ON LOCATION: Marriott Cancun Proves Family Vacations Aren’t Just Kid Stuff

There should be a special award for any resort capable of keeping three daughters, ages 16, 17 and 20, happy on the same vacation.

Because travelling with teenagers and young adults is a very different undertaking from the days of floaties, chicken fingers and kids clubs. They have opinions now. Strong ones. About food. Activities. Photos. Wake-up times. And how much togetherness should be permitted on any given day.

A recent escape to Marriott Cancun, An All-Inclusive Resort put the property to the ultimate test: four women, two generations, competing opinions and several days to figure out whether an all-inclusive can genuinely entertain a family whose youngest members have long since outgrown the traditional kids club.

Spoiler: Nobody got seriously injured or bored.

There was snorkelling, painting by the ocean, sunrise walks, beachfront workouts, cabana days, warm Caribbean swims and enough restaurants to turn dinner into a nightly event.

Mom even drove a boat.

More on that questionable decision later.

Room with a view (Photo Credit: Marriott Cancun)

First Things First: That View

An oceanfront room can do strange things to people who normally resent mornings.

When the first thing outside the window is the Caribbean Sea, getting up for sunrise suddenly doesn’t seem quite so unreasonable.

Our oceanfront accommodations immediately established one of the rhythms of the trip.

Wake up. Look outside. Go to the beach.

Mornings became one of the best parts of the trip: walks along the shore as the sun came up, exercise on the sand and in the pool, and swims in water warm enough to eliminate that awful inch-by-inch negotiation required when entering a Canadian lake.

Just walk in.

The beach was kept safe and clean during the stay, with crews clearing sargassum each morning and lifeguards on duty. Shallow sandbars and a white ocean floor reflect the sunlight, giving the water its almost impossibly bright blue colour.

Then there were the pools.

The all-ages pool kept the resort firmly in family-vacation territory, while a dedicated adults-only pool offered an escape when a quieter afternoon was in order.

Having a 20-year-old daughter also introduces an entirely new chapter of family travel: going to the pool bar together, proving there are advantages to the kids growing up.

Marriott Cancun An All Inclusive Resort (Photo Credit: Natasha Lair)

Stay for the Fries.

One thing three teenage daughters can agree on is food matters.

The resort made eating less of a scheduled necessity and more of an unofficial sport.

There were meals at Mikado, Cevichería by La Isla, Hana Polynesian Grill and the Italian restaurant, along with visits to Pizzeria by La Isla and Mo’s Burgers & Shakes.

Mo’s served what deserves, at the very least, a nomination for best vegan burger and fries in Mexico.

Pizzeria by La Isla’s Margherita pizza? Same category of holiday obsession. Simple, hot and good enough to have everyone contemplating whether ordering another one immediately would be excessive.

It wasn’t.

Japanese one night, Italian another, seafood by the water, there was enough variety that the inevitable “Where are we eating?” conversation didn’t have to produce the same answer twice.

And when nobody wanted to leave the room, there was room service.

Sometimes luxury is a hotel robe and dinner.

The range is particularly relevant for Canadians, according General Manager Juan Carlos Calderon.

“We see a strong preference for all-inclusive stays among Canadian travellers, as well as group travel and longer vacations, typically ranging from five to nine nights,” Calderon told TravelPulse Canada.

“Canadian guests also tend to take advantage of activities available at the resort and show a strong interest in exploring Mexican cuisine during their stay.”

Breakfast with a view at Cancun Marriott (Photo Credit: Natasha Lair)

Four Fedoras and Questionable Artistic Decisions

One of the most memorable sunsets involved paint, stencils and fedoras.

Art by the ocean brought the four of us together with a local instructor who was every bit as memorable as the activity itself.

She moved between our creations, offering advice, encouragement and gentle artistic intervention where necessary, while sharing stories about her life in Mexico.

Armed with paint and stencils, everyone approached the assignment differently, which meant four very different hats eventually emerged.

Were masterpieces created?

Art is subjective.

But the experience was exactly what a family activity should be when the “kids” are 16, 17 and 20. Creative without being childish, structured without feeling scheduled and filled with enough conversation and humour that the finished product almost didn’t matter.

Almost.

Those hats were absolutely coming home.

Aquaworld Cancun (Photo Credit: Supplied)

Mom Drove a Boat

There are sentences a mother probably shouldn’t utter while vacationing with her children.

