BookIt.com Verified Traveler
Sb from Lethbridge, Ab
"The room was fine, everything seemed to work. There are no phone books in the room nor in the courtesy phone area of the lobby. A sneaky way of squeezing money; you have to ask the concierge to find out any phone numbers for you, which of course requires a tip. We made 3 local calls and got charged for them and a mysterious 4th call we didn't make.
The free WIFI is NOT available in your room, only in the lobby were people will bother you about the usual tours and time-shares. This WIFI is so slow it is barely useable. Starbucks down the street offers free wifi that is easily 5x faster, so the few times we needed the internet, we usually gave up and walked 2 blocks to Starbucks. Pretty irritating when the hotel advertises free wifi as part of the room's description.
The maid... we don't see the need to have someone to come make up our rooms daily. So, we put up the do not disturb sign for a few days[ got a phone call saying that this confused the hotel apparently that we are not total pigs who need to be picked up after daily.] Then, when ready, we took down the sign so that our room would be cleaned. The maid never came. My wife called the front desk and asked why the maid hadn't been to our room despite our taking the sign down. Again, they seemed confused as to why we might now want maid service. The maid came and cleaned the room promptly.
At check in, we were told that the pool/hot tub/beach closed at 10pm. One night we went down to the beach and sat on the chairs around 11:30pm for some quiet time with no issues. Another night went to the hot tub around 9:15pm for a short visit, again no issues. A few nights later, went to use the tub again, around 8:55pm. We [and 2 other couples] were told we were not allowed and that it closed at 9pm. My wife called the front desk and was told that the pool area closes at 9. Interesting.
We tried the hotel's outdoor restaurant on the beach, La Palapa for 3 meals.
Breakfast buffet... omelettes were good but very small [perhaps 2 eggs], the rest of the food was untouchable: there were insects crawling all over most of the food. I don't mean 1 or 2 flies either- hundreds!
Lunch- I was told I had to go get a shirt to be served at this OUTDOOR, open air, insect and bird filled restaurant on the beach! Nice logic. ok. Waiters are reluctant to communicate and seem unhappy to be there. The menu is a bit limited.
Dinner- takes the cake.Waiter was obviously not wanting to serve us or other tables, Dinner menu is more limited than the lunch[ mostly sea food or standard american fare].We never got the bottled water we ordered at either lunch or supper, and at supper our Coke Lights' cans were covered in bits of black grease[?]. We got our dinner rolls which were at least a day old and dry. The wife's dinner was rock hard and tasted re-heated. Mine was badly burned. We smothered with sauces and ate anyhow. This restaurant is possibly the worst I have eaten at in all of Mexico.
This place offers a pizza menu, but because of our horrible experiences eating there, when we wanted pizza we just ordered from somewhere else. When the delivery driver came, the concierge called us to check to see if we had ordered the pizza. I said 'Yes, please send him up.' Concierge tells me that they do not allow that in our hotel. So we had to go down to the parking lot to get our pizza. Basically, they seemed insulted that we ordered pizza from somewhere else.
The gym/spa. VERY poorly maintained with bits of twine and soldering holding equipment together. Very dangerous! I was using one of the machines, only around 60% of it's capacity when the cable restraint snapped. The only things that seem safe are the dumbbells and the adjustable free bench. The only word that applies here is negligence.
The beach is much too short and narrow.
My credit card was charged an extra $160 a couple of days after check out with no explanation. and calling the hotel solved nothing.
So we do NOT recommend this place. The things that we didn't complain about were fine, not great, but OK. We will not return."
Posted: Thu, Feb 21, 2013
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