JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa — Attraction in Cancún

We stayed at the JW in Cancun the last week of Sept 2024. This time of the year is the off season; after Labor Day but before the winter crowds. The hotel… I would estimate was 15% occupied, if that. ||The room type we had was a “Premium Ocean View, Deluxe Guest Room, 1 King Balcony.” The room was perfect. We were on the 11th floor with a view of the coast facing north. (I attached pics of the view from the balcony). The room was clean, modern..clearly updated within the last couple of years. I would put the room in the class of a Ritz Carlton or similar in the Caribbean. We’re Titanium Elite members. The front desk did offer an upgrade, but explained that the view from that upgraded room would be oceanfront but overlooked a large roof that tends to be unpopular with guests. So the room we booked was better than the upgrade, in my opinion, and of course we kept it. Sitting on that deck drinking a mojito after a long day on the beach or doing other activities was a perfect end to the day. ||The beach was perfect. Crystal clear water on an amazing stretch of beach. (I’ve stayed at other properties in Cancun along the beach and the water was poor in comparison to JW’s stretch). There are affixed umbrellas and quality beach chairs that are kept clean by staff, quality towels regularly available. The staff at the beach were amazing….quick with drink orders and a bucket of ice for enjoying beers on these blazing hot days. There’s a lifeguard station there and the one tip I would give is to start your beach day later…people started leaving the beach at 2 pm or so every day and we mostly had the place to ourselves. Looking off the deck I saw more people occupying beach chairs around 9 to 11 am. Even still, we always had an open spot any time of the day. There are jet ski rentals and other water activities on that beach run by JW. We didn’t use the pools but they looked amazing; clean, orderly, tons of chairs in secluded areas and slightly more crowded ones closer to the beach. ||The staff in this hotel…I’ve stayed all around the world and I’ve never experienced a level of professionalism, friendliness, helpfulness than the JW staff. From the doormen, to the maids, to the front desk, servers in the restaurants…Not one single complaint could I possibly come up with regarding them. ||The only onsite restaurant that we ate in was Bravia, which we ate in for the free included breakfast that we get with our Titanium status. It’s supposed to be a free continental breakfast daily for the two of us but it was the buffet that was included….which had a great selection.||As far as restaurants in the area (within 2 miles of the property…a $5 Uber ride at most) I would put Harry’s at the top of the list. Coming in a close second was Nicolette’s, and finishing out third was Lorenzillos. A little pricy…but better than any restaurant on Long Island….and I’m not kidding. Try either one and you’ll understand. These 3 restaurants are top shelf establishments. ||One last thing…we got hit with a hurricane that last day we were there, Hurricane Helene . The hotel was up and running and fully operational the whole time. No loss of power, no loss of services. The staff managed to make it into work and did a great job. ||-There’s a supermarket named Soriana’s that we went to for this and that. It’s in a pretty nice mall with some high end retail next door. No safety issues, the hotel zone in that area is beautiful. We usually took cabs everywhere but also walked back to the hotel a few times from the restaurants. No issues. To and from the airport we used the Happy Cancun shuttle…it was $80 for 2 people, total, round trip. The shuttle that works with the JW was about double that in price. Honestly, in retrospect we could have taken an Uber for less than that $80…but there’s some static going on between uber drivers and local cab drivers at the airport that we saw on the news. It didn’t seem worth it. That Happy Cancun shuttle was private, and right on time on both ends. ||I wouldn’t take a chance and go to another property to be disappointed. The JW in Cancun is...

We had a 11 people wedding in JW Marriott hotel. But JW purposely skipped some of paid food! Payment JW asked us, was for 30 people food & drinks!!

Since I was impressed by a tasting menu,we decided to hold our wedding in JW. F&B should include:

Cocktail + 3 choices of canapé. We chose canapés : (1) spicy tuna roll, (2) crab Rangoon/ dumpling (3) braised short rib & foie grass wonton / reception dinner/ open bar/ cake ——————

Problems of JW: My friends got us some flower sets by aisles, tied around chairs as it’s windy.

1. The staff took the chairs away, the flowers just felt one side. Why did JW need to take them away so fast??

2. JW/organiser put 3 cocktails and canapé high tables way far away from gazebo where we took pictures. my guests needed to get the chairs back and stayed near to us. Why JW put the tables so far away? Why the floor plan was so bad even we only have 11 people.

3. worst. I was so proud of the food. But after we finished ceremony in Marriott’s gazebo, I told guests to enjoy cocktail & canapé while we had some pictures in gazebo.

But JW only left 1 canapé, crab Rangoon, right next to the DJ!! And not serving!

I needed to stop taking pictures and asked my guests had the food. Most of them didn’t even had 1 canapé!

*When I asked the organiser, she looked no surprise that canapé were not served. (Was she junior? Or thought guests looked ok and the couple were taking photos for memories, so JW told the kitchen not to bring out like we won’t notice?)

I talked to organiser. *She only said it’s about reception time. *That’s the point, you should have got the canapé out in cocktail time! *I even had to nicely tell her, as a 5 stars JW hotel organiser how to correct her mistake : bring the paid and not received (1) spicy tuna roll and (3) braised short rib and foie grass wonton to the reception.

