I was there for a week, the last week of February. Good, not great.
Let’s start with the pluses. The location is fabulous. It’s a beautiful beach, not Caribbean white sand and clear water, but soft sand, broad, great for long long walks and runs, and the water was cold but perfectly swimmable. Tons of whales breaching in the distance. The facilities look great (from a distance, more on that) and the landscaping is gorgeous. The staff were all super super nice and friendly. The main pool area was gorgeous, though we spent most of our time in beachfront loungers in front of the adult pool, where surprisingly we were usually almost the only people. The beach hawkers were annoying but not so bad as to ruin the day. The whole resort was not crowded at all (perhaps occupancy restrictions), so very easy to socially distance. Staff were mostly mask compliant - a few who were of under-the-nose variety but it was easy to keep away, and all the restaurants were open air with mostly outside seating anyway.
The minuses. This place was only built about 5 years ago, and the oceanfront adult pool was just added a couple of years ago. But the whole thing is ill thought out and falling apart. I mean literally. We were booked in one of the beachfront junior suites, downstairs version. When they built the adult pool area they added a snack bar right in front of where our room was so the oceanfront view wasn’t really, it was partially blocked by the rear of the beach bathrooms. Other similar rooms are now partially blocked by the rooftop seating they added on top of the formerly beach but now adult pool cabanas. The plunge pool was so hot to be unusable. They did a half drain and refill and that was enough to get it to about hot tub level for a day or so, then back to hot. Tiles falling off the pool everywhere. We had a water leak in the ceiling which turned out to be in the pipes so they moved us to one of the upstairs rooms - much better, felt like an actual oceanfront room. Though again tiles coming off the pool everywhere, the deck was warping and squeaky and had water with mosquitoes under the boards, just really poorly built with flaws everywhere. The beachfront adult pool was a really bad idea. It blocks the beach from the pool cabanas, and it’s above ground with only one set of stairs to get in - no place to really relax around the pool, and again tiles are coming off, there are huge cracks in the coping where it’s shifting. The elevated hot tub off the beach is just a home type fiberglass hot tub with stairs to it.
Food was expensive - ok with our room rate’s 20 percent discount, but forgettable. Very little Mexican flavor even with the Mexican dishes. The whole breakfast thing was super weird. There was no buffet, it was all waiter service. The menu had multiple sections depending on how you got your breakfast. Only those who paid the full $50 or the upgrade charge got extra hot dishes. We had a “full American breakfast” in our room rate, that allowed eggs. But only two, and no side meats. The Platinum breakfast didn’t have eggs, but they had a cold cut platter - which I couldn’t get because even though I’m Platinum we were using our room benefit for breakfast.
We rented a car from Gecko to drive from the airport to minimize potential COVID exposure, which was a great idea. One day we drove to Sayulita - cute town but even in COVID very crowded, and literally no one was mask compliant, local or tourist. It was uncomfortable. Another day we drove to San Pancho - much cuter, I could see spending a month there teleworking from a rental. Again, no mask compliance, but fewer people, easier to distance, so it was much more fun. We also went to Punta de Mita itself, not much of a town there to see, just a block of tourist restaurants.
One tip. If you want pesos, get them at a bank on the drive up, in Bucerias. None of the ATMs were working in Sayulita or San Pancho when we went, and there were no banks. So we backtracked to Bucerias to get money. Even in Bucerias we had to stop at a couple of banks before we finally found one with a working ATM.
In the past couple of years I’ve also been to the W Maldives and Solaz in Cabo. I enjoyed our vacation here, but it was a distant third.