cbrown5294

I assume this is classified as a “resort” so 4pm late check out is based on availability?

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

Yes, this hotel is classified as a resort.

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Specialist, Social Media
Marriott International

[email protected]

Tanic

Can you tell me where to find this information? This hotel is not listed on Marriott's Convention & Resort Network Hotel Locations, but the Marriott just a few km away is.

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

Hi Tanic,

You may find below description in Resort Overview on the hotel website.

"Perched on the ocean in the heart of one of Mexico’s most gorgeous beaches, W Punta de Mita immerses you in a truly remarkable hotel experience. Our resort pays homage to Punta de Mita’s profound cultural history... "

If you need any further assistance, please let us know.

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Specialist, Social Media
Marriott International

[email protected]

jdrtravel

Seems odd that you would need to read through narrative on webpage to find that information. Why would it not be categorized as a resort on the page that was previously linked?

cbrown5294

+1 🤔

krazykanuck

Well that restoration doesn't seem to have lasted long

Any recent experiences? I'm thinking of using a couple of 50k nt certs here over Thanksgiving, since I don't trust Marriott to extend them past 1/31, but certainly don't want to have to pay $30 just for me to have what should be included as a Plat.

NB_Falcon

Have an upcoming stay over Christmas (Ambassador Status) and called to see what the breakfast was as choice. Resort said it is "continental only", this is a major disappointment. Does that meet Marriott standards for W Hotel to offer only "continental breakfast" ?

UKTraveller4Fun

Marriott's only standard is to let the hotels do as they please when it comes to fulfilling 'benifits'

garney89

Seems to be a pattern in Punta Mita...just stayed at the new Conrad and was shocked the diamond breakfast to be a very poor continental breakfast. By far the worst breakfast offering I've ever had at a Conrad property. And now it makes me wonder if all the hotels in Punta Mita offer the same lousy offering for elites even as room rates are high???

saint

Just adding a data point as I was thinking of booking this hotel for next week. I emailed asking the hotel about the Platinum breakfast situation and they sent this below:

"As a Platinum member you can choose the breakfast option as part of your Welcome Gift, the 2nd choice are the 1,000 Bonvoy points.

Elite Breakfast for members it is offered in Venazu restaurant for the member +1 in a daily basis. It includes:

• Coffe or tea
• Juice
• Fruit
• Oats
• Cereals
• Pastries and salty bread
• Cold cuts
• Cheese
• Yogurth

If you prefer the ALL IN breakfast, you can have it for an additional fee of 490mxn+ service charge per day per person.

This inclusions and prices are valid at the time of this email, they could change.

If you need further information, please let me know".

saint

I just completed a 3-night stay here. I have to say the hotel is really fabulous! This was my first time staying at this property and it was fabulous in every way. I am a Platinum Elite Bonvoy member and the recognition is great here. I tried using some SNA's here and just like the past several times I've tried using suite upgrade certificates, they never went through. Frustrating. I really miss the old SPG days. It's 60,000 points per night and I booked a jungle view Wow Room but they did upgrade me to what I think they call a "Spectacular Room" with a private jacuzzi tub outside with a Lake view and partial ocean view. It was room #1126 which was at the end of the property. There are only 2 rooms like this. I asked what the exact name was but they said they occasionally change the name of this room which I thought was strange.

Before arriving, I emailed them to ask about the Platinum breakfast and you can see the response above in my prior post. Yolani, the assistant front office manager emailed me and she was great. She was also my check-in agent so it was great meeting her. A guy named Eduardo welcomed us with a drink at the check-in and invited us to an Elite welcome cocktail event on Friday night. It was great and they offered one free drink each. The manager, David personally came around to all the guests and thanked us for our loyalty, and mentioned how important Bonvoy elites were. That was the only event that was fairly busy. The hotel can only sell 50% of rooms due to COVID restrictions and they told me it was only around 30% occupied. The place was dead which I didn't mind as there were plenty of chairs by the pool and you never had to make reservations for dinner or breakfast.

The first morning we upgraded to the full buffet for 490 pesos per person @ ($25 US@) and honestly, it was really only for eggs as I didn't get anything else included with it. The normal breakfast has a TON of stuff and was more than enough for us so we opted for that the next 2 days. Keep in mind they charge about $12 for bottled water that isn't included with the breakfast. The staff was always super friendly. They add on a 10% tip on each bill but I always left more so I hope the workers get it.

