I went to this cute souvenir shop near the place we were staying in Akumal (they have another…read morelocation in Cancun that is just as cute). I purchased 2 pieces of art that I love and it was fun to look at all the other vibrant and electric items and displays. The tshirts at re unique and not over the top expensive. I'd recommended this a must stop of something cute to take home.

I did my research for a place to shop near Akumal Bay that sells real Mexican handmade art and…read moregifts....so I learned about Mexicarte and we headed straight over. Luckily, this little gem is very easily accessible and not hard to find (due to the pink exterior paint!). I hate those shops where the employees are hunting you down, basically forcing you to buy mass-produced items at ridiculous costs. We wanted a place where we could feel good about our purchases. Mexicarte sells all handmade items by artists throughout Mexico. It's almost like a fair-trade store. You leave feeling good about the money you just spent, and can come back home bearing gifts with a story behind them. Mexicarte has the prettiest, brightest, and most unique gifts in every corner of the store. We actually had to come back a few times because we kept comparing all the other shops to this one, and just wanted to spend our money here. From day of the dead items, skulls, crosses, to handbags, jewelry, wall art, clay art, you name it. Everything is handcrafted with such care and detail, you can see the love the artists put into it. Everything is priced very fair. You can find gifts for any budget, we brought back a couple little turtle figurines for about $1.50 USD for example...and great quality! I love how helpful the employees are, and can provide the backstory to all the items they sell. They let you roam around freely, and don't pressure you into buying anything. Parking? Not so sure. We stayed at Akumal Beach Resort, it took us 10 minutes to walk up the beach here. You will see the Akumal Dive Shop, walk through to the back of the Dive Shop and you will see Akumal Plaza. It's a bright pink stand-alone building. You can't miss it. Happy shopping! :)

Amazing place and honest people Very friendly good costumer…read moreservice My sevenires were unique

While in Plaza Playacar looking for souvenirs for ourselves and our friends/family back in the…read moreStates, I was drawn to Artesanias "Solymar." In fact, I even had to go back to grab a couple items I saw that I couldn't come home without! ++ They have the BEST ceramics and pottery that I saw on my entire trip. It was beautiful and so incredibly detailed! ++ The staff was very friendly. I spoke with the owner about his merchandise and he was so kind! ++ There's ALL sorts of shirts, shot glasses, ceramics, sombreros, etc... You name it and they have it! ++ Prices are pretty reasonable for the quality of product you get. Plus, if you have cash, you can negotiate a bit. I would highly recommend checking out Artesanias "Solymar" for your souvenir needs. If I find myself back in the area, I will def be back!

Felipe is the owner of this fabulous Mexican shop. Our tour Miguel tookus by there. Miguel is from…read moreJeep Riders. We asked and he took us around to some out-of-the-way places and Filipe happens to be one of those friends he has and we stopped by. We found all of our souvenirs there. Filipe is the older gentleman thst does the work. He works with cement, ceramic, and would. Make sure to stop by and see Filipe. You will not be disappointed by what you find. Much much better and less expensive then in the city. Apparently there are some regular tourists that come by there often as they come once a year to Cozumel. So we are definitely not the only ones finding this little gem in the area.

After looking through some of the local shops, and dealing with the many people who went to great…read morelengths to get our attention, it was refreshing to step into Viva Mexico. We were all looking to take home gifts and this shop satisfied our needs on many levels. Pottery, vanilla, glassware, toys, they seemed to have it all. The ladies working there were all friendly and thankfully, their English was better than my Spanish! I had my gifts all planned out until I went upstairs, and then everything was turned up-side-down (in a great way). I found my niece upstairs, hanging out with Cristian who is the man in charge of the tequila tasting. By the way, just say yes, because he doesn't take no for an answer!! We tried chocolate tequila, vanilla tequila, pomegranate, apricot... oh the list goes on. I came home with some chocolate, and my niece tried the regular (oh so yummy, sweet tasting, sippin' tequila). If you are looking for some quality gifts, no hassle, and great tequila, this is the spot for you!!

The selection of pottery and other goods native to Mexico was nice; however, the customer service…read morewas severely lacking and the pricing was confusing. Items were marked in pesos and shop attendants quoted one price in US dollars, but at the register, not even close. My friend was purchasing a piece of pottery and was overcharged. She questioned the cashier and showed the pottery piece. As she was turning the piece over to show the price tag, the piece slipped from her hand and broke. They made her pay for it. Very unfriendly and we certainly wished we had never set foot in the place.

