Along the Riviera Maya: This beautiful Mexican coastline stretches for 200 kilometers – and here’s an all-inclusive resort in a prime location

The instructions are clear. “Stop complaining about the past and stop worrying about the future.” It’s not the traditional blessing I expect from the Mayan shaman in front of me, but I like it.

It is early evening and we stand facing each other on a small wooden platform covered with an animal skin and flowers, over a beautifully lit cenote (natural pool).

He wears a traditional headdress and robe with jingling shells around his ankles, and when a woman beats two drums behind us, he speaks very wisely.

The blessing, usually for couples, followed by al fresco dining, is one of the ways the all-inclusive resort TRS Yucatan sets itself apart from its neighbors in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. The 200 kilometers of beaches on this Caribbean coast stretch from party-loving Cancún to hippie-lite Tulum (where high-fashion New York bankers strut their stuff), and half of all the hotels are in this middle stretch, hidden behind massive entrances.

The region is so popular that 13.5 million people arrived at Cancún airport in just eight months last year. The TRS Yucatan – strangely unromantic name – is a good hour south of Cancun on Playa del Carmen and quite spacious. There are three sister hotels on the same property, but this one is adults only and the most luxurious.

The adults-only TRS Yucatan Resort is the most luxurious of the three sister properties in the same location

Spread across 300 hectares with a lagoon, there is nothing smaller than a suite on offer and all 454 are simple as the entire low resort is built around beautiful mangrove groves and is so vast that you may never find your suite not. to recognize the faces of other guests.

Getting around the resort is easy, but getting around is by trolley after asking your butler to call one. Sounds ridiculously over the top, but it’s comfortable, friendly, not at all pretentious, and quite embarrassing how quickly you get used to such luxuries.

It outsources all the usual hustle and bustle at the front desk, making reservations or thinking about anything other than the crucial decisions of a Land ‘n’ Lounge vacation (you don’t even have to remember your key because it’s all done with ‘ a wristband).

The resort is located on 300 acres with a lagoon and offers nothing less than one suite

The entire low-rise resort is so vast that you may never be able to find your way around or recognize the faces of other guests, reveals Kate. Upstairs, the plunge pool is in one of the suites

The menus in the hotel restaurants are all generous and delicious and there is no dress code

The first question is of course where to sunbathe. The pristine infinity pool with its four-poster sunbeds, bar and barbecue on site (and a DJ comes on in the afternoons) is on the beach, with skyscraper palm trees, and the most popular, the tranquil pool with its winding waterways, and the sea water swimming pool is calmer.

The second crucial decision is dinner. There are numerous restaurants ranging from Japanese, Italian, French and Mexican – even a cabaret – and there are no cuts. The menus are all generous and delicious and there is no dress code.

The other guests are mostly groups of Americans, although I do chat to a returning Canadian couple and a couple of Brits on holiday with their grown children, and there are a surprising number of younger couples, many from the UK, some on their honeymoon.

Kate goes snorkeling in Puerto Morelos (above), a sleepy town with a lighthouse constantly tilting on the wharf

With outdoor yoga, stationary bike sessions in the pool, cooking classes and the services of a roving photographer, it’s still worth a day. Tours By Locals is a good place to find local guides online for a customized private excursion, in this case an invigorating swim in a pristine cenote and snorkeling at Puerto Morelos, which is still a sleepy town with a lighthouse which is permanently tilted.

The village was devastated by Hurricane Beulah in 1967, around the same time the government decided to turn this once rugged coastline with few roads and a few plantations into a tourist attraction. It was chosen for its year-round sunshine, beautiful beaches and Mayan archeological sites, and because it has the fewest hurricanes.

The second largest reef in the world (after the Great Barrier), National Reef Park has brain corals, a turtle, barracuda and blue-striped grunts with dull chic names like Parisian midnight parrotfish, and hundreds of angelfish dressed up for Mardi Gras to be ready .

Back to my large suite with its own plunge pool and a final trip to the spa, which unusually is mostly outdoors.

Take the shaman’s advice to heart when I’m not grumbling about the past or worrying about the future. All I can do is enjoy the present, and this is the place for that.