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Even though we stayed 5 nights at The Grand, we took the Lobby to Lobby Bus to Sunrise and Nizuc for the last couple of days for more entertainment and food. We weren't able to visit all of the restaurants because we didn't have enough time but, here's a list of restaurants that we got to try at Moon Palace The Grand, Moon Place Sunrise, and Moon Palace Nizuc.

• Tapas Y Vino at The Grand - Tapas Y Vino was a great place to eat to tide us over before the buffet opened for dinner as they were opened a couple of hours before the dinner buffet did at The Grand. The Crostinis were delicious and it was attentive service.
  
  
• El Caribeno at The Grand - This restaurant served a la carte for lunch and dinner, but for breakfast, it was a buffet. It was the closest restaurant to building #87, where our suite was located so it's very convenient for us to dine here! We didn't have to get on a golf cart to get here like we do to get to the lobby. Best of all, it was delicious! A bonus is they let you make your own mimosas at the buffet bar here for breakfast. The main buffet in the lobby at The Grand didn't even have this option for breakfast like El Caribeno does.
• Habibi at The Grand - We saw a gentleman rave about this place on YouTube and knew we had to include it in our itinerary. It definitely felt very fancy inside at Habibi. The pita bread was fresh and delicious. I ordered the octopus dish as my main entree and thought it was well executed. Service did take a little longer than the other restaurants because they made everything really fresh to order. I asked for a glass of champagne and the server automatically refilled my glass without me asking when I finished my first glass, which is a star is my book. I felt very healthy coming out of this of this restaurant as there were a lot of healthy options. I enjoyed my lunch at Habibi very much.
  
• Circus at The Grand - The Circus Restaurant required a reservation and the times get taken quickly so once you check-in, I recommend making a reservation on the app for this place as soon as possible after you've checked in. This restaurant was definitely a wonderful option for the kids. The service was very casual and the popcorn show that they gave every table was really neat. I commend their efforts! See our video of the popcorn steam show for our table.
  
  They have a very kid-friendly menu. Their entrance was so exciting to walk through. I really felt like I was going to a circus, except there were no performances while we were there. This place was definitely not fine dining when it comes to their food, but it's so fun and worth it for the kids. You order your entrees a la carte but the dessert was a buffet that included candy apples!
  
• Jade at The Grand - Jade, an Asian fusion restaurant, offered many different things. They had sushi, noodles, soups, waygu beef (extra charge), seafood dishes and wonderful desserts. Sadly, while we were there, service was awfully slow and cold. They were so busy! However, some of their dishes were very good! I liked the seafood soup, tempura shrimp and mochi dessert! My husband's waygu beef was definitely worth the extra money!
  
• Tavola at The Grand - We dined at Tavola, an Italian restaurant at Moon Palace The Grand, for a late lunch. The service was lackluster for me. Maybe because it was towards the end of the server's shift and he was exhausted by the time we got sat. I was also confused about why they said they didn't have calamari as the appetizer. They told me they ran out of calamari so the calamari appetizer was not available but when I ordered my seafood fettuccine as my entree, I saw a couple of squid rings (calamari) in it. Anyway, I really enjoyed my seafood fettuccine, which had shrimp, fish, calamari, and clams, but wished I could've had better service. My husband ordered the Tavola pizza and didn't like how the toppings tasted together. One of my kids liked the cheese pizza that he ordered so his meal worked out for him, and he's usually the pickiest eater among us!
  
• Room Service from The Grand - We ordered from room service 3 times while we were staying at Moon Palace The Grand. Twice were for breakfast and once was for a late dinner. The breakfasts were very good. For one morning, I order chilaquiles and a kiwi bowl and for the other morning, I ordered an egg and mushroom omelette. My husband also liked his steak and eggs and two eggs breakfast. However, when my husband ordered the pepperoni pizza for dinner, he didn't like it at all. Obviously, he didn't have very good luck with his pizza orders on this trip.
  
• The Grand Buffet at The Grand - The buffet in the lobby of The Grand served really delicious food and every day was a different theme. We ate at the buffet three times during our 5 night stay. We ate there on our first day for dinner, another day for lunch and one last time for our last morning at Moon Palace for breakfast. They had so many dishes every day. It was unbelievable!
• Momo at Sunrise - Momo at Moon Palace Sunrise didn't require a reservation but had a confusing entrance. The Momo Teppanyaki, located next door to Momo, required a reservation and had a separate entrance. It was probably a very common mistake but we arrived at the Momo Teppanyaki entrance first because it had such an inviting entrance. Then, they redirected us to the door next to them to wait for Momo to open. Once inside of Momo, it was very dim and my husband almost tripped but caught his footing so didn't fall but, be careful walking inside of there. The decor was very pretty, much prettier than Jade at Moon Palace The Grand! I ordered sushi and some dim sum. My kids ordered rice, gyozas, noodles and fried wontons. I ate what they didn't finished as well and was very full that night! My husband ordered waygu for an extra charge here as well. I love that Momo presented him with 4 different cuts to pick from, which Jade didn't do! Overall, the food was okay. I didn't like their shu mai or sushi that much. I felt that the dim sum and sushi places that I've dined at in California executed all of this better! However, the service at Momo was excellent, compared to Jade. I really enjoyed my experience here even if there were a few items I didn't like to eat all that much.
  
