away.  It is still very fun, but a lot more laid back.  The service at both is excellent, friendly and efficient, but there is also a daytime snack shack where you can get what you want when you want it as well.

Nightlife:  Dreams Tulum offers a quieter, more calm  nightlife.  If you’re looking for time together, long, beautiful strolls on the beach, or gathering together and just hanging out with friends and families, it is a great choice.  If you’re more interested in partying the night away, or being offered a ton of nighttime entertainment, this may not be the best fit for you and your companions.  There may be a show or two in the evenings, but nothing that is over the top amazing.  And after the shows, things do seem to slow down quite a bit.

Dining:  The dining at this resort was fabulous.  We did not have an opportunity to sample breakfast, since we choose to go to the Tulum Ruins first thing in the morning.  The lunch and dinner, however, were wonderful.  Our first meal was at the Barefoot Grill.  The service was friendly and outgoing, fun and helpful.  Even with four kids, our server never got impatient with our requests.  The food was good.  I would give its presentation a 10. Every dish came out looking absolutely beautiful…and this was lunch.  The quality of the food was also good, although I wouldn’t say it was stunning.  The salad surprised us!  It was huge and delicious, and could have been our whole lunch.  The Ceviche was also tasty, flavorful, and fresh.  The tacos, however, were not steaming hot and crispy. That is the one and only thing we would have changed.

For dinner, we dined at Bordeaux, their wonderful French Restaurant.  Often, children are not allowed to dine in these restaurants, but they made an exception here, and allowed our party as well as another to dine outside in their patio dining.  We were pleasantly surprised that they allowed this, and even more thankful when we tasted the food.  The only downside was that there were no fans, and of course, no air conditioning.  It was rather hot, as there was also no breeze blowing through.  And the mosquitos were a bit hard to take, as apparently I am a magnet for them.  But having a little repellant came in handy.

I must say, the food and service more than made up for this.  Honestly, each dish that arrived was better than the one before it.  Just view the photos above to see what I mean.  Every single one of us loved the Bordeaux!  Our favorite part of the evening was the Dessert Flambé!  Our server did the best job presenting the cascading, colorful flames!  I’ve shared a video below.  Make sure to watch until the end!

Overall:  This is an excellent resort, especially wonderful for families with younger children and multi-generational families.

Flambé Dessert Video

What other Trustworthy Travel Agents and Friends Have to say:

“Deena, we had a great time. This was a trip to celebrate my husband’s retirement from the Secret Service. We were originally booked in a garden view room, but were upgraded to an ocean view closer to the pool which was nice. We felt the staff was fantastic and very attentive. We had absolutely no issues with service and thought the food was very good. Also, the grounds were beautiful. There was work being done on the landscaping pretty much every day. I liked the fact that it wasn’t too small, but not to big either.

Now, I have a a 15 year old. There was pretty much nothing organized for teens, though the resort advertised as having teen activities planned. Fortunately, she didn’t mind that as all she wanted to do was get tan. They do have the kids’ club there for up to age 12. My son is 12, but didn’t participate in any of those activities except for the one time the staff was testing something on the bungee trampoline and wanted his help (he happened to have been standing nearby). Anyway, it seemed like the younger kids were always busy and having a blast. Your pictures show a floating rock climbing wall. That wasn’t there at all during our visit (and that only just occurred to me after seeing your pictures, LOL!).

My daughter and I had pedicures and I had a good massage at the spa. Not the greatest massage, but it was pretty good. I liked that they didn’t try to pimp any of their products afterwards.

It is a quiet resort at night. The entertainment was very cheesy – a comedian one night, some sort of “Mexican” show (I use that term loosely) another night. None of it was too memorable as you can see. Once the show was over in the evening, there wasn’t a ton going on. The first few nights we were there, there were a lot of weddings. Thus, certain restaurants were occasionally closed. I think the resort could have done a better job each day of notifying guests which restaurant would be closed due to a private event. It did look like the resort does a lovely job at weddings.

The entertainment staff was pretty good at getting guests up and active in the pool with water aerobics and other games. But, what I liked was that none of this was over the top or in your face. There was also beach soccer pretty much all the time which appealed to my husband and son.

The World Cup was also going on while we were there. This is probably the most important event in my family’s life every four years. The games were shown in a special viewing area each day, with food served from whatever country was playing.”  ~Ilisa, Travel Agent