Royalton Riviera Cancun is a fantastic 4.5 star resort located about 20 minutes south of the Cancun airport. It is an easy trip from the airport and seemed very safe. It is located off the main highway down a private road with a guard house.
It has an adults only section called Hideaway that gives you access to an adults only pool and additional restaurant and bar options.
It is a modern, new resort (opened in late 2014). It features 800+ rooms with a dozen pools, 10 restaurants (including a food truck), 24 hour room service, free WiFi. Standard rooms are very nice and upgrades can include a swim out room, terrace jacuzzi and Diamond Club (butler service).
The pools are beautiful and have something for everyone. From the main pool with activities throughout the day, quieter relaxing pools with swim-up bars to the kids splash park with a good selection of water slides and the adults only Hideaway pool.
The food is amazing. I have stayed at many all-inclusive resorts where the food is average at best. They have dining options for everyone! Gourmet Marche is the international buffet and is really impressive in the selection. Hunter Steakhouse is a great spot to get a perfectly cooked steak. Zen is Japanese featuring authentic teppaenyaki experience. They also have great Japanese cuisine and fresh sushi. We only had a little over 48 hours at Royalton so we didn’t get to try everything. The room service was decent.
The spa was great. Brice has his first massage ever and loved it. We had a couples massage where we started with hydrotherapy and then a 50 minute massage and facial (it was the daily special and was something like $250 for the two of us).
They have nightly entertainment/shows and a 24 hour sports bar (with all kinds of games on anytime day or night). The club, XS was fun. The DJ played good music and people were dancing and having a good time.
The only downside of Royalton is the beach. The beach is nice white sand. However, as with many other places from Mexico and all over the Caribbean there is a current issue with seaweed Sargassum problem. They do a good job of clearing off the beach so you can still lounge and get drinks while watching waves. People were still swimming but it was not a beach I want to swim in as of August 2018.
Here are some other pictures:
