Mayakoba is not a resort. It is a gated 240-hectare development on the Riviera Maya, about 10 minutes north of Playa del Carmen, and WeddingPlan360 books four separate hotels inside it: Fairmont Mayakoba, Banyan Tree Mayakoba, Andaz Mayakoba and Rosewood Mayakoba. They share a road, a lagoon system, a golf course and — this is the part nobody writes down — a chapel. That means you can change hotels without changing destinations, and it makes Mayakoba behave differently from every other property on our books.
None of the four publishes package pricing. So this guide does not give you invented numbers. It gives you the venue capacities each resort actually publishes, the shared facilities that let you mix and match, and the specific questions that decide which of the four is right for your guest count.
On price: none of the four Mayakoba resorts publishes wedding package rates, publicly or on our listings — every one of them is quoted per wedding. Be sceptical of any site showing you a Mayakoba “average cost”; it is not coming from the resort. What we can tell you is that WeddingPlan360 holds contracted group rates and concessions that are never published, and we guarantee the lowest price on everything from guest rooms to the wedding package — if you find it cheaper, we will match or beat it. Ask us for a real quote rather than budgeting from a number you found online.
What is Mayakoba, exactly?
Mayakoba is a single master-planned resort community built around six miles of man-made freshwater canals cut through mangrove. The hotels sit on the same beachfront, connected by internal roads and boat channels. Fairmont’s own description puts the site at 240 hectares of tropical forest “intersected by crystal-clear waterways.”
Practically, four things follow from that:
- Your guests can stay across more than one hotel without anyone needing a taxi to reach your ceremony.
- The price ladder inside the gate is enormous. Andaz and Fairmont are upper-upscale; Banyan Tree and Rosewood are genuinely ultra-luxury. Same campus, very different room rates.
- There is one golf course — El Camaleón — and at least one resort sells it as a wedding venue.
- There is a chapel plaza called El Pueblito, and it shows up on three of the four listings.
Do all four Mayakoba resorts share the same chapel?
This is the most interesting thing about Mayakoba and the hardest to get a straight answer on, so here is exactly what our listings publish and no more.
- Fairmont Mayakoba lists a venue called El Pueblito Chapel, for ceremonies. No capacity published.
- Banyan Tree Mayakoba lists The Chapel at El Pueblito — 250 seated at round tables, 350 standing.
- Andaz Mayakoba does not name it in its venue list, but the resort’s own wedding photography includes a frame filed as Wedding — El Pueblito.
- Rosewood Mayakoba lists a venue called The Little Town — which is the literal English translation of el pueblito — at 96 for a ceremony and 500 for a reception.
Then there is the photography, which settles more than the wording does. The image Banyan Tree supplies for “El Pueblito” and the image Rosewood supplies for “The Little Town” show the same building. Same white chapel with a scrolled baroque gable, same circular opening above the door, same carved wooden double doors in a stone surround, same terracotta-red building on its left and yellow one on its right, same brick paving and stone fountain. Banyan Tree’s is a wide shot of the plaza that shows the cross on the roofline; Rosewood’s is a close-up that shows the bell hanging in the oculus. Two hotels, two marketing departments, one chapel.
So the reasonable conclusion is that El Pueblito is a shared ceremony plaza serving the Mayakoba campus rather than any single hotel’s private chapel. What is not established is how access works — whether every resort can book it, whether one hotel controls the calendar, or what it costs. The published capacities do not agree either: 250 seated from Banyan Tree against 96 for a ceremony from Rosewood. Those are most likely two different layouts of one space, but no resort states it.
If a chapel ceremony is the reason you are looking at Mayakoba, make it the first question you ask us, because the answer determines whether you are booking a venue or booking a hotel that has access to one. It is the same distinction we drew across the whole directory in which resorts actually have a Catholic chapel — a building called a chapel is not automatically a consecrated church, and none of the four Mayakoba listings publishes a denomination or names a priest.
Which Mayakoba resort holds the most guests?
