ukinny2000

Yes, there's a kids club, 4 and over can be there unsupervised by parents. There is a small round pool, I would say a little over a foot deep, that is by the two food trucks / towel dispensary

My two toddlers really liked both club and pool

runnigel

I just returned from a 4 night stay and thought I would add some comments.
- Enclave lounge check-in is nice but unnecessary (no one was checking in at the lobby on a Wednesday afternoon).
- Enclave was generally unhelpful with requests. A one-hour late checkout could not be accommodated by Enclave desk. They stated I needed to call the morning of departure at 7am to request. The operator insisted on speaking with the front desk in person. We received the late check-out but our wristbands quit working at noon. No way to take the elevators. I went to the Enclave lounge and they did not have the ability to re-activate the bands.
- Apps at the lounge were underwhelming in my opinion. The breakfast was great in Enclave but did not have as many options as the main buffet.
- Food at the restaurants was a bit of a let down. Our best meal was room service.
- We were in the north tower on the 12th floor. We had a surprising amount of road noise. I placed a towel in front of the door to dampen. Our door had large gap at the bottom that allowed full conversations to be heard while people walked down the hall.
- A/C would not auto-regulate. It seemed to work better after turning off for 12 hours and then back on but would still chill the room to 58-64 degrees. Fan options were Lo, Med and Hi. Using the Lo fan otpion and an open door kept the room consistent.
- The resort is beautiful and staff great. Most of the entertainment was good. A couples of the acts were so-so.
- Kayaks and paddleboards were available most days until waves started to be to high.
- Uber rides to town were $4-5 and took 5-15 minutes. Taxi's from the hotel were $8. The hotel will let Uber's in which is nice (Hilton Los Cabos made you meet them outside). Ono smoothie bowls has great food and coffee.

If you're up for an adventure, catch a boat ride from Mismaloya to Las Animas Beach. El Caracol had one of the best margaritas and really good tacos.

Cynapse

Our time for this trip has finally arrived! We leave for our stay this week so I'm just doing a bit of last minute information gathering.

1. Do the rooms get stocked with drinks? The Hyatt Ziva all inclusive in Los Cabos stocked all the rooms with beer, wine, little bottles of liquor and some sodas. Just curious if Hilton Vallarta offers something similar.
2. Does anyone have a good suggestion for cabana location? There seem to be different heights, some on a deck slightly above beach, some up at the pool level. Our concierge has asked us if we want to reserve one but the map being 2D isn't super helpful except knowing that we'd want to be on the family side since we are bringing our two kids. They'll probably be on the beach most of the time but it looks like beach cabanas are on a raised deck and I wasn't sure how accessible they actually were from the beach. I attached the cabana map in case anyone else is interested in seeing it.
3. Restaurant reservations - Do these fill up quickly? Should I be booking these for our entire trip now, or can we do this the morning of and still be okay getting a reservation?
4. Is there any wildlife in the rocks/water in the secluded ocean out front? Should I be packing some light snorkel masks/etc? Do they offer these at the resort so we don't have to bring them?

Thanks!

Cynapse

I'm wondering if they changed their policy for drink pours. I got contacted by the hotel concierge this week prior to my stay and they asked if I wanted to pay for an upgrade to a "premium alcohol bracelet". I didn't ask for the price, I don't think I'll need it, but I found that curious.

Katskill

1: I don't remember what exactly they had in the rooms but I think there were some basic drinks and definitely water provided.
2. Cabana probably depends how crowded things are and if you feel like it's worth the extra cost. My friends rented a cabana the last day in front of the pool closer to the water to just watch the view, but if you have your kids there maybe you want to be watching them and relaxing unless they will be in the kids club during that time. Unless they are super full, you can probably wait till you arrive and take a look yourself for where you would like to be located and ask for that one.
3: Everything except the steak place didn't seem to be an issue, but if you want to have variety and are time constrained it probably wouldn't hurt to make a reservation, especially if you are going during a busy time.
4: I was happy to have brought my snorkel since they don't have any googles to borrow. There are schools of fish in the cove and I enjoyed floating around and watching them.

Cynapse

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I appreciate your helpful insights!

