By Daina Beth Solomon and Natalia Siniawski
MEXICO CITY, May 19 (Reuters) – Mexican authorities will reject a large water park planned by cruise company Royal Caribbean on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, Environment Minister Alicia Barcena said on Tuesday, following backlash from residents and environmental groups over the development’s ecological impact.
The rejection of the mega-tourism project underscores growing resistance to mass development in Mexico’s pristine coastal regions.
“It is not going to be approved,” Barcena told a press conference, noting that the company was also taking steps to withdraw the project.
Royal Caribbean said it did not yet have information regarding the government’s decision.
Slated to debut in fall 2027 in Mahahual, a beach town near a coral reef, the project dubbed Perfect Day was advertised as the “biggest, baddest, boldest destination,” offering beach clubs, pools, bars and more than 30 waterslides.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum echoed the environmental concerns during her daily morning press conference on Monday.
“We must not do anything that affects that area, which has a very important ecological balance, and is particularly important for the reefs,” Sheinbaum said.
ENVIRONMENTAL PUSHBACK
Mahahual, home to fewer than 3,000 people, sits within one of the most ecologically diverse and fragile regions in the western Caribbean. It is surrounded by turtle nesting beaches, protected mangrove forests and corridors that serve as habitats for jaguars, ocelots and Central American tapirs.
Just offshore lies the Mesoamerican Reef, the second-largest barrier reef system in the world.
Environmental group Greenpeace warned that the region was at a “crucial juncture,” noting that the project and its link to expanded cruise tourism could cause significant environmental consequences.
Public opposition also surged online. A Change.org petition demanding the project be halted, launched in July 2025, in recent days reached more than 4 million signatures.
Organizers of the petition say the planned 90-hectare (222-acre) water park would be built on protected mangroves, threatening the local way of life, community access to beaches and the survival of marine life.
The area is near the route of the Mayan Train, a government project meant to bring development to Indigenous Maya communities beyond the crowded beaches of Cancun, but that local groups and environmentalists have criticized.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon, Writing by Natalia Siniawski; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Cynthia Osterman)