Venue Guide
Your Wedding at
Hilton Cancun
Riviera Cancun
Hilton Cancun, an All-Inclusive Resort is a 700-plus-room beachfront property on the coast road south of Cancun, set behind a mangrove preserve on 100 acres of shoreline. It offers seven named wedding spaces and shares an event campus with the Waldorf Astoria next door.
Check your dateWhat couples ask first
5 figures, each with the caveat that comes with it.
- 1.1Outside photographers
- The resort publishes no outside vendor fee.
- 1.2Capacity
- Wedding groups from 2 to 1,000.
- 1.3Wedding packages
- $3,250 to $16,000, four packages, 30 guests included.Published rate. Confirm with the venue.
- 1.4Best months
- November to April is the dry, cooler window on this coast.
- 1.5Airport transfer
- About twenty minutes by road from Cancun International Airport, roughly sixteen miles south on the Cancun to Tulum highway.
What couples choose it for
- 2.1
Seven named wedding spaces run from a beach ceremony site to a ballroom that seats a thousand, so the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception can each have a different setting without leaving the property.
- 2.2
The resort is about twenty minutes from Cancun International Airport, which keeps the travel day short for guests flying in from anywhere in North America.
- 2.3
Its event campus of more than 68,000 square feet is shared with the neighbouring Waldorf Astoria, which gives unusually large or multi-day celebrations somewhere to expand.
- 2.4
The property handles legal, symbolic, Mayan, South Asian, multicultural, same-sex and vow-renewal ceremonies, and Hilton publishes a dedicated South Asian wedding package for this resort.
- 2.5
Receptions in the Azul Ballroom and Hilton Arena can run until 2:00 am, which is later than most outdoor settings on this coast allow.
- 2.6
Four wedding packages scale from a symbolic ceremony with a bilingual officiant and a one-hour cocktail reception up to a four-hour reception with DJ, live music, dance floor and fountain fireworks.
Where you would actually get married
Ceremony
3.1North Beach
The resort's beach ceremony site, with the Caribbean directly behind the couple.
3.2Amphitheater250 seated
A covered open-air theatre used as a ceremony setting for larger groups, listed at 250 guests.
3.3Lobby Terrace
A tiered beachfront terrace with a hard floor and ocean views, listed for ceremonies of up to 200.
3.4Sunset View Terrace50 seated
The smallest of the ceremony options, capped at about 50 guests, and the one the resort markets for its sunsets over the preserved mangrove.
Reception
3.5Azul Ballroom
The main ballroom, 18,715 square feet with 23-foot ceilings, listed for receptions of up to 1,000 wedding guests.
3.6Hilton Arena800 seated
The second large indoor room, listed for receptions and cocktail hours of up to 800 guests, and divisible into sections for smaller configurations.
3.7South Pool Terrace
An open-air pool deck with ocean views used for cocktails and dinner under the sky.
3.8Lobby Terrace120 seated
The same beachfront terrace also works as a reception space for smaller groups, listed at roughly 100 to 120 seated, with music until 11:00 pm.
When another venue fits better
Every point is drawn from the venue's own published terms and documented weddings. None of it makes this a bad venue.
- You want to be certain a quote is for the right hotel.Two different Hilton resorts answer to the name Hilton Cancun: this one on the coast road south of the airport, and Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe in the hotel zone, so confirm which property a quote refers to.
- You pictured guests walking out into the Cancun hotel zone.This is not the Cancun hotel zone. The resort sits behind a mangrove preserve on the highway toward Puerto Morelos, roughly twenty minutes from both the airport and the hotel zone strip.
- You want the party to stay outdoors to the end.Outdoor music curfews are early: the beach and amphitheater stop at 10:00 pm and the terraces and pool deck at 11:00 pm, while the ballrooms run to 2:00 am.
- You want the package price to cover the space.A venue fee applies on top of the package for the Lobby Terrace, the Amphitheater and both ballrooms, so the headline package price is not the whole space cost.
- You want to be legally married on the day.Every Hilton package describes a symbolic ceremony performed by a bilingual officiant, so couples wanting a legally binding Mexican marriage need to arrange the civil step separately.
- You are budgeting off a package price you found online.Published package prices vary widely between travel agencies because Hilton itself publishes contents but no prices, so treat any figure found online as an anchor rather than a quote.
The honest considerations
- This one south of the airport, and Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe in the hotel zone; confirm which.
