Hello everyone!
We (a youngish couple from England) travelled to this resort on 10 October for a two week holiday. We had a fantastic time and I hope to provide you with a fairly detailed summary of the pros and cons (only a few) of this resort and a few hints and tips for your stay. Hope you find this useful and it is not too long and boring!
Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our holiday and below are some of the things that we liked about it:
•The luxury – the resort is amazing and the grounds are huge. From one side to the other is probably over a mile and a good 20 minutes walk. This didn't bother us as we like walking! There are lovely plants and palm trees everywhere as well as peacocks and iguanas (not sure if the iguanas are pets or natives?)
•Casita section – We were fortunate enough to stay in the Casita section. This cost about £800 to upgrade for two weeks and, we thought, it was well worth it. The swim-up Casita section was about double this price, for us, it wasn't worth it, but if you've got an extra 8 – 900 quid spare, I would advise you do it, as they looked great. You have a shaded terrace that backs onto your room and a lazy river directly in front from which you can swim into your Casita pool to cool off or get a drink from the bar! Overall, the Casita area was absolutely lovely and some of the features include the following:
- Palapas - There were luxurious palapas (basically four poster, shaded double beds with sun beds in front for those sun-seekers) on the beach. They were situated on the beach so the sea was about 20 yards in front of you and pool, with swim-up bar, was 20 yards behind you. These were for Casita guests only (those with brown towels). The areas were quiet and you could always get one of these at any time of day without having to put your towel down. Also, there were gentlemen that came around all day to your palapa offering you ice cream, fruit, sandwiches, newspapers, and most importantly drink (even though there was a bar in the Casita section and about 4 pools with swim-up bars, so you were never more than 100 yards from a bar anyway!) The guys were friendly and never sought tips, though they were appreciated. Actually, if you offered the drinks waiter a tip or two a day, he did tend to bring you another beer, coke or cocktail just as you were finish the last one!
- Pools, bars and swim-up bars – Again, amazing. There were four pools with swim-up bars in the Casita section, two of which with lazy rivers. These were nearly always empty or quiet, so you could relax with a beer or cocktail in peace – if not, you could go to the next one! The Casita bar was open from early in the morning until 11pm or midnight, and the barman was very friendly and always eager to help.
- Rooms – Obviously, we stayed in the Casita section so can only comment for those rooms, but they were amazing! These were very spacious and all with a spacey balcony (in our case) or terrace. These had a table and chairs, lazy chairs and a hammock. There always seemed to be sun or shade somewhere on our balcony (I like the sun; my fiancée prefers the shade!) Also, try out the outside showers (don't worry they are enclosed, so no one can see you). They are more powerful, spacious and refreshing the inside ones). Also, make the most of the Jacuzzi with a Dos Equis or Telecate from your min-bar/fridge!
•Breakfast – (Moving on from the Casita-specific comments to the resort in general). Overall, the variety was good and the service was pretty much faultless and staff friendly – always enquiring how the food was and topping you up with coffee and offering pastries. There were three (I think) different places for breakfast. Kampai, which served Asian style breakfasts, which were interesting and good – Sri Lankan curry omelettes and Indonesian egg curry were novelties but enjoyable. La Isla served a more Mexican style breakfast, which also catered for continental and American style tastes, but alas, like all the restaurants here, no British fry ups! However, the pancakes and waffles were great, as were the omelettes; it is also worth going Mexican and having an enchiladas or nachos for breakfast! Cocotal served up similar fair to La Isla, but in a buffet style (presumably catering for our American friends!) We preferred La Isla as found the variety of breakfasts better and we preferred to sit down and sociably order our food rather than having a "pile your plate up" free for all US style!
• Lunch – There was a good variety for lunch and the quality of the food was good (in fact we preferred the lunches to the dinners – see below). The lunch food seemed to be more basic and less fancy then the dinners. You could get lunch at Kampai – Asian style, decent enough noodles and curries. This was OK, but when you are used to getting curries and Chinese food in the UK, courtesy of our ethnic friends, Kampai was not really any great shakes. Jojos served up a wider ranging variety of food that varied from fish and pasta to nachos and burgers – all very enjoyable in my opinion. La Cabana was the pool side joint that served up burgers, nachos and pizzas, all again, of a high quality.
•Dinner – This, for us, was the biggest disappointment of the holiday. We found the food to be too fancy – it seemed there was more effort put into presentation than quality. Also, whilst there were a number of different restaurants, there was a commonality between all of the styles of food i.e. I noticed little difference between Caribbean, Mexican and Italian dishes at the corresponding restaurants. For example, every restaurant served up, what looked and tasted like, Smash and a scented rice as a side dish. And the fish of the day in all restaurants – including the Italian and International – was Mahi Mahi, whilst nice, I'm not sure this is authentic to the individual restaurants. However, we had no problem at all booking up any restaurant we wanted, with a day or two's notice, and when we got there the service was generally very good and friendly.