Around the pool, the guys are super friendly and always had a smile on their faces. The food was really great around the pool. Also, they make great margaritas too. All the drinks we ordered were great. We were celebrating our anniversary and they left a bottle of champagne with a bucket of ice. They also left us a branded W Punta de Mita paddleball set which was nice. And at dinner one night they brought us a dessert with a plate decorated that said Happy Anniversary. They couldn't have been friendlier. We didn't have time to drink the champagne in our room so one day we brought the bottle out to the pool area and the guys immediately brought a bucket of ice for it. Super friendly guys. During the afternoon there was a guy that went around in a little cart and gave out free popsicles.

They had a main pool area with two decent size hot tubs that had warm water. The pool was a perfect temperature and not too warm or cold. Refreshing. They also have an adult pool that was off to the side that had warmer water. There were several seats and it was never busy during our stay. They had additional cabanas you could rent if you wanted for 2,000 pesos and also 3,500 pesos for big covered areas but no one rented it my entire stay. Probably because it was so dead.

Your chances of a suite upgrade here are probably not that great as they only had a few oceanfront suites and they probably get rented. I think the owner was here this weekend as I heard him talking to the staff saying how disappointed he was with how dead it was for a weekend. He constantly had staff coming up to him so I assume he and his family/friends had a few of the suites. The beach area was FABULOUS. Really beautiful beach with clear water and gentle waves. There were a bunch of dolphins and whales you could see in the distance. There are some high-end apartment complexes next to the hotel. Nice sandy beaches. By far the best of any of the beaches I've been to in this area. If you have young kids this would be perfect. We walked down it and back and it was about 2 miles of pristine beaches.

Everything worked perfectly in our room and AC was really strong which I love. There was an interior courtyard area with a swing and the back area with Jacuzzi was great at night looking up at the moon. The only complaints were they use a LOT of chlorine in the jacuzzi and I had to take two showers to remove the chlorine smell. Also, no light in the jacuzzi. Just a small light in the courtyard. It was very private. There is a unit next door but you couldn't see them and they weren't outside during our stay so we never saw/heard them. The biggest problem with this particular room was there are bird nests both in front and back and the birds are VERY loud in the morning. It must have been some sort of woodpecker type of bird as it was loud and started early in the morning so no sleeping in.

They had little scooters you could use if you wanted to ride them down and didn't want to walk. We never used them but they had them everywhere. I only saw one young kid using them. As well, they said if you wanted you could call and they would pick you up. Honestly, it's not more than a 5-minute walk from the furthest unit which we were in.

One important thing to note is they do NOT allow taxis/Uber to pick you up. I used Jorge (+52 734 114-8342 Whatsapp) to pick me up from the airport and take me to Sayulita. He was fabulous and arranged one of his drivers. It was only 800 pesos or $40 US dollars to go all the way from the airport to Sayulita. Super dependable and answered quickly. Then I used him again to take me from Sayulita to the W hotel and it was 700 pesos. Dependable drivers with strong AC and clean cars. I'd highly recommend him. I tried using him again to take me to the airport but the W Hotel doesn't allow outsiders to come in so I was forced to use their driver. It was a nice SUV but it was 1790 pesos ($90 US) to go to the airport which was pricy for only a 30 minute ride. Going to Punta de Mita they charged 800 pesos for a short ride. Not sure if renting a car is worth the hassle if you're not going to be exploring too much. But if so then Gecko rent a car is probably the company to use as they have a lot of great reviews on TripAdvisor. I was going to rent a car and they quoted $220 US dollars for 4 days.

I'd definitely recommend this place and will definitely be back. The oceanfront suites look amazing. The rate for those were about $1,000 a night for the suites for my nights. My room was going for around $525 per night with all taxes/fees.

I tried to post some photos but seems like there are issues with Flyertalk as it won't let me upload photos.

chazas

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.

jepiv

What is their email? I'm trying ask about upgrade pricing and Bonvoy Twitter is not being helpful.

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker

Hi jepiv, The email address we have for the hotel is [email protected] Hope this helps!


Robert V.

Social Media Liaison