Getting to the Hyatt Ziva Cancun All-Inclusive Resort
My ideal vacation right now would consist of a dark room, a comfortable bed, a white noise machine, unlimited sleep, and no responsibilities for a few days (or even a few hours?!). However, since that is still unattainable, the next best thing is a trip to a quality resort with fun pools for kids, good food, yummy drinks, and on-site child care that is available using points. In other words, the all-inclusive Hyatt Ziva Cancun was as close to perfect as we are currently going to get.
Hyatt has two types of all-inclusive properties, the Zilara brand that is for adults, and the Ziva brand that is for families. We visited the adults-only Hyatt Zilara in Jamaica last year and you can check out those posts here, but this time we brought the kiddos along for the ride and embraced the family all-inclusive concept at the new Hyatt Ziva Cancun. This property is located on the Punta Cancun with blue water and white sands on three sides!
Using Points or Free Nights to Stay at Hyatt Ziva Cancun
You can book the Hyatt all-inclusive properties using points, but it gets tricky once you go over double occupancy because the number of points required goes up per person after double occupancy other than for children under 3 years of age. The Hyatt Ziva Cancun specifically is 25,000 points per night for double occupancy, but children 3 and up will increase that price 12,500 points per night per child. In other words, for a family of four with two kids ages 3 and up you will be paying the same price per night to stay in one room as you would for two rooms. If you don't have enough Hyatt points to make that happen, remember you can transfer points to Hyatt from Chase Ultimate Rewards and cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred at a 1:1 ratio.
Because of that we instead used our Hyatt Credit Card sign-up bonus nights for two of the nights at the Hyatt Ziva. This means our credit card sign-up bonus not only covered our hotel for two nights, but also all of our food, drinks, activities, and more!
Now I have to point out that technically the terms of the credit card sign-up bonus state the nights are only valid for single or double occupancy at the all-inclusive resorts, so I can't promise that they will continue to be useful for staying at these all-inclusive properties when you have more than two people on the reservation. However, it has worked for us and many I know, so we got huge value out of those two nights since the going rate was around $500/night during our spring break visit.
For the third night of our long-weekend stay we paid cash for a base room and then applied a Diamond confirmed suite upgrade to the reservation to secure a two-story Pyramid suite. We then crossed our fingers (and emailed the hotel and asked nicely) if it would be possible to stay in the suite for all three nights. I was willing to pay a co-pay to make that happen, but in the end we were pleasantly surprised at check-in that our entire stay would be in the 1,300 square foot Pyramid suite. Of course, I wouldn't count on that always being the case, but I was thrilled it worked out this time since our baby is not the world's best sleeper...to put it lightly.
Getting from the Cancun Airport to the Hyatt Ziva Cancun
The property is about a 20-25 minute ride from the airport, and to keep things as simple as possible, I had the resort arrange our transportation to/from the property even though that meant we were likely spending a little more than if we searched out the most cost effective transportation on our own. The price for a private transfer for four using the hotel's contracted service with Best Day was $110 round trip. We had our own car seats available for our kiddos, but they did have car seats available in different sizes if you needed one for your little ones.
Regardless of how you get to the resort, I recommend setting it up ahead of time as the Cancun airport is a bit insane once you clear customs and immigration with lots of people competing for your attention and dollars (or pesos). It is much nicer to know what company you are looking for once you land so you can tune out the rest of the noise.
Our ride to the resort was very comfortable and worth the price in my mind for the ease, but our ride back to the airport wasn't quite as nice in a large passenger van instead of the SUV we had on the way to the hotel. It was still very convenient, clean, and on-time, just not as comfortable for someone who gets car sick. Good Day has a desk within the Ziva property, so you can confirm your return transportation or other excursions with staff on-site.
Checking in at the Hyatt Ziva Cancun
After the 25 minute ride to the hotel we pulled in to the property, were greeted by hotel staff, had our bags taken by a bellman, walked up a few stairs, and viewed out the open-air lobby down to the fun that awaited us!
Of course there were still the check-in formalities to complete in the adjacent check-in area before we could grab our swimsuits and head to the pool. Fortunately, there were comfortable seating areas and cool fresh juices waiting in the check-in area to help the time go even faster.
About ten minutes later we had the keys to our Pyramid Suite in hand and we headed off to start our vacation... Stay tuned for tons of more details on our Hyatt Ziva Cancun suite, food, activities, Kid's Club experience, and more!