Anyone done a family vacation in Mexico?

My parents took my brother and me to Cancun when we were younger. We didn't stay in a resort, but rather just a hotel on the strip. As kids, we loved it - we loved snorkeling, wave running, Chichen Itza (that was my favorite), the food and music, etc. It's certainly not as much of a cultural experience as some other places in Mexico, but it's kid friendly.  There's also a lot of tours that leave from Cancun and some of those will expose you to the more cultural aspects of Mexico.

(Sorry - I know I didn't really answer your question.)

Good luck planning your vacation and HAVE FUN!

We've traveled with our kids all over Mexico, but the place we keep going back to if we just want to kick back is Isla Mujeres. It's a half hour ferry ride from Cancun.

You can probably find an all inclusive there, but I'd recommend just booking a hotel and then hanging out on your own. Mostly family owned hotels.

Fantastic place!!!!

It's completely safe for the kids. You can let them run around the town square without worry. Beaches are great. Food is great. People are great. You can get along with little or no Spanish, (although it's appreciated when you try)

I've met a good number of folks from Calgary and Edmonton there.

It's the kind of place people keep coming back to year after year. Very special place. It's a world away from Cancun.

Here's a link to a good forum board for the island.

as a kid we stayed in an all inclusive place in Puerta Vallarta (not nearly as bad then as it might be now as far as the party atmosphere, but the cruise ships do come through, remember? the Love Boat always stopped there which is why my brother and I picked that place...)

As long as you don;t go in March or April, when sprink breakers are unavoidable ANYWHERE in Mexico, it should be a blast.

If you have the $$, Club Med Family resprts are also a BLAST for kids. All inclusive, including lots of activities so Mom and Dad can have alone chill time too. The one in the DR (Punta Cana) was great fun (gulp, 20 yrs ago!) 

We took our children to Playa del Carmen in 2003 when they were 11 and 8.

We stayed at the Iberostar Tucan/Quetzal resort in Playacar, which is sort of a protected resort community right outside of PDC. What a beautiful place. The resort grounds are like a jungle and there are howler monkeys living there...they are really loud in the morning though. LOL. The pools are huge and right off the beach!

The beach is absolutely gorgeous...soft white sand. The waves can be pretty big.

We had blast! They had a great kids club that my 8 year old daughter was totally into! They played games and did mexican crafts. She was in 2 musicals..."Cats" and "Grease" although in Mexico it was called "Vaselina"!   One day it was raining so they showed movies on a big screen on the stage...a lifesaver!

 They always had some special show or game for the kids after dinner, and before the main show. The shows were all fairly entertaining.

My husband and son went on a jungle ATV ride and had a blast. They were covered with mud from head to toe!

We went to Xel-Ha which is an eco-park...We went snorkeling in a calm lagoon,  rode a tube through a cave down into the lagoon. We all jumped from the "cliff of courage"!     They also have a swim with the dolphins program which we didn't do.  This is a great place to visit. We spent the whole day.

We went to Tulum to see the ruins.  We went early in the morning and it was very hot walking around. Its worth seeing though.

http://mytravelboard4.com/playa/

This forum has great information about Playa del Carmen and it has other links to boards for different parts of Mexico too.  People really flame each other on this board , but I got a lot of useful info from it.

We just went for Spring Break. A little town north of Puerta Vallarta called, Sayulita. We stayed in a killer place called Playa Escondida. It was awesome b/c it was very private (not all inclusive), cool little villas and houses to rent...and private beach. We could walk to the town of Sayulita down a dirt road. If we wanted the great ambiance of Mexico...lots of people, music in the streets, lots of fun beach things (like the hair braiding that all 3 of my girls did) good restaurants, etc. we had that in the town. When we were ready to hang out and lay on a quiet beach or even swim at a quiet pool we headed back to Playa Escondida. It was the best of both worlds.

We ate everything (Sayulita has the best ice cream I have ever tasted anywhere), drank bottled water that we could find easily and no one had so much as a stomach ache. In Sayulita they have awesome pork and fish taco stands right on the street...tacos are like 20 cents each. Our kids loved it.