- More specifically, ***Kampai*** – as per lunch, pleasant enough Asian food, but not of great quality.
- ***Jojos***, was a Caribbean restaurant, but for us the food seemed to be a bit stodgy and not authentic. The "Caribbean" seemed to be a local slant on the word – there was no jerk chicken, goat or other Jamaican curry, rather, for example, Mahi Mahi, Smash and rice! I once had the Jamaican seafood pot, or something of the sort, which was bland and cold.
- ***Fuentes*** restaurant was a new concept, whereby your food is cooked and you can see it being prepared by the kitchen team in an open restaurant and on big video screens – there was a head chef who commentated as he cooked. The setting was fantastic and open, but the food was awful – very slow service and, again, of poor quality. However, this was made up for by the commentary, which was hilariously bad! The head chef was awful – he gave a terribly presented commentary, in pretty average English – myself and my fiancée wouldn't have been surprised if he took his hat off at the end and presented himself as Dom Jolly from Trigger Happy TV! Despite, being a joke and barely eating a thing, we have never laughed as much for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed the evening for all the wrong reasons!
- ***Cocotal*** was the international restaurant that served up various different cuisines such as Mexican, Mayan, Gourmet. Again, I found little variety between all of them and they all seemed to be cooked in a local style. This was one of the better restaurants, but really could have been better than it was.
- ***D'Italia*** was the best restaurant by a long way, and I would advise holiday-makers to book in here as many times as they can. I remember having steak and lamb, as well as some decent pastas and soups, some of which were fairly authentic, though once again, we did see the Smash and Mahi Mahi come out!
- ***La Carreta*** The Mexican was very disappointing, considering we were in Mexico (especially, when compared to the food we had in Cancun and especially Playa del Carmen, not to mention Mexican restaurants in London). The food was cold, the spicy dishes lacked kick and the host was ridiculously rude – On our first visit there, we had to wait about 15 minutes before being seated with very little communication from the spaced out female host – we were not the only ones, as there must have been about 3-4 couples in the same predicament!
- We didn't fancy the Fondue restaurant not really our cup of tea, but some may like that sort of thing?!?! However, the room service was good and very prompt, if you fancied a burger and chips or an omelette. We generally went out, but used this once when my fiancée was ill and once when there was a Champs League football match on TV (Chelsea v Barca), and no complaints.
•Bars/evening entertainment – The bars and variety of drinks were excellent. I have mentioned the daytime bars, but there were also some excellent bars for the evening:
- ***Guacamayas*** was a lively open, covered bar that had some shows and live music, not the greatest quality, but excellent fun - a good laugh.
- ***Martini lounge*** was a suave, indoor, air-conditioned bar next to the main lobby area. This was really chill out zone that produced some excellent Martinis and cocktails, and some very attentive and pleasant waitresses. Our favourite cocktails were the lime daiquiris (though the melon and strawberry daiquiris, G&T with Bombay sapphire were good too) which were served in all bars and very good, but were excellent in the Martini Lounge. One let down in the Martini Bar was that, every night, they showed some baseball or something from the US. This meant that the place was full of hill-billy Americans whooping, yee-harring, hot-dawgging and doing-high fives - this kind of spoilt the chilled out, suave and refined ambiance somewhat!
- The Casita bar and Beach Bar were also open until late and were both good fun, but we usually frequented the two above.
- The beer served in all bars was Mexican Dos Equis, which was good with or without lime. The house wine served in the restaurants was pretty drinkable – both red and white. I think it was Spanish – I was expecting the house wine to be rank Australian or Californian dirge, but it wasn't bad at all!
•Trips – We went on trips to both Cancun and Playa del Cancun. I would honestly say don't bother with Cancun, but go on the Playa trip early in your stay, as you may want to go again (we went late and didn't have time!) Cancun is a dump, it's reminiscent of filthy large European resorts like Magaluf and Ayia Napa. The hotels are nice and the beach is good, but the town is filthy and over-priced and you are continually pestered by people trying to sell stuff. Playa was excellent – it was laid back, more authentic Mexican, and there were some cracking shops, bars and restaurants. The free coach from the hotel goes at 6pm – 10pm (Cancun is 12pm – 5pm), but I would recommend getting a taxi and going late afternoon (to see it in the daylight) and coming back late. It was only about 20 minutes drive and I understand taxis are cheap, as was food and drink in the town (e.g. a beer about £1 max., and we got a 2-course Mexican meals and about 4 beers each for about £25). Check out La Parilla restaurant – it was recommended to us and was excellent. Great Mexican food with Mariachis – the place was rammed, so must be good!