Every capacity below is published by the resort on its own WeddingPlan360 listing. Note that the four hotels measure capacity differently — Banyan Tree quotes seated-at-rounds versus standing, Rosewood quotes ceremony versus reception, and Fairmont and Andaz quote a single maximum. Compare like with like.
| Resort | Largest published venue | Capacity | Smallest published venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banyan Tree Mayakoba | MK Blue | 500 seated / 600 standing | The Shack — 100 seated |
| Andaz Mayakoba | Ballroom | 550 | Main Garden — 120 |
| Rosewood Mayakoba | The Beach | 150 ceremony / 550 reception | Agave Deck — 30 ceremony |
| Fairmont Mayakoba | Isla Lawn | 400 | Terraza Lawn — 80 |
The campus spans from 30 guests to 600. Rosewood’s Agave Deck seats 30 for a ceremony; Banyan Tree’s MK Blue takes 600 standing. That twenty-fold range inside one gated community is Mayakoba’s real advantage — if your guest list moves during planning, you can often move venue or even hotel without changing destination, flights or hotel category for the guests who have already booked.
Read the ceremony number and the reception number separately
Rosewood publishes both, and the gap is dramatic: The Beach seats 150 for a ceremony but 550 for a reception. The Little Town is 96 for a ceremony and 500 for a reception. That is not a contradiction — a ceremony needs seats in rows with an aisle and sightlines to one point, while a reception distributes people around tables and a floor.
The practical trap: a couple with 200 guests reads “550” and assumes the space works, then discovers the ceremony there caps at 150. At Rosewood you would hold the ceremony elsewhere on the property and move to the beach for dinner. Ask for both numbers at every property, not just the headline one.
The venue lists overlap — and one resort sells another’s space
Andaz Mayakoba’s published venue list includes a venue called “Banyan Tree Mayakoba,” at 200 guests. That is not a typo on our side; it is on the listing. A neighbouring hotel appears as a bookable option in Andaz’s own wedding inventory.
Andaz also lists “Cameleon Golf Course” with capacity marked “Call for Info” — the same El Camaleón course Fairmont’s description promotes as an 18-hole amenity. Andaz’s own copy claims more than 14,000 square feet of event space across beachfront, lagoon and ballroom.
So the campus does not behave like four sealed resorts. At least some spaces are cross-sold. This is genuinely useful leverage: if you love one hotel’s rooms but another’s ceremony site, that combination may be bookable — but it is a conversation, not a checkbox, and it affects your room block, because resorts price and concede against nights booked in their building.
How the four differ, in one paragraph each
Fairmont Mayakoba is the most conventionally wedding-ready of the four on paper: a 390-guest beach for ceremonies, a 400-guest Isla Lawn that does ceremony, cocktail hour and reception, two 380-guest ballrooms (Riviera Grand and Mimosa) for weather cover, plus the El Pueblito Chapel. If you want large-scale capability with a real indoor plan B, this is the deepest venue list on the campus.
Banyan Tree Mayakoba is villa-style ultra-luxury and holds the largest single published capacity here — MK Blue at 600 standing — alongside Mayapan Garden (190), the Mayapan Ballroom (250), the Lobby Terrace (168), a beach area and The Shack (100). It is also the only one of the four to publish a capacity for the chapel.
Andaz Mayakoba is the design-forward Hyatt property and publishes the largest ballroom figure on the campus at 550, with Balam Foyer (175), Main Garden (120) and the golf course. Its own material leans into multicultural celebrations — worth knowing if you are planning a South Asian wedding, though you should read our guide to Indian ceremonies in the Cancun area for which resorts actually publish mandap and multi-event provision.
Rosewood Mayakoba is the quietest and most intimate: lagoon-side suites with private plunge pools, and a venue list built for smaller numbers — Agave Deck at 30, I’ll Stay Here at 80, Lagoon Lawn at 90 — scaling up to The Beach. If you are 40 guests and want ultra-luxury rather than scale, Rosewood is the one to look at first.
What Mayakoba does not tell you up front
Two things are missing from all four listings, and both matter more than the venue photos.
There is no published pricing. Not a package rate, not a per-person reception cost, not an additional-guest rate. Every Mayakoba wedding is quoted. That is normal at this tier — the entire Los Cabos ultra-luxury cluster behaves the same way — but it means you cannot self-serve a budget, and any number you find on a third-party site is a guess.
The published capacity is not the whole cost story. Everything outside the ceremony and dinner — outside vendor fees, guest day passes for anyone not staying on property, tax and service — is where destination wedding budgets actually move. We wrote that up in detail in what an all-inclusive wedding package doesn’t include, and at a gated multi-resort campus the day-pass question is sharper than usual: if half your party stays outside the gate, ask early what it costs to bring them in.