“Apparently they’re going to let me drive this” may be one of them.

A day at Aquaworld Cancun took the girls off the resort and onto the Caribbean, where Mom climbed behind the wheel of a boat for the first time.

The good news: No international maritime incident occurred.

The even better news: The excursion would become a highlight of the trip.

All four of us headed into the water to snorkel among marine life and reefs, and the verdict afterward was unanimous.

This was it.

The favourite.

For families travelling with teenagers, that’s significant. Older kids don’t necessarily need to be entertained every minute, but give them an actual adventure something they haven’t done before, something they’ll remember and suddenly family time becomes considerably more interesting.

And for Mom?

• First boat driven.
• Three daughters returned safely.
• Boat returned safely.
• We’ll call it a win.

The Art of Doing Nothing

Not every day needed an adventure. Some needed a cabana.

One was spent in a beachfront cabana with butler service, and absolutely no compelling reason to move very far.

It was glorious.

And it underscored something Marriott Cancun does particularly well: Activity and inactivity can coexist.

Want a workout on the beach? Go.

Want to snorkel? Done.

Paint a fedora? Why not?

Spend an afternoon horizontal in a beachfront cabana contemplating whether it’s time to eat again? Also a perfectly respectable vacation expectation.

That’s especially valuable when travelling with older children because nobody has to agree on what constitutes a good day.

Oceanfront cabana, Marriott Cancun (Photo Credit: Natasha Lair)

Little Kids Haven’t Been Forgotten

Of course, not every family arrives with teenagers who have developed restaurant opinions and their own Instagram strategies.

For children ages four to 12, CAMP Club offers a 5,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor space that bears little resemblance to the kids clubs many parents may remember.

There is slime making, Latin dance and Kukulkan puppet crafting, along with a splatter-paint cabin, sound cabin and theatre.

Outside, things get even more ambitious, with wall climbing, ziplining and additional play areas.

Elsewhere, the resort’s family attractions include a lazy river, water slides and splash areas.

And there is no age limit on screaming your way down a waterslide.

An entire afternoon was devoted to thoroughly testing Marriott Cancun's slides -- purely in the interest of responsible journalism, of course. There were races, screams, plenty of laughter and the inevitable “one more time” that turned into several more times.

Then came the lazy river, where the goal was considerably less ambitious: Determine exactly how lazy four people could become.

Several laps later, the answer was: impressively.

Floating around the resort with nowhere particularly important to be became its own afternoon activity and another reminder that travelling with teens and young adults doesn't mean everyone has suddenly become too cool for the simple stuff.

Sometimes all it takes is a waterslide, a float and permission to act like a kid again.

Marriott Cancun waterpark (Photo Credit: Supplied)

The Sweet Spot of Family Travel

Calderon says flexibility is one of the property’s strongest selling points for Canadian travel advisors, particularly for families and multigenerational groups.

“Families and multigenerational travellers appreciate the variety of accommodations, including suites and connecting room options, allowing everyone to stay together while enjoying their own space,” he said.

“Whether guests spend their days at the water park, CAMP Club, the pools, or on one of Cancun’s best stretches of beach, they can easily reconnect over memorable dining experiences in the evening.”

Canada remains an important market for the resort, with Calderon saying the country consistently ranks among Cancun’s top three tourism markets. Not surprisingly, November through March is the strongest season, when sunshine and Caribbean temperatures become considerably more persuasive to Canadians.

“Canadian travellers have long viewed Cancun as their ideal warm-weather escape, and at Marriott Cancun, An All-Inclusive Resort, we’ve created an experience that combines convenience, flexibility, and authentic destination experiences,” Calderon said.

And perhaps “flexibility” is the important word.

Family travel doesn’t end when the kids stop being kids. It just changes.

The kids club becomes a snorkelling excursion. Waterslides are still irresistible. Early bedtimes become late dinners.

There are fewer hands to hold at the airport and considerably more opinions about where to eat.

But there are also sunrise walks on the beach. Screaming down waterslides together. Going around the lazy river one more time because apparently nobody has discovered the upper limit of lazy. Painting questionable works of art on perfectly innocent fedoras. Ordering another round of fries. And watching three daughters disappear beneath the Caribbean with snorkels and come back to the surface declaring it the best day of the trip.

The kids grow up. Thankfully, family vacations grow up with them.

And every once in a while, Mom gets to drive the boat.

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