Grrr.....Please help us decide!
 

Getting married in October, want to head to Mexico for 8-10 days on eastern coast. Don't particularly want to stay in cancun, but want an all-inclusive resort with greta variety of food and nightlife either on site or VERY close by. Any suggestions? We're on a budget hoping not to exceed $4000 including air from Pennsylvania. What about splitting the stay in two locales? Cost effective? Am I kidding myself? Please help:)

I'd look into the Playacar area, right next to Playa Del Carmen. There are multiple all inclusive resorts in the area, the town of Playa del Carmen is a short cab ride away. Except for the most expensive resort, I don't think you'll have trouble staying within your budget. But, October is hurricane season......

Sunscape has a very upscale resort in Tulum, it's worth checking out..

What places do you want to go to in Mexico?
Percy

I heard they've had many problems overbooking the Sunscape Tulum. I looked into that a great deal then checked out the forums on tripadvisor.com....quickly cancelled that one out:( Has anyone heard good or bad about Bahia Principe Akumal/Tulum? My fiance and I want to be close enough to visit Chitzen Itza (spelling?) and check out cozumel and cancun a day or two. Any more feedback would be greatly appreciated:)

I recently planned a trip to that area for April, and did quite a bit of research. Based on all I read and saw, we chose the Royal Hideaway in Playa del Carmen. From everthing I hear, it has the best food of all the all inclusives, and caters to adults (no children under 16 allowed.) You may want to do a search for it hear, as there are many threads that mention it. It is also right in the price range you mentioned.
Check out travel-center.com, the web site of the Cancun hotel association. We booked through them, their prices were a bit better than prices I found anywhere else.
Good luck, and enjoy!

Royal Hideaway front what I hear you can't get any better it's all inclusive and truly luxurious check trip advisor.com it will give you all the reviews of people who stayed there

We stayed at the Royal Hideaway in October 13-23 2002 for our honeymoon. This resort is absolutely beautiful- service, food, drinks, grounds all excellent. Very quiet, peaceful resort. The beach is perfect! I think it might be a bit over your budget for 8-10 days but Apple Vacations is running a special now for 7 nights with airfare for around $2200 a person.. great deal!! We paid a lot more.

Honestly, there is no nightlife at all at the resort. After eating the 6-course meals, we didn't feel like doing much more than sleeping anyway! It was perfect for the first few days to recover from the wedding but we became bored after awhile. 10 days was too long. 4-5 would have been perfect. I don't think you'll find much nightlife anywhere in the Mayan Riveria area outside of Cancun. Playa del Carmen was not the "quaint, fishing village" that I had read about in my research. It is filled with vendor booths and souvenir shopping- too much haggling. We did take a day trip to Cozumel and rented scooters to take across the island- this was great. You can stop for lunch/drinks at the sister resort at Cozumel for free.

If this resort seems too be too pricey-or you want to split it up- I have been doing a ton of research to return to the area (but not pay Royal Hideaway prices) and have heard excellent reviews of Iberostar Lindo. You might want to check it out.
You could do 4-5 days at the Royal Hideaway (enough to try each wonderful ala carte restaurant) and then go to the Iberostar which seems to have more in the way of activities, huge pool with waterfalls and lazy river and still good food and service for less $.

Good Luck. And don't worry about the weather. We had perfect sunshine nearly everyday. It drizzled a few afternoons but cleared up in an hour.
I worried so much about hurricane season but found that unless you are really UNLUCKY and have one hit at the same week that you are there- you will be fine. We got the insurance just in case...

Let me know if I can answer any other questions about the Royal Hideaway!

Just be aware that October is the rainy season down there.

For what it's worth regarding the Sunscape in Tulum...we were there in December prior to the overbooking incident. That issue seemed related to the Christmas holidays and reviews since then have not indicated any problems. We thought the food there was wonderful for an AI. However, if nightlife is important to you, that is not the place.

The Sunscape Tulum has zero nightlife. Read my trip report at: http://www.geocities.com/lminster/

If you stay at a resort close to Playa Del CArmen, you can always venture into town for nightlife.