On the legal side, Mayakoba sits in Quintana Roo, so the state’s civil marriage requirements apply — including the premarital medical certificate and blood work that most competing articles still wrongly say has been waived. Our symbolic vs legal ceremony guide covers the Quintana Roo paperwork in full. A chapel ceremony at El Pueblito, like any religious ceremony in Mexico, carries no legal effect on its own.
Which one should you choose?
| If you are… | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under 40 guests, ultra-luxury | Rosewood Mayakoba | Agave Deck (30) and I’ll Stay Here (80) are built for it |
| 150–400 guests with a real rain plan | Fairmont Mayakoba | Two 380-guest ballrooms plus a 400-guest lawn |
| Over 400 guests | Banyan Tree or Andaz | MK Blue (600 standing) and the Andaz Ballroom (550) |
| Set on a chapel ceremony | Ask us first | El Pueblito’s access and capacity differ by listing — confirm before you book a hotel for it |
| Splitting guests across hotels | Any — but plan the block early | Concessions are earned against nights in one building |
Frequently asked questions
How much does a Mayakoba wedding cost?
None of the four Mayakoba resorts publishes wedding package pricing, so there is no honest public figure — every wedding there is quoted individually based on guest count, venue, season and day of week. Anyone publishing a Mayakoba “average” is estimating. Ask us for a real quote; we hold contracted group rates that are not published anywhere.
Do Fairmont, Banyan Tree, Andaz and Rosewood share the El Pueblito chapel?
The evidence says yes, it is one shared chapel. Three of the four name El Pueblito, the fourth uses its English translation, and — decisively — the photograph Banyan Tree supplies for its chapel and the one Rosewood supplies for The Little Town show the same building from different distances. What no resort publishes is how access works: who controls the calendar, whether every hotel can book it, and what it costs. That is the part to get in writing.
Is the El Pueblito chapel Catholic?
None of the four Mayakoba listings publishes a denomination, and no resort in our directory publishes who would celebrate a Catholic wedding. The building carries a cross, but that is not the same as a consecrated church with a priest available. If a Catholic ceremony is essential, ask us and ask your own parish — the requirements vary by diocese at both ends.
Can my guests stay at a different Mayakoba hotel from the wedding venue?
Physically, yes — the resorts share one gated campus and internal roads, so nobody needs a taxi. Commercially it is more complicated: group concessions are earned against room nights booked in a single building, so splitting a block can cost you upgrades and complimentary nights. Decide the block before you decide the split.
What is the largest wedding Mayakoba can hold?
The largest single published capacity is Banyan Tree’s MK Blue at 500 seated or 600 standing, followed by Andaz’s Ballroom at 550 and Rosewood’s beach at 550 for a reception. Fairmont’s Isla Lawn takes 400 and does ceremony, cocktails and dinner in one place.
What is the smallest wedding worth doing at Mayakoba?
Rosewood’s Agave Deck publishes a 30-guest ceremony capacity, the smallest on the campus. For genuinely small numbers Mayakoba works well precisely because you are not paying for scale you will not use — but at this tier the room rate, not the wedding package, is the dominant cost.
Is Mayakoba all-inclusive?
No. These are four independent luxury hotels, not all-inclusive resorts, which changes the budgeting exercise considerably — food and beverage is generally consumed and billed rather than bundled. That is a meaningful difference from the all-inclusive properties couples usually compare Mayakoba against.
How far is Mayakoba from Cancun airport?
Mayakoba sits just north of Playa del Carmen on the Riviera Maya, roughly 45 minutes to an hour from Cancun International depending on traffic — a standard Riviera Maya transfer. Our Cancun vs Riviera Maya vs Tulum comparison covers how the transfer times affect guest experience across the region.
Talk to someone who has actually booked these four
Mayakoba is the one place on our books where “which resort” and “which venue” are genuinely separable questions, and where the answer to one can change the answer to the other. Because none of the four publishes rates, the only way to compare them properly is to have someone put real quotes side by side.
That is what we do. WeddingPlan360 holds contracted group rates and concessions at all four properties that are never published publicly, and we guarantee the lowest price — on guest rooms and on the wedding package. Book a call and we will get you the El Pueblito answer in writing before you commit to a hotel.
