Disclaimer: This review is my honest thoughts on the resort. It will include both what I thought was good and what I thought was bad about it. We had a great vacation regardless of any downsides, and this review will hopefully help others make informative choices about where to stay. About us: Early 30's, married with kids, like to relax during the day and party at night on vacation when we can get away without the kids. We like nice things but are not wealthy, but we don't mind splurging a little on vacation to stay at a slightly nicer place or to do fun things. Hotel Review / Trip Report The location: Good location, within walking distance to downtown clubs and shoppings, and close by the ferry. Great wide beach. About 25 minutes from airport The hotel grounds: Beautiful. Very well maintained outside, the inside public areas are also well maintained. The beach was also cleaned and swept daily. Resturants were all nicely decorated, and pools are very pretty too. Elevators are very dark on purpose, its supposed to be sexy, we personally found it creepy. Main Elevator takes forever but the small side ones are much faster. Check in: as can often happen, check in was long. Took about 2 hrs to get to front of the line, then we were 20 minutes early for 3pm check in so we had to come back for our key later. We had lunch, then came back and waited another hr to get our key. Timeshare people: Somehow we got lucky. We seen them in lobby, but they never spoke to us at all. It looked like they were greeting most people right after check in, but they didn't say anything to us. We were just handed our key and off we went. The Room: We got a un renovated balcony room (719). I was not inpressed with it. The rooms that have been renovated are very pretty though. Make SURE you upgrade as much as possible when booking here. I was able to see into several rooms while they were installing balcony flowerpot like boxes and in that area (center) of that hotel the rooms were not updated yet. As long as you get a updated room you should be happy. As a side note, the water pressure was fantasic ( low flow shower heads at home, so this was a nice change) but the shower would often go from freezing cold to burning hot and back 20 times during a ten minute shower. Not sure if this was a hotel wide issue or just a room issue. We were told often that the hotel was sold out at 100% capacity, but our hallway was always empty, and it did not seem like the hotel was full to me. The beach: Beautiful. Lots of chairs, a good amount of beds. Seen a small handful of topless woman sunbathing out there daily. Water was cold this time of year. I never seen the beach server but it was fine for us to walk to the beach bar to grab our drinks. Pleanty of towels. I reccomend laying towels out on your chairs before 9am if you want a good seat. The pool: Pretty also (both of them) the first part of week no one was in there, but the second half brought more people out. Maybe 5-10 people in the pool and a few at the bar on average. Seen even fewer topless here but there was a few. There is plenty of room for more chairs but they don't have them, they need more badly, it might attract more people to the pool area if you could get a seat. Hot Tubs: We had some trouble finding them untill someone here was nice enough to help. They are the whirlpool tubs by the beach. Very romantic setting. You have to fill yourself. ( I like that, It felt cleaner) The water is just one temp: warm. Maybe we are just used to much hotter water, but we didn't enjoy them as much as we would have if they would have been hot. We tried everything to get it hotter with no luck. Activites: I didn't see much. There was beach vollyball one day, water arobics for a hr another, I didn't see much else going on. At night there was always a show about 9pm that varied daily, lasted about 20ish minutes on the stage in pool area, the shows were decent. The bar: the first part of the week it was Dead. Like seriously just a handful of people and no fun so we didn't stay. It picked up a little bit on Wed, but thursday night it was busy. I never seen any shows there or people on the poles, but maybe we just didn't stay late enough. We like to party at night, so we would often leave and go into town since there was not much nightlife at the hotel. I think this could be improved a lot. We don't mind a quite day place, but at night we wish something was going on. Closing at 1 am is also much to early. I wish there was a place to grab a drink or some snacks after that. The resturants: Was all ok. We could find something at each. Just like all the all inclusive we have stayed at, it could be improved, but it wasn't bad. I will recap each. We had no problems with long lines or waiting, and never had to wait more then 15 mintues for a table anywhere. The service was ALWAYS excellent. Please tip these hard working people, I only seen a few people tip the entire time we were there besides