I accidentely found KaoKao on a web site and it looked interesting, after all, it is chocolate. I…read moresigned us up for the two hour "tour" and Chocolate making. The shop is located in a neighborhood and not a tourist area in a small storefront. Nancy led our experience and gave us an interesting talk on chocolate and its history. It was really interesting. We then actually ground some "nibs" and made our own chocolate for hot chocolate. It was a lit of fun and we ended up taking our little medallion of chocolate home with us to try on some winter evening. Nancy also gave us samples of different types of flavored chocolate. They were just small pieces but by the time we were finished I think we had about 20 different chocolates. The tour is inexpensive and a lot of fun. As an added comment, we were on a cruise and the cab fare was about the same as a ride into the tourist area. This is not in a tourist area so you'll see where people actually live. Nancy will call a cab for you for the trip back to the ship or to the tourist area. Again, this was a lot of fun.

Every time I go to Cozumel I like to buy their chocolates. I did not do any research prior and…read moredidn't know where to go. We asked our driver to take us to best chocolate shop in town and he took us to Kaokao. We were really please. We were greeted by the nicest ladies who walked us inside the shop. They also gave tours here but we were there strictly just to purchase. The lady behind the counter did offer us some samples. I had a lot of questions and the nice staff was able to answer all of them. She also knew all the ingredients in them and helped me choose what was best for me. I ended up getting some dark chocolate, milk chocolate, coffee espresso beans, and some other goodies. The shop was really cute and they had all things chocolate and more. They even had toys and souvenirs. But their star are their chocolates which are high-quality and made from the finest ingredients. They even had interesting chocolate flavor combinations. The shop should also be clean, well-maintained, and air conditioned. Pricing was also reasonable. I highly recommend if you are in Cozumel and want to stop in a good chocolate shop.

When in a foreign country and in need of a few trinkets, jewelry and other touristy stuff that we'd…read moreprobably not really need, most of us hit the streets and search out those "souvenir shops"... well, we not us ! We may visit those oversized souvenir shops and look at all their goodies and "maybe, just maybe" we'd pick up something rather useless like a shot glass or a bandana with "F Trump" printed on it... but normally it's all just junk. Normally we want something to remember our trip and not crap... jewelry usually does the trick for my Marisol. Here in Playa Del Carmen, there is 5TH AVE... plenty of those shit stores but there are plenty of street vendors with silver and leather goods and deals can be made but it's work; lucky for me, I had Marisol and Michelle to handle the purchases on the last visit (Marisol for translation and Michelle to hammer the vendors). BUT sometimes you come across a vendor that is just easy to deal with... bringing my sales team (Marisol and Michelle) isn't even necessary. We first came across the adorable street booth (more like a side of the road kiosk along 5TH AVE)... constructed from reused wood and painted a light turquoise color, the distressed booth has a sign painted with the store name "HIPPIE MAR" is colorful, hippy-like font. And the shop is loaded up with wall art, headdresses, purses, other knick-knacks and a little bit of jewelry (but the jewelry wasn't out; we asked and she just happened to have some). We were on our way to dinner but really glad we decided to stop and take a quick peek because in addition to the tiny-booth/shop looking so cute, the girl that owned and ran the booth was extremely welcoming and didn't give us crazy up front prices that you were forced to negotiate from... she gave a price for some toe-rings, we countered but with reasonable numbers and we agreed at a fair price... Both parties parted pleased !

Creative, interesting and tasty - this sweet spot has something for everyone. The tasting chocolate…read morewas very tasty! The Mayan chocolate was so unique- the flavor was one of a kind. We had some cake but the chocolate was the winner.

Probably the best mocha frappe I have had. Maybe it was the great air conditioned escape from the…read moreafternoon heat combined with the tasty and not so sweet mocha frappe. Definitely try on your after walk through 5th avenue.

We were at a resort and they had the nice linen pants, shorts, and shirts for sale in the gift…read moreshops. I really wanted a few of these but was not sure I wanted to pay the resort price. We all went to 5th Ave in Playa Del Carmen and that's when I found this shop. Exactly the things I wanted only better. The shirts all had a little difference to them. The stitching had small details that set them apart. The quality was even better and at a quarter of the price. The only problem was that there were so many different colors I wanted but was set on only getting 2.