Renaissance Cancun Resort & Marina Hotel - Mexico [Master Thread]
 

Hotel website. Opening Jan '19. Cat 5.

https://www.marriott.com/hotels/trav...rt-and-marina/

"The Renaissance Cancun Resort & Marina Hotel is located in Puerto Cancun, exclusive area at the beginning of the hotel zone, just ten minutes from down town and walking distance to the beach. This area is considered the new Cancun entertainment zone where you can find the Marina Town Center, the largest shopping center in cancun with 45,000 meters of surface which translates into more than 100 commercial and restaurants premises.The Marina and the golf course are the perfect option for the traveler looking for different experiences."

169 rooms, 11 suites, complimentary valet parking. No airport shuttle service, as about 20 miles from airport.

There is some previous discussion here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30339201-post931.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30339404-post932.html

Just received this special offer in my email.

$121 per night for groups and events. Typically, you need a total of 10 rooms to qualify. So, if you have a large family or an extended circle of friends this is a pretty good offer.

Based on my experience, you should also be able to get double Marriott points.

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Officially open. Marriott press release:

Renaissance Hotels Debuts in Mexico | Marriott News Center

Opening rates $250/night.


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I haven't stayed there but I think it is disingenuous for this hotel to receive a resort designation when it's basically a city hotel. I imagine there will be unsuspecting guests who book it thinking it's on the ocean or has a beach. The rates at the Marriott, J.W. Marriott, and two Westin properties are cheap enough that I don't know why you would book the Renaissance instead of a beach property, if you were in Cancun for vacation.

We stayed there last Friday night -- just one night as I had to drive up to Cancun for a medical procedure. As it was only one night my experience is limited, but I'll do the best to give this property its first review on FT.

Checkin - I was behind about 5 people in line (at 2pm), with one desk agent working. The "Navigator" apologized for the line and said there was no special Elite line available and I had to wait. After about 8-10 minutes a second agent came out to assist and I was checked in after 15 minutes. Not a fail, but not a good first impression. The lady who checked us in, who was the front desk manager, raved about my Titanium status and welcomed us warmly, which kind of redeemed the initial impression.

Location - The property is connected to the new Puerto Cancun Marina shopping center. As such, it has tons of eating choices and easy shopping if that's your thing. You can take a nice walk along the Marina area, although most of it is still under construction. It's a great spot for a weekend trip -- but, it's far from the Cancun beaches and more popular resorts. You're about 2km from Centro so a good location if you need to be in town for things (like we were).

Restaurants/Bars/Shops -- I can't comment on any of those as we ate at some very nice places in the adjoining shopping center (LA No 20 is excellent for Mexican food, plus there's some decent sushi, steakhouses, food court hawker stalls, and even a couple of US chain places but we ignored those). The bar in the lobby looked nice, but again we didn't stop. There is no shop or place to even purchase bottles of water in the hotel (more on that in a minute) so you'd have to walk over to the shopping center and visit the OXXO there which is on the opposite side of the center so a pretty decent walk for just water.

The Room - The room was very well decorated, nicely appointed, and very good quality everything. We thought the construction quality was definitely better than most Mexican construction with lots of attention to the details. The bed was a little firmer than we like (definitely not Westin heavenly), but still comfortable. The biggest issue we had with the room was that ours had a door to an adjoining room. Usually this doesn't bother me at other hotels, but with the tile floors and complete lack of any insulation between the rooms there might as well not have been a door there at all. The family in the next room was very clearly heard -- every time dad coughed I knew it. The lack of insulation was also very appreciated when they turned the TV on at 5am (Saturday!) to some kid shows while they got ready to leave at 6:30am.

Service and Followup - We naturally complained to the manager about the poor insulation between rooms and he said he'd check with the front desk manager and get back to me. 90 minutes later we were checking out so I figured I would just discuss it with them in person. They were understanding, once he fully understood I'm talking about the doors between adjoining rooms not the doors to the hallway (which were very good). I explained that I understand they are new, but this is an issue they need to address or it will be a regular source of complaints. They offered a low and insulting number of points to me for inconvenience, but quickly adjusted the offer to my requested amount after I explained that this was indeed the hotel's issue and not that of the departing guests next door.

I also commented on a service fail the evening before -- when we returned to the hotel and realized that there is no place to purchase a bottle of water for the room, we were told that they'd bring two up to our room shortly. That never arrived.

Summary - For now I'd chalk this up to the newness and growing pains. I'm returning there in a month and hope to see some improvements, but will definitely not stay in a room with an adjoining door until some insulation is installed. The property itself is very nice, the rooms very nice, the view over the Marina is nice. Parking is quick and easy. Hopefully they can resolve the current, but not necessarily small, issues. And no, I wouldn't classify it as a Resort like Marriott has.

Thanks for the report.

What was breakfast like? Did you get any recognition, say an in-room welcome amenity?

I don't know how a hotel can be a resort without having a shop to buy water and other incidentals. Even the roadside Courtyard has a sundry shop with different beverages and the like.

