creditcardgeek

Colin: Would you happen to have a map of the resort?

mdskyguy

We just returned from 3 nights each in Playa and Mayakoba and I will start there.
Grand Hyatt PDC - Positives: I like the design with a closed courtyard with all rooms facing the only opening which is to the sea. You are in the middle of town but you would never know it until you step out onto the beach or the street. One of the most gorgeously designed spas I have ever been to in the world. Good Services. No resort fee. No service charge. Club is very nice with micro-cuisine and very helpful staff. Not huge but very comfortable well designed rooms including plunge pool suites. Hotel food is good at relatively reasonable resort prices. Many options off property for fun and fun from elegant to low brow at much lower cost. $$ Negatives: it is busy and you share space at the pools and restaurants with everyone. Party crowd or families.
Andaz Mayakoba - Positives: gorgeous natural setting, serene. Unusual design, service and ambience, not cookie cutter. Ocean Front Kings are literally 30 feet from a pristine deserted beach. Spread out which forces you to feel nature all around you. Nice to be able to go to the other resorts for dining. Negatives: $$$$, 15% resort fee and service charge. Spotty service. Rooms are design centric; cool chairs but not a single comfortable one to sit in except the couch on the balcony (which the plunge pools don't have). Neutrals: I am not sure I get the Andaz brand here, higher end; friendly staff but not stellar attentive service in general. Minimalist in both design and service. Some will love that others will not.
Quickly Zilara - I found much more frenetic than Hyatt PDC and at a higher price point. No privacy in your rooms, you can look left and right and see your neighbors. Good food though. Ziva - in the thick of Cancun but you may never know it if you stay on property. Many excellent restaurants to chose from and an Adults only building and pool so it is semi-serene. Rooms pretty standard. At a point so you have three beaches and sun all day.

Kacee

Thanks for a very helpful comparison.

joetro

Thanks for the really helpful comparison. I'm torn between the Andaz and Grand PDC next year. I could use the club upgrade at PDC which sounds lovely, and the proximity to the restaurants and buzz of PDC is appealing for this single gay guy. But, the Andaz looks beautiful, and for the same points, the value is much greater at the Andaz as it is more costly. Thoughts for a single person on how to compare?

christof

Does anyone have the email for the reservations manager? Thanks.

johndunn2

Trying to book a suite, shows available with cash but not with points. Anyone know why? I called Hyatt and the reservations person was also perplexed

creditcardgeek

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!

creditcardgeek

Would anyone be able to add this to the wiki? I think it could be helpful!

TravelingAssociate

Question - any success stories of Diamonds/Globalists doing better than the Lagoon View suite (i.e., beachfront suite?) Heading there next week, used a DSU and booked into a Lagoon view, but want to know my odds of doing better.

Colin

I posted the upgrade rates in post #91.

They were at 25% occupancy and the rate sheet was presented immediately at the suggestion of an upgrade.

Glad I declined the upgrade. As mentioned in post #62, the beach location suites have 1/3 less space and a small, cold plunge pool awkwardly taking up half the balcony/patio with zero privacy.

Reisen

Just returned from a 5 night stay. CreditCardGeek, I suspect we were there at the same time. A bunch of observations (this is going to be long and detailed):

- I'm really torn on this resort. I loved a lot of things about it, but also had some minor qualms. The other guests I spoke with were divided. Some loved it, some were actively seeking to move hotels.

Food & Drink:

- I think they need to overhaul some of their food options. Nachos were good, but fajitas were extremely underwhelming. I can get better fajitas at dozens of restaurants in any major US city. Tacos were good, and huge, but not nearly as "fancy" as most street tacos you'll find at upscale US Mexican restaurants (I'm talking fresh cilantro, maybe queso fresco, lime wedges, a couple of other vegetarian toppings, etc). The guac was fine, but I make better. If they are going to charge $12+, they could / should do like fancy US Mexican restaurants and put fruit in it, pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, etc. Maybe have a couple of different options.

- Unfortunately, halfway through my stay, they dramatically raised prices at the lagoon pool, eliminating the good deals they had. The 90 peso guac mentioned by CreditCardGeek went up to 220 pesos. Chicken fajitas more than doubled in price. A raw tuna tostada went up 400%!

- There were food "specials" by the pool each day, with a big grill and lots of condiment toppings. They were expensive ($20+), and all American dishes like ribs, hamburgers, sausages, hot dogs, etc. Ribs or burgers do not interest me at an upscale resort in Riviera Maya. Where's the carne asada? Carnitas?

- Cocktails were "meh". Sort of what I'd expect at a mid-tier resort (ie. Sheraton) or a chain mexican restaurant, but with NYC or Four Seasons pricing ($17+ with included tax and tip). For the same price, the cocktails I got at the other resorts (Rosewood and Banyan Tree) were on a whole different planet quality-wise, including the margarita.

- If you're not getting free breakfast, Olla Taco has great options for very reasonable prices down by the beach. We ate here every morning, and unlimited coffee (including express drinks) and fresh juice is included in the price.

