Fiesta Americana Vacation Club Villas was a hotel that has been converted into units with kitchens for the use by FAVC and Hilton Grand Vacation club members.
Overview:
- The property architecture reflects regional charm, however the building is showing decline due to it’s age (33 years).
- The staff is courteous, attentive and eager to please.
- The on-site restaurant, “The Palapa” is good but not excellent.
- The property is located on prime beach front.
We first visited FAVC in 2000 when the property was mainly a hotel; some of the rooms were in the process of being converted into vacation condos at that time. This is our fourth visit to the property; the most recent in January 2009.
The Property:
The property is indeed old, built roughly around 1976. It was one of the first hotels built as the resort strip was being developed. At that time, the building height of developments was limited to five stories. During our visit in 2008, the building suffered significant plumbing problems; hot water was in short supply. The plumbing system has since been extensively upgraded and the pool is now heated. Our information is that this building is slated to be torn down after Fiesta Americana completes construction on newer developments on the coastline to the south in Chemuyil.
I must confess that we like the quaint and colorful “Hacienda style” architecture of the FAVC and its small size, versus the large sterile ten-story hotels like the Riu and El Presidente’ nearby. We will be sorry to see this building go; it is obvious that rebuilding on this site would be more cost effective than remodeling the old building any further.
The Beach:
The FAVC is located in a prime location on the hotel strip. Rather than it’s beach receive the full brunt of the waves from the Caribbean, it is sheltered around the point defining the bay in Cancun. As a result, the beach is smooth and shallow, with small waves; ideal for children. The beach is situated such that it receives abundant sun during the course of the day. It is humorous to observe the guests at the palatial Riu next door drag their beach chairs over to FAVC property because the huge Riu blocks the sun for most of the day on their beach.
Staff and Service:
Most of the staff having direct customer service speaks English fairly well. We have never encountered any personnel who were not enthusiastic and eager to provide good service. The presence of uniformed security can be seen patrolling the grounds 24/7.
The concierge service is very good and there is a separate “Travel Agency” office from which you can book tours to local attractions such as Xel-Ha, X-Caret, Tulum, Chichen Itza and others.
Restaurants:
When we first visited FAVC in 2000 there were three restaurants on premises; The Palapa (outdoors beach front), a breakfast restaurant and an Italian restaurant. The Palapa now only remains. Some of the same wait staff has been employed there for over 20 years. The evening and breakfast buffets serve a good variety of foods but is a bit expensive. We chose to order from the menu; moderately expensive and moderately good.
The property also houses a small deli/convenience store where you can buy small food items, coffee, sandwiches, and the like. There are ample other restaurant and fast food choices and a small grocery store a short walk from the property on the hotel strip.
Sales office:
The biggest drawback of FAVC is that the company has chosen to use rather high-pressure sales techniques to sell vacation plan memberships. They first buy you breakfast, then gradually ease you into an elaborate sales presentation complete with a “closer” who offers you increasingly provocative deals via “used car salesman” techniques.
This is all completely unnecessary; FAVC is an excellent vacation plan with many flexible options not found in most “timeshare” plans. The parent company (Posadas) enjoys a good international reputation and, as such, has partnered with Hilton so FAVC members have access to Hilton Grand Vacation Club properties in Hawaii and other parts of the world. FAVC would sell itself it the sales staff would back off.
FAVC members spend “points” rather than hold ownership of a specific time at a specific property as in most standard timeshares. This allows the members to book smaller or larger accommodations for flexible amounts of time at any of the FAVC or Hilton resorts. There are scant few FAVC or Hilton vacation plans available in the timeshare resale market because the plan is of such high quality.
Overall, we rate the FAVC in Cancun 4 stars (rather than 5) because the age of the property and the perception that the sales staff feels they need to use high-pressure sales techniques to promote FAVC.