• Bugambilias at Sunrise - Bugambilias was the buffet restaurant at Moon Palace Sunrise that we enjoyed dinner at for one of the nights. The place was very open and inviting. It's located right behind the lobby bar and easy to find. The food lay out was interesting and reminded me of a small maze. I loved how the dessert section had a lot of ice cream to pick from. A bonus was, we had the ocean and pool views from the windows here. Service was very nice and relaxed. 
• Arrecifes at Nizuc - Arrecifes is a Brazilian steakhouse at Moon Palace Nizuc and it is what you typically expect in a Brazilian steakhouse. Someone comes around and presents the meat on a big shish kabob stick and cut them for you. The appetizers, sides and desserts were on the buffet line. You flip the green sign at your table when you still want meat and flip it on the other side when you're done with the meat so that they won't come around at the table anymore. This place was a bit overwhelming for my kids. It was loud and our table for four was just not big enough to fit our plates, especially if we also had salad and bread plates as well. However, the paella from the buffet was excellent! It was probably my most favorite thing to eat during our 5 night stay at Moon Palace. The service at Arrecifes was also wonderful and warm.

Adult-Only Bars that We Visited

We took advantage of the amazing and well-supervised childcare at The Playroom at Moon Palace Sunrise (scroll down to read more about our thoughts about the 3 different Playrooms) for our kids and used a couple of hours of their services (also complimentary) to check out the adults-only bars at the Moon Palace Cancun Resorts. Here were the ones we visited.

• Sky Bar - The Sky Bar was located at Moon Palace Sunrise on the second floor. The lobby bar of Moon Palace Sunrise was so busy in the evenings that taking a bit of effort to go up the escalator to get to Sky Bar was an alternative option, if you don't have kids in tow. The escalator was located right next to the lobby bar and the Sky Bar from the escalator ride up would directly be located on your left once you got off the elevator. If you look up from the lobby, you could actually see the Sky Bar so it's pretty close to the entrance. Sky Bar was a James Bond themed bar and their cocktail glasses were interestingly slanted! They had two pool tables and a lot of comfortable seats. The service was great here! It was so much more relaxing than sitting in the lobby bar of Moon Palace Sunrise.
  
• The Pub - The Pub at Moon Palace Nizuc was pretty cool! It's a British pub with the UK flag decorated around the area. It was pretty quiet when we came in so if you're looking for a bar that is quieter or has a dive type feel, this place is for you. There were only 2 other couples there and by the time we left, there was only one couple left. I really appreciated the extra smoky garnish that my server added to my cocktail.
  
  
• The Library - The Library at Moon Palace The Grand was a stand out among this list of adult-only bars! It was a speakeasy bar and the door was a library bookshelf that you'd have to open at the right side to find another bookshelf door to enter the bar! It was so neat and memorable! The drinks were unique and the vibe was 1920s. It was uber romantic! See my video of my experience below.
  
  
  
  

I'm glad we ventured out of The Grand and explored Sunrise and Nizuc towards the end of our stay because Sunrise and Nizuc had a couple of interesting restaurants and each had their own Playroom for the kids. Among all of the Playrooms (area for kids), Sunrise's Playroom was my kids' favorite out of all three resorts! Continue to read more below to see why.

Playrooms at Moon Palace Cancun

Surprisingly, we didn't like the Playroom at The Grand the best, although the kids really enjoyed the bumper cars there. It really all depends on what kind of things your kid likes but there were 3 Playrooms to choose from as The Grand guests. They named all three of the kid's clubs at Moon Palace Cancun the same name: Playroom, even though the vibes and offerings are all different between the three. 

The Playroom at Moon Palace Sunrise was specifically for ages 4 - 12 years old and they were well-supervised with planned activities and specific rooms like the Xbox game consoles, craft area, arcade area and more. Kids under 4 years old were allowed at the Playroom but only if they are accompanied by their parents or guardians. The Playroom at Sunrise reminded me of the kid's clubs on the Carnival Cruise and Royal Caribbean Cruises that we went on, except my kids got be together. The cruises often separate the kids into smaller groups by age ranges. Read about our 3 Day Baja California Carnival Cruise Vacation or our Royal Caribbean Cruise to Catalina and Mexico. 
We used the Sunrise's Playroom services for a couple of hours for the last two days of our trip because we didn't discover their awesome services until venturing out of The Grand. Like I mentioned earlier in the blog, access to Moon Palace Sunrise and Moon Palace Nizuc were included if you're staying at Moon Palace The Grand. That was the biggest perk for staying at The Grand.