ourselfs. I felt bad for them. The buffet: Breakfast was decent with a good selection and omlet station. Lunch and dinner on the other hand here was bad. We tried a few times, would go in and sit, but as soon as we seen the selection we would leave to find something else. I don't know how it tasted, but it didn't look appitizing so we didn't bother trying it. The Morrocon place: I like meditranian food so I loved it here, but my husband doesn't care for that type of food and he didn't like anything but the chichen kabobs. The view is great, right by the beach. I would do lunch here not dinner. The Mexican Resturant: We ate here twice. We always each order a different appitizer and a different entree and share them. Some we liked, some we didn't. The Aztec soup was great. Overall a good choice for all with lots of variety. Good dinner place choice. Italian: While not the best, it still was decent and we each ordered a few things to try and shared it so we both got full doing that. I had a pork dish that I really disliked and felt bad not eating it after ordering it but oh well. The service here was decent, but after being spoiled by the great service at the other places we found it lacking. There was a language barrier with the server so that might have been the cause. My wine glass sat empty for awhile here. We were told it would be a hr wait but it was only 15 minutes before we were seated. The White Box was the highlight of the hotel: The food was wonderful. In our town we would have paid about $300 for the same meal and it probably wouldn't have been as good. Out of the 8 dished served ( plus dessert), the only I didn't like was the pork. ( common theme, I didn't care for any of the pork in mexico) I have never been a big seafood eater but after trying some of those dishes I am interested in trying more seafood now. I cannot stress how good this place was. We were leery at first seeing the menu, and my husband even joked '' what did you get me into'' but every plate was better then the one before it. The blackened shrimp was the best I have ate anywhere. The cooks deserve a raise, I mean it, this place was wonderful. We went our last night there since we didn't really want to stand in line early morning to get seats, but hubby woke up early so he went and got them. We are still kicking ourselfs for not going early in the week so we could have ate there more. Even at 8am he was the 8th person in line so make sure to get there early, it is worth it! (Side note: we heard a couple complaining one night they were 5 min. late to dinner and they gave there reservation away, I am not sure how true it is but make sure your on time just in case). The pool lunch bar: we tried the burgers one day. They were ok once we put lots of ketchup on them and we were tipsy, so I can't say much about it. Room service: 159 peso's. We ordered the ceaser salad, I had the club, hubby the burger, and desserts with soda to drink. Took awhile to deliver but it was all good and helped the day we were nursing hangovers and didn't want to leave the room for lunch. The Club sandwhich was really good. The menu said fries but they don't have them, they brought chips instead. The Staff: all were friendly and helpful. The only thing I can think to mention was the bellhops. We asked one day how much a taxi would be to the closest ferry dock ( not relizing there was one less then a 5 min walk away, and they did not tell us this either) and they talked in spanish for awhile and got on the phone. We assumed they were asking how much, the next thing we know a taxi pulls up and there telling us to get in. We tried explaining we were just ASKING how much so we could plan our trip the next day and they became upset and told us '' you asked for taxi, here he is, you need to pay him 14 dollars''. I felt bad because obviously there was a languge barrier, but we had not asked for a taxi, just how much one would be. We told him no and went back inside, but it was a akward situation for all. We need to learn more spanish so this doesn't happen again. I am still not sure how we should have handled this. The Night security guys deserve a big thanks and good mention. We arrived one night/morning falling down drunk and they were a big help getting my 6'3 , 280 lb hubby to the room We tipped them well. (Hey, no judging, what happens in mexico stays there ) The Kinky cruise Pirate ship: We had reservations we got Wed morning for it at the vip desk, but it was storming thursday night. I am not sure if they canceled or not because we decided not to go since we didn't want to be in the pouring rain. Age of guest: This varied too. Mon / Tuesday seemed to have a lot of 50+ crowd. Later in the week I seen all kinds from barely legal to 70+. Most were couples, I seen one large group of twenty something males that appeared single, and several groups of two woman too. I would say there was no main age group, all kinds are checking out this