We're currently at the hotel. Family of 5.
Staying a week between Christmas and New Year Eve.
The PARK: Beautiful,very clean, tons of animals.
The BEACH: Pretty but rocky (come prepared and buy water shoes before your stay), very busy (other guests, lack of chairs and constant solicitation for Mani pedi spa picture bracelet glasses... Hard to relax).
The MAIN POOL: busy, hard to get a chair. People "reserve" spot in putting towels on them. I wish management could reinforce rules and just pick up towels!
The STAFF (from the front desk to the cooks to the servers to the cleaning crew...): extremely nice. They make your stay good because they are the real deal and they work their butt off. Wow.
The FOOD: blank. A few dish were tasty, the rest of the food we found very "safe". Nice selection of fruits, breads, deserts (tasteless so sad because they are beautiful!), meats, pizzas ( fresh from the oven!) , salads... You name it. Breakfast is great. If you have little kids, stick to the buffet (Laguna)for choice and wait. We've experienced waiting times of +30 minutes for a table and overworked staff. Finally, I suggest the management to mark all dish with what they contain (meat, no meat??). Also why not leaving water/coffee on tables? Because of the lack of staff, we sometimes got coffee at the end of Breakfast. Don't blame the servers they were working like crazy.
The ROOMS: not disappointed with the standard room (king bed) and were given the option of a crib or the sofa bed for our kid. Room pretty clean, done every day no complains. My folks didn't get their room cleaned (bed, towels) twice. Our common problem had been the safe not working. Not a big deal yet you have to wait and can spend several hours in your room for the person to come.
The MAIN LOBBY: check in was extremely looooooong. At least a good
hour (3 employees, maybe 10 people before us). There is always a queue so for anything you need, you'll have to wait.
DEAL BREAKER: - we didn't know better, now we know!!"
> once the check in was done, we sat down with a person who showed us a map of the resort and explained that the next day we would have (a free - ???) breakfast and free gifts (said it a dozen times) while watching a presentation on the facilities and all they have to offer and " hopefully fall in love" with the
resort and come back. The next day, phone call to remind us to meet at the reception at 9 am , with our ID and Credit card to start receiving good deals and promotions. We didn't take any because we were not interested. Oh my... My husband went back 3 times to the room as the person insisted to have our IDs and CC. And I said several times that we were happy to see the presentation but had no interest in receiving "deals" we needed to see what it was about, lost cause. We then sat with
another person in the back who repeated 3 more times what free gifts we were getting. It was at least 10 am at this point. We answered some general questions and then we got ...
- the whole family must sit together, I said no, my parents do NOT speak English/Spanish.
- how old are you? I said why? ( They had the IDs afterall)
- how long have you been living in the US? ( I'm a resident ). I said why do you need to know this? She said for data. I said that was personal.
- can you get your credit card? My
husband said that was it, she said it
was a debit and she needed our CC..we
said no, she got up and called her
boss. It was surreal!!
I was about to pass out from no food (+ 21 weeks pregnant) my kid was screaming with boredoms and hunger, my folks (75 yo) were still waiting for us... And they were still insisting!! The manager finally said that they could recontact us later bla bla and we were like yes ok let's go eat!!! It was almost 11 am.
I PROMISED TO MYSELF THAT I WOULD WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS BECAUSE IT WAS UNNECESSARY AND A HUGE DEAL BREAKER WITH THIS RESORT FOR US. ON DAY ONE.
We have never had this kind of
experience before in any country/hotel we have had the chance to go to so beware. Unbelievable.
Pluses: the staff, the park and the animals, the beauty of the site.
Minuses: aggressive sale technique, inconsistencies in food/cleaning, waiting lines.
