Unico 20 87

Recently, I returned from a long weekend at the beautiful, new-ish, all-inclusive resort, Unico 20 87. I must admit, I wasn’t jazzed about the idea of going to Mexico. While I LOVE Mexico, there have just been so many murders and whatnot, I thought the Caribbean seemed like the more logical option. Also, I’m never really one for an all-inclusive or cruise-type vaca. I’d rather just pay for what I’m really after. So, where did I end up? An all-inclusive in Mexico.

Unico Pros:

(Mostly) locked in pricing
Marketing was off the chain. Have you seen their website??
Gorgeous property
Romantic room with a killer view
Bathtub on the balcony!
Food was overall good
Supposedly great spa options – I did not have enough time to indulge
Good location for excursions to Playa, Tulum, and cenotes
No issues with wi-fi

Unico Cons:

Still plenty of “all-inclusive” mentality – people funneling beers in the pool, etc.
Adults only property that needs to exclude college kids who play dance music above the ‘quiet pool’ and throw peanuts on sunbathers. Really.
Beach is small, full of seaweed, and machinery to remove seaweed.
Poor paid for excursions that were insanely expensive. Do not bother with the sunset cruise. Literally half price and 100x better in the Caribbean. Save for that.
No bar menus and hidden bottles of top shelf liquor. A barman literally said to me, “only trashy resorts have drink menus.” Ummm ok….
Room requests filled out a month in advance were ignored.
Again, a month in advance, I was told I could just make dinner reservations upon arrival. Bad idea. We were locked out of restaurants and the birthday cake request I’d put in did not happen. Neither did the mixology or aroma therapy program requested.
You spend half of your time tracking down tickets – to dinners, for return transfer (on your first morning!), excursions and even to leave the property.

All in all, I can’t ever complain about three days reading by the pool in the sunshine. I just wish I wouldn’t have let myself get so sucked into the marketing (and travel agent reco?!?) of the place as a luxurious, romantic vacation. The weekend was nice, I would just next time (and always) try a nicer boutique property and stay away from the all-inclusive mentality in the future. I had enough beer bonging in college.

To show you it wasn’t all beer bongs and frat parties, I can attest that the resort was quite pretty. Here’s the lobby.

There was a cute coffee shop with really nice iced lattes and serve-yourself sweets.

The room was lovely. The top of the bed has lights on it! When you wake up and realize you can’t sleep – that’s why. When calling the front desk to ask how to turn them off, you’ll be told “they’re for romance.” When you value sleep over romance on night one, a Mexican man will come by at 2AM to turn them off. He’ll come again at 2:20AM when the first time didn’t work.

Despite the absence of a requested cake, the room did come with a tiny pinata (and bubbly) full of marshmallows and lollies. Fun and strange.

The bathroom opened into the bedroom and could be closed off with sliding doors.

There was a very large, nice shower head shower.

And the room came with free hats – which you knew I loved.

A fun do-not-disturb sign.

The birthday bubbly – some cava for the bath.

A slightly stained lounge nook that went unused.

This massive tub! It came with bubble bath and salts and a colony or two of ants. I scrubbed and scrubbed the tub to try to remove all of the bugs. I don’t know what was attracting them there so much.