Long, thorough and honest review January 18-26

We just back from the Oasis Viva in Cancun Mexico. This report is what we saw and felt while there. About us - We are a well-travelled couple who have been to many all-inclusive, adults only, hip, fun themed locations. We aren’t “Foodies” but we know good food and drink when we taste it. We are far from snobs and are usually the most easy to get along with people you’d want to meet. We don’t expect you to pamper us but we do expect you to do what you promise and advertise. We make our own fun wherever we go!


Facilities
The hotel itself is very clean and well maintained. The rooms are nice with all having an ocean view (very nice touch). The beach is beautiful! Nice, very clean sand (no rocks or shells, actually wondering if it’s man-made). There were plenty of beach chairs and beds and we never had any issue finding a place to sit or lay. If you want to get a beach bed you need to get up early and claim your spot. We only did this twice but it was well worth it. Oasis is a well maintained facility that has a lot of potential but seems to lack the real leadership to make it great.

Concept (“The Hip Hotel”)
We read and where led to believe that Oasis Viva “The Hip Hotel” (their words) was going to be a fun, lively, adult party atmosphere along the lines of Temptations or Grand Lido, not a wild or crazy as Hedo II or as sensually luxurious as Desire. We could live with that. They advertised a concept changeover on December 23 2013 so we thought they would have been at least beginning to implement it by the time we got there on January 18 2014. No such luck!!! Not only where they not a Hip, fun, adult party type of hotel, I’d have to call them downright boring. I have no problem laying on the beach all day but I thought there would be some effort to excite the crowd and maybe have some way of getting the guest to interact with each other and the staff, none of this was done. Only once during the week did we see any EC’s (Entertainment Coordinators) on the beach interacting with guests and that was only for about 45 minutes then they were gone. The beach is topless but don’t expect to see it. My wife went topless every day but for the most part she was alone or maybe one or two others on a good day. Not a big just not what we expected. There were a couple of theme nights (lingerie, Black and White, Fetish) that were put on by the hotel but no one participated because there was no effort by the hotel staff to promote them (other than the TV’s around the hotel) or get people excited about participating. We participated in all of them but we were usually the only one’s or party of a very small contingency. If the EC’s or the hotel staff would promote the themes during the day I’m sure they would be better attended. SUGGESTION: One the little TV screens around the hotel instead of just showing a quick one page ad for the theme night show some pictures of what’s appropriate for guests to wear, get them excited about doing it, maybe have the EC’s wander the hotel or the beach in the theme costume to get people interested. Also on nights like Fetish and lingerie DO NOT ALLOW photography in the bar, know one want’s to end up on Youtube!!!
Housekeeping
Housekeeping kept our room clean but is kind of inconsistent. At least our housekeepers where; forgetting to leave wash clothes several time, not replacing glasses, etc. I actually left a dirty plastic bar glass on my table (with a napkin in so they would know it was trash) on my night stand for two days and it was never taken, I finally threw it in the trash myself!

Concierge
I have traveled to many places and can unquestionably say that Oasis Viva has they worse concierge staff I have ever seen! They don’t seem to know how anything works or where anything is in their own hotel or chain. I definitely got the feeling that they could care less if you got what you needed or not. Since you can, conceptually, use all of the Oasis hotels while you are there you would think they would know what was going on at their sister facilities or at least happily make a phone call to find out. This actually happened, “US: We’d like seafood tonight, do any of your hotels have a seafood restaurant? Concierge: I don’t know. US: Can you check? Concierge: I can’t call around to all of them to find out sir!”. This is just totally unacceptable. By the way, the day passes between Oasis properties are only good from 8 am to 6 pm so you’ll never see what the night life is like at the other properties!
One of the other issues we had was that if you’re going to have someone be a concierge at least make sure they are fairly proficient in several languages. Being one of those stupid Americans that only speaks English it’s difficult to communicate my wishes to a concierge that only speaks Spanish. Yes I understand I’m in Mexico and Spanish is the native language but it’s not really helpful if none of the 4 concierge staff members standing around can understand what I’m asking for.

Wait Staff
The wait staff was one of the highlights of our trip. For the most part they were very pleasant and helpful with a few exceptions. When you could finally get into a restaurant they were really good, hard working folks.

Bars
The bars where so-so, with usually one bartender at each. The beach bar could really use a second bartender to cut down on the standing in line for drinks, however, that’s where we met most of the people we talked to so maybe that’s a good thing. I had read a review that they poured strong drinks at Oasis Viva, I didn’t find this to be true at all and I’m hardly a heavy drinker. When you can have ten drinks and not really feel the slightest buzz those are NOT strong drinks.
Another pet peeve I had with the bars was the up charges. I’m not use to going to an all inclusive where there are items at the bar I had to pay extra for (Jack Daniels, Hennesy, Stoli, etc). If it’s on the bar it should be part of the AI concept. Now if I wanted a glass of Dom or Arran 12 scotch then yup, hit me with an up charge.