*When we’re in reception room, she and a staff sent in 9 pieces of (1) spicy tuna roll. We have 11 people on the list and paid for 30. Why would she/ JW be so mean ??

And instead of canapé (3) braised short rib and foie grass wonton (we never had), they sent some 2) crab Rangoon/ dumpling again. I asked why.

They said they don’t have it! So just take this!

(Why would JW be so cunning??? We paid for what we ordered. And the staff first tried not to serve, then threw anything else to us??) it was outrageous. All they did then was smiles and excused themselves away.

4. my choice of cocktail drink was lychee martini. A martini with 2 lychee (ball shaped fruit in the drink held by a matchstick , just like an olive martini🍸 ) First around, we got a matchstick with the drink. Then they put very short toothpick into lychee, that we needed to put fingers to catch the toothpick.

And horribly, they didn’t give anything for catching the lychee! They didn’t even put napkins, neither the high tables, nor the table they put our canapé next to the DJ!

They were going so cheap and impressively disrespectful.

I hope the organiser / JW would tell us why they cut off so much. But my wedding was done. Their cunning , non-professional service was no damage to their business but damage to our memory and it seems they don’t care.

5. when we checked in/ on the wedding day, no flowers/ cake/ champagne or a note to say happy wedding. I didn’t expect they would do anything. even I paid for my parents to have an anniversary trip in a cheaper hotel, the hotel gave a cake, a happy anniversary card, and big heart made of flower pedals in bed.

6. In the wedding date, when my friends and I in our room, got ready for the ceremony. I texted the organiser if she could help us to order 2 glasses of champagne.

*She texted me right away, She didn’t say anything nice but straight to: *Just 2 glasses? *You can ask room service.

I know! We were dolling up and busy. I thought she could be of help. And she could say : “I am busy, will help asap.” Or “call room service will get you faster”

I have never seen any hotels, 5-stars hotels scammed a wedding and this much. Room services, pool, restaurant, all staffs amazing!...

Another Vacation, another JW resort! This being our 5th international JW, we have had such good experiences in the past we booked this as a no brainer for summer Holiday from the US. I used points + cash for 5 nights, and got upgraded to a Oceanview suite for our stay on the 3rd floor facing the ocean. We did not do all inclusive.

Perspective on this one, travelling with family, 3 kids, ages 6/4/18 mo's. so please understand that this is vastly different than just me and the wife or couples, etc..

Pros: Extremely friendly staff and personnel. Everyone we interacted with was warm, personable, and very kind. By the 2nd day many of the servers in breakfast remembered us and would ask if we wanted the same drink order as previous day. -Food quality was excellent. Everything we ate at the resort was delicious. Shoutout to breakfast omelet station, the man knows what he is doing chefs kiss. The Thai place was also amazing. Our room was perfect, we got upgraded to ocean view suite and it had a large pull out couch in the main room, then a separate room with king bed, all facing the ocean with 2 balconies. This couldn't have been any better for our family. -Beach is maintained every morning, and there's a guard station right when you enter, the waves during our stay were mostly red flag so not a lot of swimming but there was plenty of chairs and umbrellas to relax on. -Bonvoy elite status got us free buffet breakfast (which was great!) and some free FnB beverages ( coffee, wine tasting, tequila). As mentioned we were also upgraded to a suite for out stay which was incredible.

Cons: As mentioned above, the food was excellent but it comes at a steep price. FnB was really high for Mexico, or maybe I have just been out of the loop but my wife and I were expecting somewhere like Thailand prices but were very much mistaken. Two hamburgers + 2 dos equis was over $50 US and that's not including gratuity. With 3 kids this started to add up quickly when we realized on the 4th Apple juice at the pool they were $5+ US a cup... -All the restaurants on the property for dinner are all semi fancy. There was no way I was going to try to bring 3 kids to the Italian place that has a live violinist during dinner roaming around. This basically left us to either room service, or this small "pizzeria" that is tucked back into the gift shop. Its a bit weird of a layout as you have to go into the gift shop and walk into the back to get to the pizza area and also ice cream. Pizza is quite good though so I found myself in that giftshop nearly every evening, but was wishing it was like a separate restaurant or at least area as its pretty tight. -There weren't any activities really happening at this resort, sure they had excursions you could book and there were jet skis and parasailing at the beach, but there was no kids club, no classes to sign up for, movie night, etc. The massive pool is great but after the 3rd day of it we were kind of looking for something else to do with the kids. -This resort is older, as many area need some TLC, paint has faded or broken walkway lamps. Elevators sometimes didn't work and there was noticeable trash left on some of the pool side tables/chairs during evenings.

Overall, this resort was good, but for families with younger kids you may want to compare around. I walked next door to the Marriott all inclusive which had a much different vibe (music at the pool, large water volleyball game, separate kids water area) but I am sure comes with some things to consider as well. If you are looking for a low key, relaxing, chill resort with really good food and service, and price tag is of no concern I would definitely recommend this hotel. I think for us traveling with the kids, we would choose a different stay as we didn't really feel like this resort was aimed at travelling families like ours, which may be on me to do research instead of just trusting my past...