Review of St Regis Punta Mita

This is a slightly delayed trip review from our 5 night stay at the St Regis Punta Mita the last week of December. We’ve stayed at some amazing properties across the globe, including other St Regis resorts, and Puna Mita is excellent and up there with some of our favorites and much closer to home. Despite some of the areas for improvement I’ll go into below, we enjoyed it so much while we were still there I rebooked us on points for 7 nights next December.

Booking: Booking during such a high season travel period the hotel tends to “play” with date minimums forcing 7 night stays even though no such policy ever appears in writing. Ultimately to book the 5 night stay I had to book the 7, conference in SPG Platinum Concierge and the hotel revenue director to politely “force” them to modify down to 5 nights since again, no such hotel holiday policy exists in writing, and standard rooms were technically available for booking on points. Of course the experience and dealing with the revenue director wasn’t particularly pleasant, but in the end it worked out and he modified the reservation thanks to backing by the Platinum Concierge. To be honest, once we got to the resort, I was regretting modifying down to 5 nights and wished I had just kept it at 7. Still though, playing with inventory in such a way is not commendable practice.

Transportation: The hotel is about an hour ride from the airport and I booked car service for pickup and drop off at the astronomical rate of $250, about 10x higher than a taxi, but I justified it by hoping it would be like the pick up service experiences at St Regis Bali with the experience really starting the moment you enter the car (cool towels, water, brand new Mercedes SUV, etc..). This was NOT that experience. It was fine, but we wound up waiting for pick up, there was confusion among the drivers who was taking us, we rode in a slightly beat up 15 year old Lincoln navigator, driver was pleasant, but not the Bali ride for sure. The cars are in no way designated for the St Regis. The navigators are used by the hotel to shuttle guests around Punta Mita and beyond (at cost) but one thing that was annoying was the charges couldn’t be put on the room bill, so I was always have to find and keep enough currency. Not a smooth operation, and could be easily remedied like at the Four Seasons down the road in Punta Mita. Also, for a peninsula that is all about golf cart travel, the hotel should make some available for short excursions, even for a fee. I was annoyed that everyone else on the peninsula had carts except St Regis guests.

Rooms: We were celebrating an anniversary (in addition to the holidays) and pre-requested a suite upgrade. The hotel was kind enough even during its busiest season to upgrade us for the first 2 nights into once of the best rooms we’ve ever stayed in (a personal top 5). A beach front suite with outdoor Jacuzzi. Room was huge, well appointed. A tv was missing from the bathroom wall (outlets and mount were visible but no tv) – that’s about the only critic. Standard excellent butler service. Night three we were moved into a basic room, which was still nicely appointed, at ¼ the size of our first room. For nights 4-5 they again were kind enough to offer a jr suite upgrade right across the pathway. I’m not sure we would have moved again had they not moved everything for us each time while we were at the pool. We frankly weren’t involved in the process at all. All three rooms were first floor and had great walk out patios, but only the first had a real sense of privacy in the outdoor space. Wifi service was spotty in the rooms.

Food: One of us has a gluten allergy and I had asked a couple of weeks in advance for gluten free beer to be on hand – they couldn’t accommodate the request. We went to the fine dining restaurant the first night, and it was very nice, but nothing special to write about. Most of our lunches were poolside or at Mary Mita’s on the beach for incredible fish tacos and tostadas. All other dinners were all out in the Punta Mita downtown area. Breakfasts were good, but could use improvement. No salads or fresh vegetables at all at breakfast. Seems like that should be another station set up. They were able to bake gluten free breads for breakfast. The only major mistake at breakfast came one morning when one of us ordered decaf coffee and they brought out a cup of what was clearly instant powdered coffee. The minor mistake was on two mornings we couldn’t get a salt/pepper shaker that wasn’t empty. A nice Mexican breakfast buffet, but again pales in comparison to some other St Regis resorts.

Misc: We played a few rounds of golf across the street and again like the car transport, it would have been nice for the hotel to arrange for room charges. Antonio at the pool made our days. Always bringing food and drink, towels, etc. The kids activities seemed plentiful, but we stayed over at the adult pool. Excellent “anniversary” turndowns at night by the butler and housekeeping staff. For a St Regis, I expected a real newspaper in the morning, International Herald Trib, NYT, WSJ, something, but all they had was a Xerox of a few pages of something each morning. St Regis Bali delivered the real paper each morning with coffee. Speaking of coffee service, it was mostly good, but a couple of mornings we waited 45-60 minutes for coffee to arrive.