Quintana Roo inaugurates Hotel Nickelodeon, Mexico’s largest water park

A new water theme park and hotel were inaugurated in Quintana Roo last week.

Hotel Nickelodeon and its water park Aqua Nick, located between Cancún and Puerto Morelos, allows fans to stay beside some of the Nickelodeon children’s network’s most familiar characters, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or SpongeBob SquarePants and his companions.

The hotel is operated by Karisma Hotels and Resorts and has 280 rooms, six restaurants, three bars, a 500-seat theater and a spa. Aqua Nick water park sits on 2.4 hectares and has two bodies of water with slides.

Owner Grupo Lomas invested US $340 million in the complex, which will employ 800–1,200 people. Fees are around US $450 per person, per night. It’s their second Nickelodeon-themed hotel resort. Their first opened in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, in 2016.

Governor Carlos Joaquín attended the inauguration and celebrated the achievement of building the complex in the COVID-19 pandemic, when “there was uncertainty and things were not easy,” he said.

“This speaks very well of our business people, of the investors, of each and all of you, whom I thank for that trust,” Joaquín added, addressing representatives from Nickelodeon, Karisma Hotels and Grupo Lomas.

Director of operations at Grupo Lomas, Samantha Frachey, said the resort opened last summer with 38% occupancy and reached 56% occupancy by last month. She predicted a further bump in demand. “In April we are going to reach 80% occupancy, and we increasingly have more demand thanks to alliances with tour operators in Mexico, the United States, Canada and Latin America,” she said.

With reports from Reportur and Milenio