place. Internet: $30 credit card for 5 days. Was out one day of our stay. Safe: $6 a day, we brought our own lock and passed. Mini Fridge: 2 sol beers, 2 bottles of water, 2 cokes, 1 sprite, 1 fanta. Extra bottle of water for brushing teeth on sink. Maid service: We didn't recieve any. Normally We would go out to beach and pool early in the morning and take a nap usually from 2-4 so maybe they just always came then and didn't want to disturb us. We found a maid cleaning another room mid week and took out our garbage to her and asked for a new bag. She followed us back to room and with hand motions and basic spanish we were able to have her change out our sheets and towels. She did it with a smile. We would just call down to the front desk and they would send someone up within the hr with a tray of drinks whenever the mini fridge needed restocking. Overall we had a great stay. I was expecting it to be different, a little more wild with more activites, but it was what it was and we made the most of it. I would reccomend this hotel to anyone who wants a relaxing vacation with a little topless sunbathing on the side. It was not a party place, but it was still a good place. If we can be assured of a renovated room, we would probably conisder going back again just for the location, the beach, and the white box. My suggestions for the hotel would be: French Fries! We americans love our French fries and you can't mess them up. There cheap and easy so why not. Finish renovating all the rooms ( with importance on balcony rooms since those are a big seller) and make sure people know that all rooms are not renovated yet. We would not have minded our room being what it was if that would have been our expectation to start with. Get hot water out to the hot tub taps. Get one bellhop who speaks good english. I relize this is mexico, but most everyone else at the hotel spoke good english, so why not hire a bellhop that does too? Find out what the water temp issue is in the shower and resolve that so people are not burned. Try to have a few more activites available so people can't get bored. Post a '' Topless, No photography'' sign in pool area. Keep one bar and a snack area open past 1am. Add More beach chairs in main pool area. The hotel is good, I am just reccomending some things here that I think would help make it even better, so please don't take it as a insult. This is a great hotel but I didn't feel a sexy vibe going on, so maybe instead of marketing it that way go for a upscale hotel that allows topless sunbathing after you finish those rooms? We had a good trip even though things were not what we expected, the hotel was still very nice. I hope this review helps people know what to expect so they can plan and have a great trip knowing they picked the hotel that is best for what they want out of there vacation. Maybe next year we will do a few days at Temptaions to party, and finish out the week here to relax.
Thanks for the TR. It's to bad about the lack of nighttime partying. Like most have been saying, hopefully as time goes on the nights will start to pick up.
We missed the foam party. We arrived Sunday Morning and left Friday Night I can tell you the pool still showed little white signs of foam on it untill Wed. I know it is sad about the disclaimer, but I learned my lesson, lol. I forgot to mention Check out: Check out: We had a late flight out. We asked if we could get a late check out and was told No. Ok, we will leave luggage with bellhop. We asked if we could stay at the hotel untill 2pm (checkout is noon) and was told we could only stay if we paid $24 a person. I thought that was a little crazy. I could see if we were staying all afternoon or something but just to stay at the hotel for 2 hrs untill we were picked up for our plane and they want to charge us? Maybe that is common in mexico, I am not sure, this was only our 5th trip there, and every other time we left closer to checkout time so we cant compare, but we thought it was crappy.
How did you lock the safe with your own lock. Funny how I read reviews and only see certain things important to us. . Very nice review and thanks
That's very true Donald If they do charge you it's another money grab. At TTR. You just put luggage at front desk. Go eat or drink till it's time for you to leave. They cut off your wrist band and say bye to next time.
Thanks for the review it was great.. cant wait to get there in May!! how did you lock the safe with your own lock??
We have a lock that my hubby picked on on his travels that fits almost all safes. I tried googling it and can't find it but it is similair to this one: Milockie your valuable safely, also on travel. It cost him about 25 bucks and has more then paid for itselfs on our travels.
Thanks for the great trip report. Seem to me that each trip report coming in improves on one thing or another from week to week. That's a good sign. I'm glad you had a great trip, we hope to in the near future.