- We ate mostly at the other restaurants in Mayakoba, and enjoyed each of our meals, especially liking Safron. It's very expensive, but to me was a noticeable step up from any Thai food I've had outside Thailand, and rivaling some of the better Thai food I've had in Thailand. My wife thought her Pad Thai was underwhelming, but I really loved my $40 beef curry, which came with a huge amount of beef that was so tender I could have cut it with my spoon.

- We ate at Casa Amate one night, and I dug the vibe, and the food was quite good. We never did go to Cocina Milagro.

- It has been mentioned before in this thread, but bottled water easily throws $12 or $14 on your bill at every meal. My wife kept doing it because she was sketched out by the tap water in the pitchers, but I drank it all week long, and never got sick. I resorted to bringing bottled water from the room with us to restaurants.

- Per my note above, the general consensus from other guests I spoke to was that the food and drink quality needs to be higher for the price point they are charging.

Service:

- Service, generally, was very good. Most of the time, golf carts came in 90 seconds or less. The resort was not very busy, so that may have helped. The restaurant managers were fantastic, and all the guys driving the golf carts were super friendly. Drink/food staff at the pools and restaurants were ok, some better than others.

- We arrived around 11am, and I did the online check in the day before. Our room wasn't ready at 11, but it was by 1pm, which is pretty good for a resort and before the normal check in time. This is in contrast to the GH Playa, where last year my room wasn't ready until 6pm (and I wasn't happy about it).

- The hotel provides SUV service to the other hotels on property, and we never had to wait more than 2 minutes in the lobby.

- My experience with the concierge was more mixed. They did ultimately get me a reservation at Saffron, but a couple of times they forgot to call me back on that, and other reservations, and I kept having to check in with them. Others had far worse experiences, and one couple was sent on a snorkeling trip to a boat outfit that had closed months ago (they didn't find out until they got there). They wasted a half day, plus $$$ on ground transfers.

- Generally, other than a few issues with the concierge not being responsive, I think their staff is well selected and trained, and they seem to really care about giving great service.

Room:

- We stayed in a Lagoon View Suite in building 11. My wife was "wowed" by the suite, which I was very pleased with, given we have stayed in suites at Park Hyatt Mallorca, St Regis Princeville, lots of ski resorts, lots of nice city hotels, GH Playa, luxury safaris in South Africa, etc. Anyway, we really liked it, and other than the lack of a bathtub, I would say it is a big step up from the suites at GH Playa. The plunge pool was shaded much of the day, which kept it a little colder, but also was nice to get out of the sun. The decks were huge, with plenty of space for hanging out.

- The suite has two doors: an outer door to get to a small area near the plunge pool, then the inner door to the actual suite. There is a third door just past the first one that goes to another hotel room. This is obviously set up to turn the whole thing into a two bedroom suite, which would be great for larger families. You get interior access without sharing an adjoining wall (the plunge pool sits between the main suite and the hotel room next to it).

- I'm really annoyed to see CreditCardGeek's comment about heating the plunge pool. I had small children with me (6 and 2), and we would have used this more if we could have gotten it warmer. Pretty big miss from the hotel's perspective, IMO.

- I really liked our location in building 11. CreditCardGeek's photo of the resort map is helpful. I actually think building 10 might be optimal for the Lagoon, as it has the best views of the lagoon and the Rosewood residences, plus is very close to the spa, gym, lagoon pool, dock, and restaurants. Buildings 10 and 11 bracket the pool area, but we never heard noise from anything during the day or night. Our building, building 11, still looks out at a good bit of water, plus both restaurants (Cocina Milagra and Casa Amate), and is close to everything (especially the Kids Club). It seems to me that some of the other buildings will have views looking onto each other, and you might need golf cart rides to go pretty much anywhere (or at least have a much longer walk to the lagoon pool area). I'd be curious to see the views from the higher #'s suites in terms of privacy; for our view, you can look earlier in the post for JKJetSetter's picture from building 12 (we were next door). My recommendation: the lower #'d Lagoon suites are optimal.

- AC was powerful.

- Our two small children were able to sleep on the couch without issue. With the cushions removed, and sheets / blanked on it, it's almost the size of a full bed. I actually preferred this to the pull-out sofa in the GH Playa suite, which I found very mushy.

Resort Amenities:

- Let's start with Kimbo, the kid's club. You can't beat free, and there are no charges. It's heavily used; even with the hotel not crowded, there were always kids there, which was a plus for my 6 y/o. The nice young women who work there seem to work hard, and there was always some kind of art project or game going on. They also often have some kind of food thing (one day it was make your own pizza, another day they made cupcakes, another it was ice cones). Lastly, they take the kids to the beach / pool each day, so your kid is not getting stuck inside. Our daughter loved it there, and probably went 3 of the 5 days for about 3 hours each.

- Spa - I forgot about the free hydrotherapy, and am kicking myself for not figuring out a way to take advantage, or send my wife. Other than that, I thought it was overpriced. With tax and tip, a 1 hour massage would have approached $300. If I felt like paying that kind of money for a spa, I would have opted for the Banyan Tree or Rosewood's spa. Even with the 20% discount, we skipped the services. $400 a day in food felt like plenty of spending as it was.