- This is not the hotel zone; the resort sits behind a mangrove preserve on the highway toward Puerto Morelos, about twenty minutes from both.
- Beach and amphitheater stop at 10pm, terraces and pool deck at 11pm; ballrooms run to 2am.
- A venue fee applies on top of the package for the Lobby Terrace, the Amphitheater and both ballrooms; the package price isn't the whole cost.
- Every package is a symbolic ceremony with a bilingual officiant; a legally binding Mexican marriage needs a separate civil step.
- Published package prices vary between travel agencies since Hilton publishes contents but no prices; treat online figures as an anchor, not a quote.
Arrival, and where you get ready
- 6.1Fly into
- Cancun International (CUN).
- 6.2Then drive
- About twenty minutes by road, roughly sixteen miles south on the Cancun to Tulum highway. No ferry, no long transfer.
- 6.3Arriving at
- Riviera Cancun, on the mainland coast between the airport and Puerto Morelos, set behind a mangrove preserve. This is not the Cancun hotel zone.
- 6.4Tell guests
- Use the full name, Hilton Cancun, an All-Inclusive Resort. A second Hilton Cancun sits in the hotel zone, and a driver sent to the wrong one is a long way off.
- 6.5At the airport
- Ignore anyone offering a ride between the arrivals door and the curb, however official they look. Only pre-arranged and federally authorized transport may pick up at the terminal, and the walk-up offers are where the overcharge stories come from. Ride-hailing apps work for the trip back to the airport but are unreliable for arrivals, so do not plan a pickup around one.
- 6.6Book the drive before you fly
- Reserve a private transfer in advance: the driver meets you with a name sign, at a fixed price agreed up front, and tracks your flight if it runs late. We use Private Driver Cancun, WhatsApp +52 984 132 3989, mixofcultures.com. USA Transfers and eTransfers are two long-established operators for larger guest lists.
Where you get ready
Details below are venue-published.
- Getting Ready RoomA hotel room provided on the day of the wedding, based on availability; hilton.com lists it in the Cherish and Cherish Captured packages, not in the base Signature package.
- Bridal suiteA hotel suite on the wedding day; listed by planner Hola Weddings under the Platinum Wedding Package (50 to 100 guests), not as a general inclusion.
- Groom suiteA hotel suite on the wedding day; listed by planner Hola Weddings under the Platinum Wedding Package (50 to 100 guests), not as a general inclusion.
What to ask the wedding office
- 6.7
The outside photographer fee and any day pass charge for our date, in writing.
- 6.8
Confirm in writing this quote is for Hilton Cancun on the coast road, not Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe in the hotel zone.
- 6.9
What is the venue fee for the Lobby Terrace, the Amphitheater or the ballroom on our date, and does it sit on top of the package?
- 6.10
What is the current price of each of the four packages direct from the resort, and the per additional guest rate above the 30 included?
- 6.11
If we want the marriage legally binding in Mexico, what does the resort handle and what do we arrange ourselves?
How the light works at Hilton Cancun
The beach and the ocean-facing terraces here look east over the Caribbean, which is the single fact that shapes a wedding-day timeline on this coast. The sun comes up out of the water and goes down behind the property, over the mangrove preserve on the inland side, so a beach ceremony never has the sunset in the frame. What it does have is the last ninety minutes before sunset, when the light turns soft and warm and rakes sideways across the sand instead of blasting down from overhead, which is why a late-afternoon ceremony start is the reliable choice and portraits are best held until immediately after. The one space the resort markets for sunset itself is a small terrace capped at around fifty guests that faces inland across the preserved mangrove.
The best time to start your ceremony
Arch's own rule for this coast is to begin the ceremony about 90 minutes before sunset, which leaves the vows in soft light and still keeps time for portraits afterwards. Start times are rounded down to the half hour. Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo. UTC-5 all year: the state left daylight saving in 2015. Times are town level, so they run within a couple of minutes of the property.
- 4:30 pm
- January, October, November, December
Sunset around 6:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- February, March, September
Sunset around 6:30 pm - 5:30 pm
- April, May, June, August
Sunset around 7:00 pm - 6:00 pm
- July
Sunset around 7:30 pm
Planning a wedding at Hilton Cancun?
We are based in Playa del Carmen, so there is no travel fee anywhere in Cancun or the Riviera Maya.