Cynapse

My wife is wondering how bad the mosquitos are there, does anyone have recent insights for the area? We’d be strictly in the resort, no town or jungle excursions.

ukinny2000

We were there over December break, and did not see / feel / hear mozzies once

Cynapse

Ok I’ve been here a couple days and just wanted to share some initial thoughts.

• The hotel and location is beautiful, the presidential suite is lovely. I love the secluded location up and away from the hustle and bustle downstairs as we are off to the side. It was great walking in to 4 full bottles of liquor instead of a mini bar too. 😅
• The service is excellent, everyone is very helpful and seem genuine with their smiles and helpfulness.
• The food is like 3/10, like, really. Nothing I’ve had has been “cravable”. Usually it’s the nachos, or kids Mac and cheese or chicken tenders/fries and you pick at it as a parent, just can’t stop munching. Not here, my kids won’t even finish it. The nachos use that fake cheddar like you get at a little league game but it’s not as good somehow, like it’s more fake than that (in a bad way). Went to La Luce the first night, the caprese salad was good but it’s literally mozarella and tomatoes so I don’t give a ton of credit there. The pizza was ok, the risotto wasn’t great, kids bolognese was okay. Breakfast buffet is the best part so far, surprisingly. My kids love the donut wall and the pancake station with all the gummy/candy addons. There’s a woman that presses fresh masa and cooks the tortillas into tacos for you outside, they are the best thing I’ve had here so far and are very, very good. The chilaquiles both red and green are also awesome. Room service was our second meal, the club sandwich wasn’t great, probably 5/10, I don’t even think it had bacon on it…the carrot cake and strawberry vanilla cakes were these very highfaluten attempts at pretty standard deserts but they fell short of any actual elegance/innovation and were this jelly weird texture that didn’t actually taste like carrot cake. Very strange.
• The drinks have been disappointing. I’ve never had a bad free margarita in Mexico, but I have now! Mai tai was just as bad. Even the champagne is bad! It’s some brand called Diamond? And even though it’s a Brut it tastes like pure sugar. Even dumping OJ into it for a mimosa can’t fix the sweetness. I’ve resorted to just drinking rum or Jack with Coke, you just can’t get anything fancy. Or just shoot tequila straight and sip a light beer with it. They have smoothies for the kids but nothing with Oreo which is always a disappointment. Enclave lounge had some decent bites, the mashed potatoes were good and they had some chocolate chip cookies that hit the mark. You can get Don Julio 70 cristalino in there too and it’s the real thing, and good. Hitting the steakhouse tonight, we’ll see how they cook meat…

Anyway, starting Day 3 now. If anyone that’s been here found some gems please let me know! It’s definitely been more misses than hits with the food and beverage. =\ Disappointing at an all inclusive for sure.

Cynapse

Ok, found some decent non-breakfast options. There was a fresh fajita station at the buffet one night, and a burger station as well that was decent (they occupy the same space and rotate on different nights). The burgers from the food truck are way better than the burgers you can get when you order from one of the pool waiters. The chicken wings weren’t bad either (ordered poolside).

The vegan/veggie food truck is actually one of the best food places here (I’m a full carnivore too btw). The guacamole and fresh pico is great, as is the pita and hummus. Tried the mushroom ragu also and it was very tasty also. Everything is just very fresh and well seasoned.

We ate at Sunan tonight. Our reservation was made by Yami, who is actually one of the people that books the cabanas, and she’s THE BOMB. She flagged our reservation somehow so after our arrival the Sunan manager (Miguel) came out, and brought the head chef with him to introduce himself. They brought over sushi for us from the sushi place (something they normally don’t do) and some awesome edamame concoction that is off menu as well. All very good (not crazy high quality sushi like you get in SoCal, but very serviceable). They made my kids feel special too. They asked for ice cream and sprinkles if they had some, and they bring out this spread of each of the 3 types of ice cream, and a bowl of sprinkles and chocolate chips for them to dress up their deserts. Definitely above and beyond and no one else was getting this treatment. Obviously felt very fortunate and awesome to receive it.

So, we’re going back again tomorrow. There’s definitely other things we want to try there for food, and regardless of the extra treatment the staff was just great overall and we will finish our trip there.

enviroian

What are the hours of room service? How late are the restaurants open?

Cynapse

Here you go.