Dreams Sapphire Resort & Spa

As a travel agent I try to manage my expectations and be as unbiased as possible when leaving reviews. So here is the good, the bad and the ugly of Dreams Sapphire! I'll start with the largest issue we ran into, then hit the basics. I was taking guests to check out and stay at Dreams Sapphire. On Sunday, our first full day, we realized there were never going to be any pool chairs available, so I reserved two cabana's next to each other for Tuesday (we went out on a catamaran all day Monday). Tuesday morning we arrive at our reserved cabana and there is a family in one of them. They shared with us they had just checked in and were told the cabana was available. We grabbed the pool attendant and he was unsure what to do and sent us to the front desk. Guadalupe was at the front desk and had zero interest in even listening to the issue. She kept saying it was a "pool" problem. After explaining a number of times that the pool attendant sent us to her she flatly said she wasn't going to do anything about it and walked to the back area. She was about as difficult to work with as I have encountered while vacationing. Eventually the lead concierge stepped in and kind of resolved the issue...although the offer was to comp the cabana for that day and then comp the two requested cabana's for a future date (we were actually charged full price for them at checkout). Everyone has their issues...this was ours...could have been resolved easily, but unfortunately it wasn't. On to the review!! Restaurants: The GOOD: The specialty restaurants are all good. You won't be blown away at any of them, but the food more than meets expectations. The steakhouse was probably our favorite and the Japanese restaurant our least favorite, but they were all fine. The buffet is good, the food plentiful and the omelet-crepe-grill stations were all above average. The BAD: There is really no reservation system for any of the specialty restaurants other than the Hibachi Table in the Japanese restaurant. This really makes for long lines, lots of complaints and unhappy guests. The UGLY: On TWO occasions a full grown raccoon walked into the buffet and went from table to table eating scraps and looking for more. The staff seemed to think it was cute/funny. My wife was pretty repulsed, especially when it walked across tables that were set for breakfast and no one changed out the silverware after it happened. Needless to say we stopped eating at the buffet. Pools The GOOD: The main pool is quite large and the entertainment team is fun and engaging. The pool bar is busy and the bartenders are overworked and generally friendly. Kids loved the waterslides and they weren't overly crowded. The adults only pool and the "Preferred Members" pool were great. The BAD: There aren't nearly enough chairs, nor space for all of the guests. ALL of the chairs have towels on them by 6:00am (which also leads to a towel shortage by 9-10:00am daily). We ended up getting cabana's just to have someplace to leave our stuff...but that turned out to be a bit of a nightmare, as mentioned. The UGLY: We had cabana #7 in the SW corner of the pool and there was a foot wide collection of sludge floating on the water all day. It was gross and made it so we couldn't swim in front of our cabana. Beach: The GOOD: It is on the beach and the sand is great. The BAD: The beach is basically unusable. It is somewhat narrow and there is an abundance of seaweed. Even going into the ocean was a challenge due to all of the seaweed. I attached pictures to hopefully help. I understand seaweed is part of nature, but we ventured to a resort a few hundred yards away and they had cleared all of the seaweed to make their beach usable. Rooms: The GOOD: The room the type of space you'd like to have if you are a family of four. Nothing was recently remodeled or new, but everything worked and the room was great. The room was clean, beds comfy, shower great and a balcony is always a plus (especially for wet swimsuits). The BAD: While we had no issues, a family in our group did have some issues with their AC. It worked, but it was never really a comfortable temperature in their room...always a bit too warm. The UGLY: Nothing terrible! The rooms were fine. We did upgrade to a Villa halfway into the trip and there is a strong garbage odor at times on that end of the resort. We loved the villa and lived with the odor. Notes: -The lobby bar taco's are the BEST food option! Made fresh in front of you, we LOVED them! -Dave, in the lobby bar, is a gem! We tried to hang out in his section if we went to the lobby bar. -The entertainment is hit or miss. The fire show was great, but the "rock & roll" show was hard to watch and probably not suitable for kids. -Room service was great, slow, but the food was great! -Wendy, in the buffet, worked so hard to take care of our group and was a complete rockstar! Overall, there are SO MANY options in the Cancun/Playa del Carmen area that this property would not be one I'd recommend. The pricing is reasonable, but there are much better resorts in the same price range! Read less

