Day Pass at Barceló Hotel in Mismaloya, Mexico—A Good Way to Experience this Beautiful Property

 A Beautiful Pool and All You Can Eat and Drink for a Day

Originally, we planned to spend three nights at the Barceló Hotel in Mismaloya, an all-inclusive resort with beautiful pools, group activities available, and all food and drink included in the price. We’ve only gone to an all-inclusive resort once and decided we didn’t eat enough to get our money’s worth. Plus, much of the food is served buffet style—not our favorite. But we wanted to evaluate it once more.

The Barceló Hotel has a Beautiful Lobby

So, we decided to try hanging out at the Barceló Hotel for one day. A Day Pass costs 1000 pesos (equivalent to $50 US) per person and seemed reasonable to see if we liked it before spending the high prices to stay the night. A Day Pass allowed us to use the facilities from 9:00 AM until 6:00 PM.

Water Aerobics Class Was Great Fun!

I was glad we arrived in time for me to join the water aerobics class at noon. That was great fun! The activity board showed that we'd missed the 10:00AM Kayak Tour, and there was Bingo, water volleyball, and other activities in the afternoon.

We had a choice of relaxing in lounge chairs near several pools or on the beach under umbrellas. We parked ourselves near two man-made waterfalls next to the adult-only pool and soon were cooling off in the water.

The Adult-Only Pool Was Quieter

Jon Cooling Off in the Beautiful Pool

A large iguana looking to cool off, too, crawled behind my lounge chair and into the artificial stream running next to me. Several tourists were amazed to see him and shocked when he started looking for a place to dive into the pool, splashing him to make him stay in the vegetation. After living in Sayulita, it was just another pretty iguana to us.

Iguana Getting Ready to Cool Off in the Stream

Jon Walking Through the Waterfall to Cool Off

We had lunch at the buffet, and before we left at 6:00 we had a mediocre pizza at the café overlooking Mismaloya Bay—the only two restaurants available to people with a Day Pass. We wished we would have skipped them and walked south a little way down the beach and across the shallow river to one of the palapa restaurants. We would have preferred to have fish tacos instead of buffet food, and the margaritas would have probably tasted better, too. Most likely the food at the four à la carte restaurants in Barceló Hotel is better, but those were not available with a Day Pass.

View of Playa Mismaloya from the Barceló Hotel Cafe

Jon and I have good memories of spending our honeymoon at Hotel La Jolla de Mismaloya next to Barceló Hotel and enjoying the little town of Mismaloya almost thirty years ago. Now La Jolla de Mismaloya is a condominium. This was our first time back to Playa Mismaloya in thirty years.

Lesson Learned: When we return to Playa Mismaloya, we will either spend the day at one of the palapa restaurants and cool off in the ocean. That's more our style and less expensive. Or we'll use the wonderful pools and lounge chairs at Barceló Hotel with a Day Pass again, but eat elsewhere.

La Jolla de Mismaloya Condominium

Are you interested in reading about more of our lessons learned? I have several books about lessons we've learned over the years while traveling and living in Mexico. Here's my latest book, Living in Mexico More Lessons Learned (Healthy Living in Mexico Book #5).

If you enjoy my books, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You can check out my other books on my Amazon Author Page. Thanks for reading my books and blog articles!

Terry L Turrell, Author