This Conrad and the Hilton AI/WA Cancun definitely share same developer and has similarities in a lot of ways.

In my opinion, they may not work out as success. I am diamond and was not upgraded at all. But that’s not really the reason that i am disappointed. As a matter of fact, the hotel’s hard product is great in many way (except that shameful shower window issue). People are mostly friendly as well.

the room upgrade stuff — the way i see it, is in line that they are not doing very well over all. What i was told, and in fact saw, is that rooms that we are not able to upgrade into and not available — is not because they are sold or occupied, but that they are not cleaned. So some rooms just sits there “dirty” for the day and are only cleaned when people pays for it.

then it comes to two things: particularly for me, i assume that cleaning a “tropical view” room and an ocean view room makes no difference to the staff. So why not clean the ocean view room? Did someone intentionally trying not to upgrade me?

while the above may or may not hold true, the fact that a Conrad won’t be able to have every room cleaned every day but are only able to staff enough people to clean sold rooms, is pretty sad as well. As we continue to see the travel industry as a whole bump to full bloom last year and this year, these Conrad/hilton AI/WA at Cancun/tulum does not appear to be doing very well. We continue to particularly see these 4 hotels dropping their price from ~$800-$900/night to ~$550/night, even at high season. That’s really a bas sign. In comparison, Hyatt Ziva was able to charge $800+ all day long, much more expensive then they were 6 years ago. The GH playa del Carmen was charging >$700 now and got sold out right now, while the Conrad we are staying is probably at 40% sold at its best.

the pools are closed 7PM. Main pool 8PM. The market/cafe closes at 7PM. All points to lack of staffing and that should not be what a Conrad be doing.

i feel there’s a brand issue here and also probably location and other stuff. Again, hard product seems amazing. But all these hiltons seem not very impressive as a whole (mainly the location, i think), and may continue to go down the drain even worse in the future.

i hope the breakfast tomorrow change my mind…