By the way, what was the insulting number of points initially offered to you?

On breakfast -- We were offered that as part of the welcome amenity: Continental breakfast, some other bar credit, or points. We just took the points as we didn't know if we'd be up for breakfast or not... As this was our first Renaissance I didn't know if they normally have a lounge which means we should have had breakfast and points, but I didn't pursue that.

5000.

It isn't required to have a lounge as it's a resort-designated Renaissance property. It sounds as if this is a noncompliant property in terms of the breakfast benefit. According to the Bonvoy terms and conditions, a resort-designated Renaissance property in Mexico is supposed to give you a choice between 1,000 points, a food-and-beverage amenity, or daily "breakfast in restaurant" for yourself and one other person. A property with a lounge would have to provide a "daily continental breakfast" in the lounge, but a property either without a lounge or with a resort designation is supposed to provide "breakfast in [the] restaurant."

There is actually an entire thread on FlyerTalk dedicated to noncompliant properties: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...t-benefit.html.

Good catching on this, I believe the penalty would have been $100 USD in a form of a check. But then again, you have to file for this when you are still staying in the property.
Then again, the hotel just opened, so I guess there will always be growing pains in terms of operations..

Hey folks, just wanted to follow up that we had completed 2 nights here with the property.
Everything is consistent to what SNA1K had mentioned in his review above.

Excellent hard product, beautiful furnishing, very convenient location situated right beside a mall in front of the Marina.

The crux is the weird service we received from the desk staff. It's almost as though they are trying to emulate the "cool night club vibe" like a W hotel.
Cold, Aloof and unhelpful. On one of the few occasions we approached the desk for something, the staff would abruptly say no without even checking.
I mean comon, it's not a big deal if the hotel forgot to stock our mini bar, but customer service 101 is to always listen to your guest before you react.

My biggest disappointment was the front desk manager.

I reached out to the front desk manager (Alejandro) directly through email to feedback, he gave me a call and he wasn’t very confident in his English to address my complaints. Through his apology and goodwill, he offered me some compensation points (which he said he will address when I check out) and also offered me a free ride to the Westin Lagunamar which we spend another 5 nights after.

When I checked out, he failed to meet me in person and discuss about the goodwill points, we also had to ask for the comp transportation from the confused front desk. We managed to get the free ride and left the property. After returning back from Cancun, none of our points were posted yet (it's been more than a month now), even points for the nights we stayed. I wrote to Alejandro again to follow up on our agreement. He wrote a curt apology letter stating he had already resolved my case by offering the comp ride. Within the following few weeks, he completely ignored all of my emails to him and the GM as well.

It just blows my mind that management can choose not to reply to emails. I already filed a case directly with Marriott.

As for elite benefits, don't expect much from this property.

- Breakfast will only be Continental, if you want full you have to pay $5 to upgrade to full buffet, we also took the points instead.
- No suite upgrade, the best you'll get is probably a connecting room that is facing the Marina. (We also had issues with noise by the connecting door, in hindsight we would have opted the non-view room and have more privacy and sleep better.
- We got a piece of chocolate as the "free amenity" in the room.

If it mattered, we booked 2 1-night stays to capitalize on the 2,000 points per stay promo.
Stayed in June, Rm 1105, booked lowest room cat, upgraded to Marina View.
I checked in a Titanium, and my partner as Gold for the following night.
They had plenty of mix ups, even calling us that we had stayed past our check out time, but in fact, we already confirmed during check in that we have 2 nights, just different reservation number.

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Im staying right now in the Hotel. I can agree, a very nice hotel with a good convenient location, but do not expect any elite benefits! No suite upgraded, even Suites were available(Im Titanium Elite).
Breakfast will only be Continental, if you want full you have to pay 10 USDo to upgrade to full buffet. Before it was 5 USD! As Im a buffet lover, I took the upgrade.

Not my experience. I got a nice corner suite last month as Titanium albeit I did ask for it on the day of arrival through chat. Not impressed with continental only breakfast and took the points.

I stayed here for 3 nights and 1 night separately on either end of a month in Mexico.

The good: Really nice property and I liked the location- we had a rental car. Rooms are modern, clean and a decent size. Bar was really nice and service great and the little pool area is a nice addition. I also liked the mall next door and being a few mins drive from Walmart to stock up on supplies.

Not so good: booked two rooms and when we arrived at 7pm only one was ready - the person on reception didn't even make an apology for this. I thought he was kidding initially but no! We had reserved 2 rooms and had requested (and double checked availability via app the night before arrival) connecting rooms - when we arrived we were told no chance of it happening on any of the first 3 nights of our stay. We ended up squeezing 3 adults and 2 kids into a room with 2 doubles - we weren't in the room much and it cut the cost in half so it was fine in the end but still disappointing travelling as a family with young kids. I also thought breakfast was pretty weak - we took the 2 continentals.

I would (and did) stay again!