The Playroom at Moon Palace Nizuc also had supervised childcare but it was for ages between 4 - 10 years old and had less activities in the room. However, they also had supervised childcare with a fun itinerary for the kids. I think if your kids are on the younger side, this would be more suitable for them. We decided not to use the Playroom Nizuc's services because it was smaller in size and did not have an Xbox game console that my kids really liked. Like Moon Palace Sunrise, kids under 4 years old were allowed in the Playroom only if they are accompanied with their parents or guardians.

The Playroom at The Grand was the biggest of all and multi-leveled, but kids ages 8 and up (including teens) do not get tight supervision. Kids who are ages 7 and under had to be accompanied by an adult so we accompanied my kids the whole time because one of my sons was 7 years old.




I didn't mind this because I had a great time playing with them and was able to play on the big Pac Man console at the arcade. I really loved watching my kids have fun there and playing with all the free arcade games at The Grand's Playroom! I think the reason why they didn't have the same supervision and well trained staff like the Playroom at Sunrise had was because this Playroom also allowed teens to come play without supervision and teens don't need to be babysat.

My younger son and I also played at their indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golf room so it was a fun way to have one-on-one mother and son bonding time with him at this particular Playroom.

To iterate, my kids liked going to the Playroom at Sunrise the best as they prefer organized play and all the fun activities that they had there. My kids currently get intimidated by bigger kids so the narrowed age group that the Playroom Sunrise cared for worked very well for our family while my kids are still on the younger side as elementary kids.

Rush with Shorter Layover from Cancun to Denver Stop And U.S. Customs and Border Examination to Get Back to U.S.

I had such a wonderful vacation and the staff at Moon Palace made everything so easy that shifting back to the close of our vacation seemed so abrupt. Plus, traveling internationally is not as easy as domestic. The last time I few out of the country was before having kids so it's been a long time! I was not expecting to be so stressed out coming home during our layover. Our layover at Denver was 1.5 hours long, which worked out just fine when we were traveling to Mexico but not so much for coming back to America. I had forgotten that the process required an extra step and that we had to claim our bags during the layover and then checked them in again before going through the TSA line in the U.S. to get on our last plane. On top of that, our plane was delayed by 15 minutes and we sat in the second to last row on the plane so we're almost dead last getting off the plane.

Once we got off of the first plane, we had a lot of things to take care of before hopping on the last plane. The kids needed to use the restroom after our 4.5 hour flight from Cancun to Denver and were hungry so after getting off of the plane, we rushed to the restroom, walked a long way to find our bags at baggage claim, checked them in again, went through a few lines to get processed, hopped on the tram to get from terminal A to terminal B (where our plane to San Luis Obispo flew out of), bought some hot dogs and skedaddled to B12 where they announced that Group 3 (our group) was ready to board. We had made it! I guess even if we had arrived 5 minutes later, we would still be okay but I was herding my kids like cattle almost the entire time because their little legs didn't want to move fast. So, be wary of the extra step with baggage and try not to overly stress like I did.

Hope to Return to Moon Palace in Cancun

Our family had one of the best vacations we've ever had during our stay at Moon Palace in Cancun, Mexico. Our stay included food, drinks, entertainment and had some interesting elements like riding on golf carts everywhere to get to places within the resorts and watching the Glow Motion Show. It was really all inclusive and I really like not having to worry about bringing my wallet. That is true inclusivity and a grand vacation. We had such a great time that I hope to return again one day to eat at the restaurants that we missed and enjoy all the other shows that we didn't have time for. This vacation was not sponsored in any way and we paid for our airplane and resort stay ourselves. See a couple of quick videos of our vacation highlights at Moon Palace in Cancun below.

Suggested Supplies for Vacation

• Kid's sunscreen (pack in checked in bags only and not in carry on, if you are buying the regular size because TSA will toss it if it's in your carry on bag)
• Fun luggage tags for the kids to get them excited for the trip
• Swim goggles for kids
• More than 1 swimsuit for each person (so that while one is still wet and needs drying, you still have one that is still dry for comfort while walking from the room to the pool)
• Unopened snacks in their original package for kids for the plane like goldfish crackers or biscuits
• Travel neck pillows for sleeping on the plane

Read My Other Vacation or Adventure Reviews

• Birthday Weekend at LEGOLAND Castle Hotel Review and LEGOLAND California Amusement Park Review


• Birthday Celebration at Great Wolf Lodge in Southern California


• Universal Studios Hollywood Family Trip During Spring Break


• Ensenada Cruise on Carnival Cruise for 3 Days


• Ensenada and Catalina Island Cruise on Royal Caribbean for 4 Days


• Alaska Cruise on Princess Cruise for 11 Days


• Moon Palace The Grand Family Summer Vacation in Cancun for 5 Days


• Cabin Trip in Monterey


• Staycations at the Iconic Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo on the Central Coast of California: Madonna Inn’s San Francisco Room Review OR Madonna Inn’s Antique Room Review


• Staycation at the Granada Hotel & Bistro in Downtown San Luis Obispo


• Staycation at La Quinta Inn in Downtown San Luis Obispo


• Staycation in Atascadero at The Carlton Review