Grand Aqua All 371 rooms at this new Cancún luxury hotel and spa face the ocean. Two star chefs head up its restaurants: At MB, Miami-based chef Michelle Bernstein adds Asian spices to meat and local fish, while Patricia Quintana showcases her modern Mexican dishes at Siete, her only restaurant outside Mexico City (doubles from $288; 011-52-998-881-7600 or 800-FIESTA1 or fiestamericana.com).
Maroma This hacienda-style Orient-Express hotel is about a half hour south of Cancún on a 500-acre property with both rain forests and beaches (doubles from $410; 011-52-998-872-8200 or 866-454-9351 or maromahotel.com).
Maya Tulúm A yoga retreat with small thatched bungalows right on the beach. Serene, clean, but very spare—and the electricity goes off at midnight (doubles from $90; 888-515-4580 or mayatulum.com).
Restaurants
Hechizo This intimate place, on the beach in Tulúm, was built by its young Ritz-Carlton-trained chefs, Stefan and Ying-Hui Schober. The restaurant, which serves sophisticated dishes like lobster posole, is off the electrical grid and hard to find: Follow the path in the sand, which is lit by bulbs in conch shells. Open for dinner December through April (Rancho San Eric, Km. 10, Camino a Punta Allen, Tulúm; 011-52-984-100-0710).
John Gray's Place This new Playa del Carmen outpost of John Gray's Kitchen in Puerto Morelos serves Mexican-inflected American dishes like crab cakes with chipotle mayo and roasted duck with tequila (Calle Corazon, Playa del Carmen; 011-52-984-803-3689).
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