I have Hilton Diamond status thanks to a match from Hyatt earlier this year and my wife wanted to go to Cabo for a long weekend, so we decided to give the Hilton a shot. Plus, I wanted to test out the Hilton Diamond after having been a Gold for about five years. I booked a king room, full ocean view for around $130 night after the Citi Prestige fourth night free benefits.

CHECKIN: I checked the app the morning of checkin and the hotel booked us in a room that was denoted as smoking. I switched it to a different room using the app on the same floor. Upon arrival at valet, we were greeted with our rooms key and escorted directly to the room on the fourth floor. I inquired about an upgrade to a suite, but was told I had one of the best rooms in the resort despite being a standard room. I also asked about the Vista Club as a diamond, but was told it was around a $100 per night upgrade. The agent also informed us the resort was at around 50% capacity.

ROOM: Booked a standard king, ocean front room and received a standard king, ocean front room. Despite the lack of upgrade, the room was very nice. The hotel did a great job of renovations and we were very pleased with the room. Not quite a suite in size, but a large room none the less. The view was outstanding.

RESORT: The grounds are immaculate and very beautiful. My wife really loved the design. The main pool is very large and the timeshare pool is also quite big. The beach is beautiful, but not the best swimming beach. The hotel built a rock-protected cove to help with waves, but I found it swimmable only two of our four days, and I'm a fairly good swimmer.

SERVICE: If the ground were the best aspect, service was right there with to it. Everyone from breakfast to pool to fitness center to the bars were great. Probably the best service I've every had anywhere in Mexico. The only slightly negative comment have is I never saw or was greeted by any management. Maybe that's a Hyatt thing, but I'm usually greeted by a manager at some point during a stay.

FOOD: The food is very good, although slightly pricey even for a resort. We had breakfast each morning and upgraded to the full breakfast one day. Breakfast was excellent, but paying to upgrade to a full breakfast annoyed me. We had lunch at the pool a couple of days and its really good for pool service, but slightly expensive. Think $350 MXN for a burger or a pizza. Drinks were even more expensive at $110 for a beer and $200 for a margarita. Even worse was the fact that the drinks mixed drinks were small and not very good. I paid close to half that at the Grand Hyatt Playa in March. We made a trip to Walmart in Cabo and purchased 12-pack of Modelo for the price of one beer at the resort.

BOTTOM LINE: Beautiful resort, great service, subpar elite benefits, good but pricey food, expensive drinks. Give the price we paid it was an outstanding stay and I wouldn't hesitate to return, just don't expect any elite recognition.