We had a great week at Dreams Sapphire. We stayed in the Indigo section which I will go into more below. We overall had a great time. The staff were generally friendly and attentive, but we tip well and often and I suspect that goes a long ways in the level of service you are provided. Pros: Big room and awesome view. Our butlers Ross and Eric were very responsive. They made dinner reservation for us every night. This is huge for me, as I do not go on vacation to wait in lines. They had cookies, M&Ms, and even chocolate covered strawberries for our kids. They had our favorite drinks and even had sliced limes in the room at my request. They decorated the room for my birthday and helped my wife have a cake made for me as well. Housekeeping always did a great job, and there was never any grace of sand after they had cleaned. Turn down service in the evenings was a nice touch as well, with chocolates on the pillows. The breakfast area for the Indigo section was very nice. Waiters were attentive and food was very good. Our kids, age 12 and 14 liked the preferred club lounge chocolate chip cookies and in the late morning fresh pretzels were put out around 1100. The main pool never felt crowded when you were in the water. I liked volleyball and water polo which was tourist vs staff (got rough!) and my wife liked water aerobics. The spa was nice, we had a couples massage and hydrotherapy was also very enjoyable. I enjoyed using the Hobie Cat most days we were there. I already knew how to sail, but if you didn’t the worker would take you out and teach you. You have to buy a $6 wrist band, buts it’s good the duration of your stay. The specialty restaurants are all fine. Bordeaux and the teppanyaki were the best, I particularly liked the fried rice and the sushi rolls. They will make you a custom roll or sashimi if you just ask. I also tipped the sushi chef. Our son liked the saxophone player that was in the outdoor lounge area one evening. My son and I went down the slide countless times. The steep one is fun, but my back told me about it the next day. We also did putt putt golf, archery, and batting cage. Both kids enjoyed the teen area, but they do not enforce age what so ever, so at a minimum there should be a staff member present at all times. We went to part of the fire show and rock shows. The shows start late (9:30ish) so after a long day in the sun we were all ready for bed. The Indigo, adult only pool is nice. I had read there was minimal shade, but there were several Bali beds and numerous umbrellas available the two times my wife and I went up there. We all enjoyed seeing the wildlife, especially the coatis. Cons: The Indigo section is very nice, and I would probably do it again just so I have a nice room with a great view and a reservation every night at specialty restaurant. With that being said if you are traveling with children under 18 yo, your actual access to Indigo/preferred sections are limited. Kids are not allowed in the rooftop Indigo pool, or in the preferred pool which is also adults only. The Indigo did not have any beach service, umbrellas or Bala beds in the actual beach! There should at least be a beach bar for this area. The main pool has one BIG issue! The reserving of the chairs c/ towels is out of control. If you don’t play the game, good luck finding even one chair after 0800. I got up early to fish one morning, like 0410 early and I would say 1/3 of the chairs already had towels on them. If you want any shade you have to get up early, there is no other option. I think the resort could deal with this in a few ways. Maybe rope off the main pool area until a certain time or remove towels after a chair was left vacant for let’s say 2 hours. Also providing more umbrellas would help. The ocean has a ton of seaweed. Very few people used the beach or swam in the ocean. They were out with their tractor at 0600 every morning, working to clean it up, but it’s impossible to keep up with. This was a long review, but an honest reflection of our families experience. We had a great time, and the pros easily outweigh the cons. The staff were overall very friendly, weather was great, and we had a relaxing vacation. This was our fifth family vacation to an all inclusive and we have learned to ignore the requests that are 100% positive or 100% negative as we have always had a great time on our trips. Being friendly and kind to the staff and tipping them for good service goes a long ways. Read less