My husband and I booked a week at this resort through our Costco Travel program on a whim, literally three weeks before we went. I have several thoughts regarding the resort.
1. Staff-we were assigned a concierge upon arrival. We saw him just that one time, and never again during the full 7 nights we were there. He was friendly and obliging, but new, and when he booked our reservations for dinner, he put in the wrong room number, which I suspected when we spent 10 minutes trying to get into our first restaurant for dinner that evening. When they finally looked for our NAME (which is an unusual name) instead of our room number, they found us. We had to go back up the next morning, and a different concierge had to cancel our reservations so we could make them again correctly. We also asked the front desk if it was possible to remove the sodas from our mini fridge & replace them with club soda/sparkling water. They said they would, but I gave up after two follow ups. I started getting bottles of club soda from various bars around the resort, bringing them back to the room. We also received different answers from different staff about events& things happening around the resort: for example, the tequila tasting supposedly occurs at 2 PM daily, but some staff said 1 PM and some said 4. It actually started at 2:40, or that's when she showed up anyway. The mezcal tasting was at 4.
2. Price-I feel the price overall was a great value for the experience. However, don't buy anything from the resort stores OR from the tourist areas they take you to shop at in the excursions without looking up the regular price first. There's a normal upcharge for buying things at a resort/tourist trap, and then there's highway robbery. Examples: my husband failed to pack his sunscreen, we tried sharing mine and ran out in 3 days. We stopped to pick some up at the resort store. My sunscreen costs $12 USD, my husband's costs $16 normally (he likes spray on). We paid $70 for them at the resort. I expected an upcharge, but that's an increase of 250%. The second item was a bottle of Mezcal that I liked at the tasting. After we bought it, I realized they'd charged us $120. We kept our phones in the room, the entire point of the resort was to unplug, but I looked up the bottle after I saw the charge. I could have taken a trip to a liquor store and bought it for $40 USD. A 300% mark up? Shame on them. We did not purchase anything else from the resort. After Chichen Itza, we were taken to a street to shop. Our guides showed us a tequila & mezcal shop where we could use the restroom, but when we walked in staff pulled us into a tasting, then tried to pressure us into spending $250 on a bottle of alcohol. We had our phones this time, so we looked it up: $40. That's a 625% increase, it's so disgustingly dishonest, and they were so pushy we left mid-conversation without going to the restroom at all.
3. Food- Now the food was pretty good overall. But if you're a vegetarian or a vegan, it's a struggle unless you want to eat salads or at the vegan place all the time. Stand out restaurants for me were: The Health Bar: it's vegan, but don't let that stop you. It was delicious (avoid the cheesecake). The juices they made were perfect. The Fuentes experience was great and the wine pairing was worth it. The Italian place in the Royale was excellent, and it was miles away better than the Italian place in the Casitas area. Kampai was easily the best experience. La Isla was great for lunch & breakfast. We also enjoyed the food at Kick Bar. Ricon Mexicano was the only place that let me down in every category: everything was extremely under seasoned.
4. Fun extras- Every Tuesday they have a big fiesta, so most of the restaurants were closed. There was a chocolate making class at Fuentes. There was a mezcal tasting. Karaoke was also a fun. Extra things: Nice massages on the beach. We explored Chitzen Itza, swam in a cenote, swam with dolphins (beware the photo sales) and did an ATV trek through the Jungle.
5. Selling you a membership: friends decided to hear them out about the sales pitch for a membership. They were picked up in a luxury car, driven to another Lomas property with NO cell phone or internet service. Then they were encouraged to take out a loan to buy a membership package. They refused, & the fancy car abandoned them. They had to take a taxi back to the resort at their own expense. They said their concierge was rude to them after that, too. We cancelled our meeting to avoid the same treatment.
6. Overall, we went to relax, to eat and drink, and to have a good time, and we succeeded. I took away a star because of the sales tactics and staff issues, but overall still fun. read more