I just returned from an AMAZING 4-night stay! I HIGHLY recommend this hotel to anyone that is looking to vacation in the Caribbean.

Transportation: Prior to arriving I secured prices for transportation to and from the Cancun airport. The hotel quoted me USD 157.20 each way. I decided to rent a car from National (even with the insurance it was a great price) since they had free valet parking at the resort. Transportation at the resort was pretty good, the most we ever waited was about 10 minutes at the beachside for a golf cart. Granted we were right next to the sanctuary, but we pretty regularly saw golf carts zipping by. Bicycles were difficult to find (we noticed 8 of them in the repair shop in the Back of House tour) but they are ordering more. We were told that most people kept them in their room once they found one.

Check-in: The check-in experience was fantastic and very similar to other Andaz resorts. The cenote design of the lobby was impressive and the welcome drink was fantastic. Our bags were quickly taken out of our car and brought to our room which was not yet ready because we arrived at about 1:00 PM. I was thanked for being a Globalist member and they confirmed my TSU into the Lagoon View Suite. The host gave us a tour of the property and then we asked to be brought to Olla Taco for lunch.

Olla Taco: Really great lunch! We only ate here once for lunch, but everything was terrific that we had including the Guacamole (which costs 220 Pesos here as opposed to 90 Pesos on the lagoon side). We ate a specialty brisket taco, steak taco, and chicken taco. It was a bit warm inside during the middle of the day, but we really enjoyed everything that we had here. We ate here once for breakfast which was a la carte or they had a small cold buffet. The waiter informed us that because of my Globalist status that I could pretty much get as much as we wanted off the menu. We (my wife and I) had 3 entree's (one as an appetizer) and a sweet bread basket. All of this was good, but definitely had a Mexican flavor as opposed to Cocina.

Cocina Milagro We ate here once for supper and 3 times for breakfast. For supper I had snapper and my wife had a mixed seafood type soup. We had a tres leche's cake for dessert. All of this was great and the service was fantastic. We also dined here for breakfast and they had a very large breakfast buffet with a combination of hot and cold items. We also appreciated how they had both American options and local favorites as well. What was even better was that our waiter offered us a a box to take some of the breakfast back to our room. This was perfect because we would eat a large breakfast (they served until 11:00 AM) around 10:30 then get a box to eat for a light lunch. This definitely helped to save us money since we were really only paying for supper each night.

Casa Amate: We ate here twice and both times were excellent. This is definitely the priciest restaurant at the Andaz. We got a tour of the house which was really neat before we sat down. We also had a trio of dedicated waitstaff (perhaps because of the low occupancy) who waited on us. We were the only people in the restaurant when we arrived at 6:00 PM each night, but it got busier as time went on. Terrific dishes and great atmosphere. They also had a happy hour from 5:00-7:00 PM with half off certain cocktails (about 6) and reduced pricing on appetizers (again certain appetizers; about 5). On our last night we just did this and had about 4 cocktails and 4 appetizers; treated it kind of like a tapas restaurant. I recommend sitting in the library or outside as it is really beautiful to watch the sun go down. My favorite cocktail was the Pink Paloma and my wife loved the Wake Me up at Andaz.

Olla Ceviche: We only ate here once for supper and I was not a huge fan. Granted I don’t like Ceviche so that was the main reason. If you are a fan then everything here would probably be great. We had the black octopus.

Gym: We did absolutely ZERO working out here, but it was a nice facility. Never saw more than two people in there at a time. We mainly used it to restock on waters since they had a fridge. So much cheaper than buying the bottled water at the restaurant.

Spa: We were offered a 20% discount as Globalist members, but did not partake since it was still about $400 for a couples’ massage and that did not include the service charge or tax. However, the hydrotherapy here was AMAZING! It is completely free (for now; the spa menu they emailed me showed prices for access) and we made a point of going here every day. Not many people know about it (I asked one of the attendants and he said there was only about 3 people total that would go through a day) so it was nice and relaxing. They had a hot tub, wet heat room, sauna, ice shower type thing, and full showers. After you finished you could go up in the relaxation room and drink cucumber water and eat some nuts.

Beach: The beach here was great! We didn’t mind the large sandbags and did not notice any issue with the seaweed while we were down there. Great and quick service from all the beach boys! It was extremely windy and the ocean was a yellow flag each day we were there so it wasn’t that great to actually get in the water. Unfortunately on our last day it was too windy to have the umbrellas out. I usually kept singles with me instead of tipping on the receipt.

Lagoon Pool: We came up here one day while it was too windy at the beach. Good service and fun to swim around. They had several cabanas which were open and you could have a staff member put a giant umbrella over them as well if you burn as quickly as I do.

The Room: We stayed in a Lagoon View Suite in building 17. It was truly fantastic! Since it was our honeymoon they had the room decorated with heart shaped balloons which was a nice touch. The room is really large with 2 outside balconies (one of which had the plunge pool) and an impressive bathroom. We never used the shower though since we would always go the spa for the hydrotherapy instead. Our balcony was extremely private and I would recommend (if your going for privacy) to ask for a suite in room 15-22. Some of the buildings had second floor lagoon suites which were not ideal as you could look down in them from the path above. The only issue that we had was that we were told that the plunge pool could not be heated. This is not correct. I verified with Colin (who had posted earlier in this thread) and could visibly see the two white heating elements in the pool itself. Once I told them that my friend had stayed here and had the pool heated did they then send engineering to flip on the heater. I think they may be trying to save cost since every person that we asked told us that it was not possible to heat up any plunge pool (I think only beach suites can't have their plunge pools heated). This was really the only issue though over the course of our entire stay.

Activities: There were a lot of different activities occurring throughout our stay. Unfortunately we did not get to partake in a lot of them, but the ones we did were a lot of fun. My favorite was the Back of House tour. They did this every day and our guide was super friendly. Her name was Annaia and she usually worked in Kimbo (kid’s club). We got to tour the back of house areas including the sales & marketing dept, housekeeping, engineering, kitchen, and more. It was really cool getting to see all the different things and how they worked. My wife’s favorite activity was the couples massage workshop (probably because she was the one who got the massage ha!). We also did the shaved ice at Olla Taco one afternoon and it was delicious.


Misc:
-Be careful to ask if some of the cocktails are spicy.
-I asked multiple people of the occupancy while we were at the resort and received varying responses from 25-32%. Frequently we felt like we were the only people there.
-No issues at all at check-out with breakfast charges for Globalist. They covered everything (including service charge) except additional gratuity.
-Each restaurant we ate at had a “Chef’s Choice” plate that was brought out to us with just a taste of one thing on the menu. This was really nice and allowed us to try different things.

Overall I was extremely impressed with our stay here. We will probably come back later this year we liked it so much. I snagged a great opening rate where we got the third night free; I also used my Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit as well. Let me know if anyone has any questions!