Evenings at
Excellence Riviera Cancun are so fun, and absolutely scrumptious!
The buffet is not open at supper, but there are
nine a la carte restaurants, the
Sports Bar, and
room service available for dining options, and reservations are not required or taken anywhere. If you go at 6:00 ish, you never have to wait anywhere, but we had a short wait at one restaurant when we went around 7:30 (between 7-8:30 they can get a bit busier at some of the restaurants, but they give you a vibrating disc, and you can go to the martini bar, or wherever until a table is ready for you). The restaurants are
open really late, so you can go pretty much whenever, or double-dinner, or eat an appetizer at one place, a main at another, and dessert at another. The options are really endless, and the menus are big, with so many choices.
Earlier in the evening most people are getting ready in their rooms etc., and it's a great time to snap a few photos when nothing is too busy yet:
We love the French restaurant
Chez Isabelle, and dined there once. We started with the lobster salad, and then I had the 24 hour
braised pork, and Christopher had
rack of lamb.
There are so many things on this menu that sound amazing that we want to try, but just not enough time to get to them all. It is a very popular restaurant at the resort.
Many nights we went to the Spanish tapas restaurant,
Flavour Market, just so Christopher could get one little snack - their
anchovies in vinegar. He cannot get enough of them. We either sat inside or out, and sometimes only ordered the anchovies as a late night snack, or an appetizer before going somewhere else, and other times we had a few other little bites.
The servers always brought little toasties out, that were topped with a variety of delicious toppings. The octopus was fantastic!
They remembered us from our previous visits, and were excited to see us coming back over and over on this trip as well.
We went to one of the Italian restaurants that we hadn't been to before,
Toscana.
They brought out delicious bread with oil and vinegar, and cheese to start:
As well as this yummy plate:
I had pasta with a
lemon caper sauce, and Christopher had
ravioli with duck, berries, pistachios, sage, butter, and fontina cheese.
All the noodles are
made in-house, and were so good!
We went back another night, and had the in-house made
gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce, candied orange, and parmesan cheese, and the
salmon with
olive polenta and veggies. I couldn't decide between the shrimp or the salmon, so they just brought me some shrimp on my plate too.
The gnocchi was pillowy soft, and the blue cheese sauce totally hit the spot for Christopher, but was a bit too blue cheesy for me, although I still had to have a few bites because the gnocchi was so good.
We weren't going to have dessert, but when we saw that they made
three kinds of cheese ice cream (Gorgonzola, parmesan, goat cheese), and
two kinds of sorbet (balsamic and olive oil) in-house, we were
intrigued. We asked for a very small taste of each. They were all absolutely perfect, and not weird tasting at all. They were all beautifully made, creamy, and refreshing.
Next door to this Italian restaurant is an outdoor restaurant,
Oregano, another Italian place, that is open for lunch or dinner. We've been before, but didn't dine there on this trip.
One of our favourite places is
Basmati, the Indian restaurant, and we visited it twice.
Once we went to the Asian restaurant,
Spice. My pad Thai was really good, and Christopher had a nigiri plate.
We still have yet to try the teppanyaki experience at this restaurant!
On our last evening we dined at the
Lobster House, where we just shared some coconut shrimp and the
lobster risotto, which was delicious, and had so many huge, perfectly cooked chunks of lobster inside.
This restaurant, like the others, has so many other dishes we want to try. We never made it to the Mexican restaurant, steak house, or sports bar for dinner on this trip, and never got room service for dinner, although the odd time we got a late night snack to the room.
The martini bar and entertainment areas are always busy and fun at night. There is live music every evening both inside around the martini bar, and outside on the stage. Then the musicians take a break and there is a show, which is always excellent! After the show the musicians start back up, and there are always people dancing and mingling outside, and just through the glass doors inside too.
The areas above were typically packed and
energetic from about 8 pm - midnight. Each night there were different themes and events too, such as a Mexican fiesta night, a casino night, etc.
The
Sports Bar had karaoke every second night, with a great selection of songs. We did that one evening, and were out late. It was packed, but only a handful of people were singing, so we both sang a bunch, and had a blast! It was a younger crowd, and everyone was super fun.
Overall we had an
amazing trip, and are looking forward to returning to this wonderful place again.
It is pricier than other five star resorts, but it is the epitome of the saying,
you get what you pay for. We've been to a few other five star resorts, and have extensively researched numerous others that we haven't been to, and nothing compares to this place, at least for us. It has everything we could ever want, and we are more impressed each time we return. It is worth every penny.
Email me if you want to know anything more!
How was your week? What are you up to this weekend?