Coyote Bar
Night Club (Wow, where do I begin here? I’ll start by saying I use to be a DJ in college and some years afterwards as a side business. I know how to get a crowd engaged and keep them engaged. There DJ might be one of the worst I’ve seen. It is apparent that he just learned how to scratch (where as he been since the 80’s) and isn’t afraid to do it whether it is appropriate for the song, the crowd or the vibe. Just a hint my man, you can’t ask the crowd to “MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!” when you have just driven them from the dance floor with too many mixes and cut-over and way to much scratching! J
The facility itself isn’t bad just not designed well for what it’s being used for. If your going to do stage shows you have to put the stage where more than 25% of the crown can actually see it. The two stripper poles are a nice touch and can help get the crowd going when you have the right people (crazy’s like us and our friends) to use them.

Food
Like I said I’m not a Foodie but I do like to eat. We ate off property quite a few nights out of necessity. The food at Oasis Viva (maybe with the exception of the Moroccan restaurant and the Italian on occasion) is just plain bad! Oasis Viva is trying to make their restaurant menu’s foo-foo upscale type food, unfortunately they have no idea how to cook, serve or present it. SUGGESTION: Dumb down the limited menu to things that you can make well and stick with those! If you don’t know how to make it, or present it don’t do it! Also, please get some real managers; there is no reason to run out of a menu item one hour after the restaurant opens, that’s just poor planning.
The food handlers need to be totally retrained!!! Again, I know this isn’t the US and the standards are different but food safety is food safety! My wife worked in food management for years and she was appalled. You do not pick food up with your hands when you’re cooking it (chicken then beef then chicken again), you don’t put your fingers inside a glass when you’re making a drink and you wash your blenders well between making different drinks!
If you eat at the buffet restaurant do so at your own risk! The food is re-served over and over again until it’s gone. If you walk up to any of the other restaurants get use to this phrase, “There a 45 minute to 1.5 hour wait.”, even though you can see lots of open tables. They need to either hire more wait staff or cut down on the number of tables you see. It is very annoying.
We gave up on trying to eat at the White Box, even though we did wrangle a reservation once. When I’m on vacation I don’t want to have to get in line early in the morning and wait in line for an hour plus to MAYBE get a reservation, that’s just plain stupid. They only give out reservations for that day so if you’re not one of the twenty (I think) couples who get a reservation for that night your out of luck (come back and wait in line again tomorrow). My wife stood in line and was fourth from the front when they ran out of reservations for that night, the concierge (out of the goodness of her heart) gave reservations for the following night to the next three people in line so my wife got one (we ended up going to Temptations that night so we gave it away). Needless to say the folks behind her, who stood in line and didn’t get any reservation at all where pissed!!! I made this suggestion to their Concept Manager and hope that they’ll implement it; SUGGESTION: Allow guest to make a reservation at the White Box when they check in, that way everyone gets a shot to eat their, not just they hardy few who want to stand in line early in the morning. Any left-over open spaces can be given to people who stand in line and wait. Seems fair to me, let’s see if the implement that policy.

Issues (how things work, where to go, who to see)
The staff really, really needs to make an effort to tell people how things work in this hotel. Simple things like:
· *how to get the water to flow to the tub instead of the shower head (never did figure out how that worked)


· *how to turn on the lights in the bathroom (you need to place your room key in a slot to turn them off),
·

*are the covered beds reserved or accessible to everyone (we heard both from different staff members),
·

*which Jacuzzi tubs you have to rent (the one’s by the spa) and which are free (the bathtub types near the Coyote Bar).


Another annoyance was our room key. We got locked out of our room six times while at GOV (4 times in one day). We had to go back to the front desk to get it reset, go back to our room and it still didn't work, back to the front desk, finally follow maintenance to our room to get them to remove the lock and let us in. Know one evry knew why it happened or seemed to care. We didn't carry it next to credit cards or our pocket electro magnet. We actually carried them in our hands after they were reset and they still didn't work.


Conclusion
Would I go to Oasis Viva again? Probably not! If they really implemented the concept and the management and ownership got behind it I could see it happening but right now they are to wishy washy on what it is they want to be. If you’re going to implement a fun, hip theme than do it and accept the consequences! You can’t straddle the fence trying not to lose any old clients while attempting to draw in new clients, doing that just pisses off everyone (old and new) in some way.

 

Thanks for your review. What was the bar closure situation during your stay? Any change from the 1 am closures?

 

Nope, still closes at 1 am but the worse part is (and I forgot to add this to the trip report) they turn out all the lights around the beach and the pool at 1 am. Feels like they are telling you to go to bed! We personally though it was kind of unsafe for hotel guests who might have wanted to wander the property or beach after 1 a.m.

 

We had the exact same experience from Jan 15-20.

 

Well, they've got nowhere to go but up. If they stay busy I see no reason to believe anything would change.

 

Sounds like they are giving us adults a curfew.

Does sound dangerous though The beachs are public which means any local can walk down them If no lights on they could come onto the property Which could make walking around not safe at all

 

Lights out ???


Im out of hear

 

When we got back from the Kinky Pirate Cruise (which was a lot of fun actually), it felt like a ghost town! No lights, no bars, no food, no people....

 

We closed out the Coyote bar several night and where like, now what?

 

We were so glad we were there with another couple and we had a couple bottles of vodka with us so we could have some drinks after!