- Beach - The beach was ok. It might be nice if they could have used white sandbags instead of black; it would make them stand out less. They definitely are fighting erosion. The water was decently choppy most of the 5 days we were here, which took away from the crystal blue color we saw last year in Playa del Carmen. That said, it is large, and not crowded at all. You won't be fighting over beach chairs or umbrellas, which is a huge plus. There was a lot of seaweed, but they had a small army raking it up each day.

- Pools - As has been mentioned, the beach pool is moderately sized, and fairly cold. The Lagoon pool is 3-4x the size, with multiple pools, two hot tubs, and 2 of the pools are like bath water. This was fantastic for parents of small kids, who get cold easily. The only problem is, everyone is competing for that warm water. Our kids are well behaved, and never splashed anyone, but I saw some conflicts between drunk adults making out in the hot tubs or the pool right next to them, and kids playing on the pool toys. Each pool had multiple free treats per day, generally stuff like fruit, juice, gello, etc. Very popular with the kids.

- Cenote and El Pueblita - These are worth a quick visit. The Pueblita actually had a lot of events (stuff like cooking schools and markets) that were not advertised at the hotel anywhere I could find. I found this a bit of a miss, as we might have visited some of them.

- Boat ride / ecotour - We did this a couple of times and really enjoyed it. The guides are quite good, and you can/will see a lot of wildlife, including small crocodiles, birds, iguanas, etc. The canals are quite pretty, and the boats are both covered, and electric (ie. quiet).

- Golf - I really wanted to play, but opted against it to spend time with the spouse and kids. The course looked ok, but mainly looked like a jungle course. Twilight rate is $129, and starts at 1pm. Club rental is $50. They do not rent shoes (unlike Papagayo), so bring your own or wear tennis shoes.

- Gym - Beautiful, and well stocked. Lots of machines, free weights, fresh fruit, good air conditioning, and completely glass with nice views. I worked out a couple of times, and each time there were two other people in there. My wife said a couple of times she went it was somewhat crowded. They get an A+ here, one of the nicest resort gyms I've used.

General / Logistical:

- We used USA Transfers/Entertainment Plus for ground transfers from CUN, which were $105 (+tip) RT for 4 people in a van. They are reliable, friendly, and very quick to respond. I found that recommendation last year in the GH Playa thread.

- There were a decent amount of mosquitos. All restaurants have spray, but we were bitten (even with spray) every time we sat outside at a restaurant that wasn't at a beach at night, including Casa Amate and Saffron. Beach restaurants were windy enough it wasn't an issue. There were also mosquitos in the lobby / sanctuary area. It makes sense given the jungle / mangrove environment. If you're worried about Zika, this might be a factor. I never saw a mosquito last year at GH Playa.

- They need more bikes. I think I saw on TripAdvisor they claim they are on order, but the other resorts constantly had plenty of bikes at each of their locations. Andaz needs to get with the program. Biking around the resort is a great way to get around.

- Get out and see the other resorts. Rosewood and Banyan Tree are gorgeous. We walked around the lobby and had drinks at their bars, as well as ate at their restaurants. Cello (at Banyan Tree) is new, and seems to be getting poor reviews. BT had a movie night showing "Trolls" and popcorn / ice cream for the kids. We ate at Saffron first, then drank at the bar and got some couple time while the rugrats sat, enthralled. It was great.

- Like many other resorts I've been to, there were a lot of kids. I think we need to face that fact that the people that can afford to stay here are often in their 30's, 40's, or 50's with families. With the kids club and warm pools, I would classify this as a very family-friendly resort. I would guess more families with kids than single couples.

- Layout - I think the distance from the lagoon to the beach has been overstated. I ran it in 8 minutes, so I would guess it is about a mile. The path is concrete, well lit, and has multiple crossing with roads going to the Rosewood.

PortlySpartacus

Very detailed write up, thank you. Now, give it a ranking out of five stars...

Reisen

Maybe a little bit easier to rank each of the categories, because they vary considerably:

- Amenities (pool, gym, spa, kids club): 5 stars, easily.

- Lagoon View Suite: 5 stars, easily. One of my favorite hotel suites we've stayed in.

- Service: 4 stars, but that was with the resort half empty. I might be nervous it would fall if they were at full capacity.

- Food & Drink: 2 stars, given I have high expectations when paying $17 for a margarita. The good news, though, is the other resorts have great offerings and you can just head there.

One other thing I neglected to mention is that I think the resort will get much prettier as the plants grow in. It was really dry while we were there (never rained). There was a lot of recently planted sod that hadn't been properly watered (and was dying), but they are still getting their sprinkler systems set up. Eventually all the plants will be established and I think that will make the views look even better. Right now, it sometimes looks a little "scrubby" (ie. like they cut down a jungle to build a hotel, which is pretty much what happened).

TravelingAssociate

Can Globalists take the diamond breakfast in the room here?

Gunner14

We were told no