Well, I think I have gone into some detail already, but here are some more comments, tips and observations:
•Water – Beware, the water is very salty, both the tap water and water in the pool – even the mineral water tastes salty! My fiancée got the squits about half-way through the holiday. She swallowed some water the day before, so it may have been that (though I swallowed plenty of water and was OK) –maybe it was the food?
•Americans – There are lots of Americans at the resort. Most are decent people, but some are irritating (I've already mentioned the hill-billy baseball fans!). Part of the reason for this is that it is cheaper and quicker for them to get there; from the UK it is expensive, so you tend to get a more refined clientele. This meant some late-afternoons/evenings there were a number of drunk and noisy groups of Americans in the swim-up bars shouting, swearing and yea-harring (of course) – saying that, it seems Mexico is the Americans version of the what Spain or Greece is to the UK, and the behaviour of these Americans pales into significance when compared to the antics of the animals from the UK that go out to the Med!
•Currency – Beware, many reports say to take US Dollars to this resort and Mexico in general, there is absolutely no point in doing this as the locals (obviously) use their own currency. Using dollars means you get an unfavourable exchange rate, so there is no point exchanging your Pounds to Dollars in the UK, then paying for things in Dollars when you can get a better rate in Mexican Pesos – Just change your money straight to Pesos in the first place when in Blighty! I imagine the same goes for other Europeans and Canadians?
•Tips – These are NOT expected and sought by the staff . Service is friendly regardless. However, tips are appreciated, and it is noticeable that you may get an even better service, if you tip (but, on nights that we didn't, we still got an attentive and friendly service). Also, again, don't bother changing your money to $1 notes for tips – change your money to Pesos in the UK. When you get to the resort, the front desk is more than happy to change high denominations to 20 Peso notes (£1) for tips. I changed 25 at a time and it was no problem, this kept me tipping for 5 days or so!
•Weather – We were expecting quite a bit of rain in mid-October, but it only rained twice during evenings and night, and once during the day (the day we went home, which cheered us up!) It was warm – approx 33/34 degrees every day, but with the occasional cloud and nice sea breeze more than pleasant. It was pleasantly warm in the evenings, but not too hot that you could not be comfortable sitting out in trousers/jeans and a T-Shirt.
•Air conditioning – The aircon in the rooms is amazing, cools you down nicely. One tip for you – the aircon can be loud at night, but you need it on due to the heat. My advice is that you turn the fan speed down to low, turn the temperature to the minimum (17 degrees) and the setting to cool. This ensures that the temp is cool, but you are not kept awake by a pumping fan!
•The beach – As many have noted the sandbags on the beach, though essential, are an eyesore. Also, the beach, though nice and white, is a bit coarse and stoney and there is a lot of coral in the sea. We were expecting this, so weren't disappointed, but if we weren't pre-warned, we may have been (though I'm more of a pool and bar person myself anyway!)
•Dresscode – There is a smart-casual dresscode in all evening restaurants. This was no problem as I am more than happy wearing Jeans and trousers with a shirt or T-Shirt in the evening. It was warm, but never too hot for smart attire. From previous comments on here and from what I overheard at the resort, this seemed to be a problem for our American friends, who, for some reason, wanted to wear shorts, Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops in the a la carte restaurants (and some did!) I can't see why this was necessary, as it was never hot enough to feel uncomfortable in smart attire, and surely it is nice to dress fairly smartly if you are in a posh a la carte restaurant like D'Italia? I felt this lowered the tone a bit!
• Walk from Casita Section – Some comments on here suggested that it was a problem walking from the Casita section to the main restaurants/bars and golf buggies were too infrequent. For me, this was never a problem, we stayed in the furthest Casita section from the main area, but it was never more than 10-15 mins walk, which is surely no problem and doesn't warrant a buggy ride unless you are chronically lazy, surely?!?!
•Television/newspapers – The TV in the room had various channels, but no UK ones and the newspapers available were Cancun versions of US ones. Whilst it was good to get some news in English, and the newspapers weren't too bad, it would have been nice to have had some UK/European news – i.e. BBC, Sky etc. The US Channel CNN was chronically bad and very insularly US focused. This is just being picky though!
Overall, I have to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our holiday. The food in the evening was a bit of a let down, but everything else more than made up. If you go - enjoy!
