Le Blanc Spa Resort - A Cool Hotel in Hot Cancun

The large spa resort is in Cancun, the popular and busy tourist epicenter of the Riviera Maya in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Just a short drive from Cancun airport, it’s situated in a strip of beachfront hotels.

We arrive at the driveway leading up to Le Blanc, an impressive blocky building of pure white walls, with silvery metal modern art sculptures of palm trees in a pool at the front. All that white could be intended to have a cooling effect in the Caribbean heat, but it also makes the hotel look fresh and modern.

Our bags are taken from the car and we check in, an instantly relaxing experience, with warmed beanbags placed around necks and shoulders, champagne flutes filled with coconut milk (more white) and a flower given to my girlfriend. The lobby is large and white, and feels slightly space age and spa-like, a long hallway leading to a gleaming white piano/cocktail bar. The whole place is bright and airy.



We pass the bar and take a lift up to the ninth floor. Of all the white spaces at Le Blanc, this is a favorite: the central triangular courtyard, lined with suites, has long white curtains cascading down the nine floors to a water fountain below, the creamy white walls of the corridors given an orange glow from big blocky cube lamps. It creates quite an atmosphere.

It’s no surprise by this stage to open the door and see a suite decked out in white, with creamy white marble flooring and white walls that look like it hasn’t been very long at all since they had a fresh brilliant coat. The bed – white, of course - is large and supremely comfortable, but in case it isn’t quite to our liking, there’s a pillow menu to request lavender, camomile, goose feather… Another menu offers aromatherapy for the room, with fragrances like lavender or vanilla and sandalwood. Large glass vases on either side are filled with dry branches that look sea-weathered and rustic.



The bedroom has a big TV, which connects up to devices, if, for example, you have own Netflix account. There’s an iPod dock too for music. The bathroom has another TV, this one embedded in the mirror, which is framed by brilliant white lights above a white marble sink. There’s white marble in the shower too, with Bulgari products across the board. The room has a sizeable hot tub too, which you can ask staff to prepare for you or run for yourselves. It combines well with a bottle of Champagne and a fresh bucket of ice.

By the bedroom’s large window, there’s a little table with a fine view out over the deep blue Caribbean sea and a long stretch of sand and hotels. There are far worse spots in the world to sit and drink a bottle of wine, or dig into the mini bar/fridge for Johnny Walker Black Label or Centenario tequila, all of the drinks included in this all-inclusive hotel.

Having arrived in the evening, we get to properly explore next day. The property has three swimming pools, but we spend the most time at the deep blue infinity pool looking out onto the beach and ocean. A swim-up bar is a fun place to order mezcal cocktails and pina coladas or try something new, while waiters also deliver snacks and drinks to the sunloungers. Gently clubby music playing in the background adds to the hedonistic feel. Occasionally, we wander down to the beach and spend time on the loungers on the sand or swimming in the ocean, joined by big pelicans who dive for fish or enjoy a relaxed float.



There’s everything you need at the hotel, so unless you’re taking a day trip to the Mayan ruins of Tulum and Chichen Itza, or to explore cenotes (sinkholes) or swim with turtles, it’s pleasant to just kick back and relax.

There’s no prize at this stage for guessing that the spa here is also white. After a shot of pineapple, apple and mint juice, I’m lead from the white front room into a calmer, dimly lit space, the candle-like lights flickering orange on the walls. There are menus here too, a choice of aromas (I go for almond) and a menu of music (I pick ‘Asian’), before settling in for an incredibly relaxing 50-minute holistic massage, with hot stones placed over a blanket first and then a firm massage from feet to back and shoulders. It’s relaxing enough that, after a few cocktails too, I nod off here and there.

At the end of each lazy day, we make our way past the piano bar, where a cellist plays a recital one evening, a solo saxophonist another, for dinner. There are three restaurants, all included in your stay, but in-demand Lumiere requires reservations.

Popular and almost-full BlancItalia is brightly lit and all-white, with modern Italian food, from starters like an artily presented mozzarella and tomato salad with nuts and pesto to mains like a rich pasta stuffed with cheese with lobster and roasted tomatoes. My girlfriend particularly enjoys shrimp served on black ‘angel hair pasta’, flavored with grappa.



Lumiere, where we eat on our final night, certainly has a sense of occasion about it. It’s the most formal of the three restaurants, the menu French and very modern. Dishes, like an Illuminé salad of baby vegetables and herb-sealed tuna, are colorful and ornately laid out on the plate. While I’m happy enough with my order of the sea bass, my girlfriend describes her lamb, served with an artichoke sauce, as “perfect,” the sommelier suggesting a good bottle of Carmenere from Chile as accompaniment.

My favorite of the restaurants, though, is BlancAsia, with an elegant black interior, lively spiky lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and food served onto large round tables in rounded booths. The menu picks from China, Thailand and elsewhere in Asia. A spicy Tom Yam Goong soup is warming and tasty. Battered shrimp and sauteed vegetables is a memorable dish, served with a sticky indulgent Kum Poo sauce.

Breakfast, in a large dining hall, is a massive buffet, where we’re spoiled for choice, with counters filled with yogurts, salads, breads, pastries and little cake, cheeses, meat and fish. A chef at the omelette counter cooks sizeable omelettes, and the staff are friendly and helpful, bringing tea, coffee and juices. Every day this sets us up nicely for a day by the pool or the beach, until the final day when a hearty breakfasts sends us on our way, reluctantly leaving behind a brilliant white world.



Rates start at $709.00 a night based on double occupancy. The author stayed in a Royal Deluxe Partial Ocean View starting at $739.00, based on double occupancy.

Le Blanc Spa Resort, Blvd Kukulkan KM-10 Zona Hotelera Cancún Quintana Roo CP. 77500 – Mexico. 1-877-721-4874. https://www.leblancsparesort.com/