The old saying that “You can't judge a book by its cover” needs to be updated. These days, we judge everything not by the cover of the book, brochure or pamphlet, but by it's website.
A good hostess is friendly and welcoming. It doesn't make a good first impression for any hotel if they're aloof and noisy, as happens at Belmond Maroma Spa and Resort.
Arriving at Banyan Tree Mayakoba, you need to do a double take. Are you still in Mexico? The hotel is just a few miles outside Playa del Carmen, the lively party beach and party town on the coast of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsular, so this should definitely feel like Mexico.
I reach a set of black gates, the top of the rails coated gold. A Union Jack flag flaps in the wind above. There's more gold outside, in the form of regal-looking statues. A long line of people are queuing at the gates. Clearly, this is a popular place, but then this isn't my hotel, not yet.
As a child, Paris was a city stop on family holidays as we ferried across the Channel from England and drove down to the beaches in the south of France.
Old, crumbled, faded, a shadow of it's former greatness…. There are plenty of buildings to match that description across the Yucatan Peninsula, this area of southern Mexico being a hotspot for ancient temples and archaeological sites from the mighty Mayan empire.
