Hotel Villa Santa Cruz — Hotel in Baja California Sur

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND it as a 4-star hotel. THE GOOD: Really nice facilities, beautiful main pool, friendly staff, delicious food, some of which is farm-to-table from the premises, coffee and muffins are brought out to you every morning. We had a 2 hour lapse between checkout (which couldn’t be extended) and leaving for the airport and they let us stay in a room that was available so that we had somewhere to leave our luggage and shower if we wanted to enjoy the facilities.

THE BAD: The place does not feel like a 4-star hotel by any stretch of the imagination. It also feels like the place is still under construction. Although they are expanding, some of the main areas have exposed wires where lights normally go, there are lights for paths at night, but they weren’t working, and everything feels new in a sort of unfinished way. The rooms do not have TVs, almost the entirety of the room (we stayed at the 2-bedroom villas) opens to the public pool so there is no privacy (we ended up keeping the curtains closed the whole time), the hot tub wasn’t hot and some of the rooms are very small. The place feels like a new hotel that is still training their staff.

Keep in mind that you are in the middle of nowhere, with nothing within walking distance, off a 10 minute drive into town on a very rough and dark dirt road, so walking to town isn’t an option, and it will cost you about $100 USD round trip every time you want to go into town with the hotel’s shuttle (this should be a free service for this level of a hotel, given the cost of the rooms and the location). Although you are on the ocean, the beach is very steep and there are strong currents and rip tides in that section of the ocean which means they highly recommend that you do not get in the water unless you are a very experienced swimmer. That leaves you with the option of two pools on the premises or going on a paid excursion to another place.

Although the two restaurants offer delicious food, only one is open for lunch and they are both very expensive. Breakfast is included with a handful of choices of meals, juices and basic coffee, but if you want a cappuccino, a latte or even a hot chocolate, that’s extra. Breakfast can be brought to your room – for an extra charge. In addition, the limited menu does not change so after 3-4 days, we had pretty much tried every meal. This is not a place for picky eaters or those with eating restrictions. Dinner for two at the “Green Room” (which is basically a series of huts with outdoor tables on the beach), will run you about $60-$80 per person, not including dessert or alcohol. Keep in mind that the Green Room, although it is within the hotel’s premises, is not part of the hotel and you cannot charge your meal to your room.

In general, we found the hotel was not equipped, nor sometimes willing or able to do anything outside of their food or beverage menu. Keep in mind, this is being touted as a 4-star hotel. Although the staff is friendly, service is very slow (we waited 35 minutes one day for just our coffee and orange juice), and a significant portion of the staff does not speak English well. I understand that we are in a foreign country, however, for a hotel of this caliber that caters to foreigners, the staff should be able to understand simple requests like “dressing on the side”. We ended up spending most of our week there going to other places because after a couple of days, there wasn’t much to do at the hotel.

If you are looking for a place where you can just sit by the pool with limited services, if any by the pool, and lounge for most of your time there, this may be for you. It...

Our 10 day vacation at Villa Santa Cruz was phenomenal. We have been longing to get to this special place for a few years and finally, we made it, and it totally met every expectation and exceeded many. Private, glorious, beautiful, clean, safe, colourful, professional, remote, it checked all our boxes. We stayed in the Bungalow poolside, called Palma. Loved it. Highly recommend it for no one below or above, and wonderful views and quick access to the beach and the pool. All meals were served with traditional Mexican touches and the freshest fruits and vegetables, grown right onsite. We walked through the gardens and marvelled at the harvest and how wonderful to share in it! The agave garden is so cool, and i suspect some delicious tonic may be brewing one day! The poolside bartenders were so professional, and always present to blend a special drink with hand cut fresh garnishes. a few times, prior to lunch hour, we were surprised with poolside snacks like frozen fruit garnished with a sprig of fresh mint, or sweet potato chips and aioli. For lunch, by the pool, I highly recommend the Mexican salad with a side of shrimp or shredded chicken - delicious. After dinner, in the late evening, we loved our spot in the new outdoor lounge, in front of the cactus shaped flame gas fireplace, on the beautiful white sofas. A great place to meet other guests relaxing after dinner. The Green Room was a great place to watch the sunset, and even the whales which we were graced with a few times!! Make sure the hotel makes the reservations as making them through open table, did not work well. We had 4 - 5 dinners at The Green Room, some Mezcal, some great wine, and delicious dishes. Our favourite dish to start is the beach roll (shrimp). The sunsets are fantastic and the fires lit after dark on the beach were a bonus at the Green Room. We hoped to visit the Tents at Villa santa Cruz but they were occupied the entire time we were there. Looked lovely with hammocks and individual yards, with fire pits outside. There is a new one going up, to add an extra tent. Next time!!! The beach is absolutely gorgeous - no one for miles and so clean - spotless actually. we walked on the beach an hour a day. bring beach shoes as the sand is hot. Surfers were fun to watch as were the whales spouting. We did not enter the water at all, and would not recommend it. The riptides are fierce and well known to be alert to. The salt water pool was perfect, warm, and totally comfortable to cool off or even exercise in, with a noodle. The weather is cool to cold at night. I wish I had warmer clothes with us. the hotel has blankets to snuggle in by the fire at night. The Green Room is getting some. the beach is VERY cool as the sun goes down. dress in layers. as the day progresses, the heat comes in beautifully. the climate is wonderful. Having screened windows in our bungalow meant we could have breezes always, and hear the waves at night. SO LOUD!!!!! Many more to complement on, like the access to ATV's and the roof tops from which to sip a drink while watching the sunset. the musicians came on our last night and we thoroughly enjoyed them on the rooftop at Villa Santa Cruz, and to end that day, a whale jumped up right in the sunset as it went down. Thank you all for a wonderful holiday. Clarence and I...

The rooms are spacious and beautifully decorated with local aesthetics. It might be controversial but we loved that there was no television in the room and the bed faced the view straight on. The rooms are very well placed so that when you open the windows the sea air washed in and you really don't need the A/C too much. We left the windows open all night and listen to the ocean and enjoyed the breeze. The water pressure though, was terrible. It took be 3x longer to shower. Given the location I'm not sure that can be changed.

The entire property layout is stunning. It has desert with beach and all of the amenity placements are so well thought out. Who ever planned the resort deserves so much accolades because it is both functional and beautiful. They have this amazing beach tower where you can watch the sunset and look at the stars. The property does an amazing job of providing just enough light without creating too much light pollution.

I knocked off a star for service. The staff was kind of a mixed bag. There was some that provided excellent service befitting of the property and others offered service befitting of a 3 star Hampton inn.

When our room was cleaned after the 1st night. Not all of our towels were replenished They took a used wine glass and put it outside on the stool where they bring morning drinks and left it there all day. No one took it away until the next morning after drinks. There was a big bag of dirty linens left on our bathroom floor. We had to set it outside for someone to pick up. There was muddy foot prints all over the shower and bathroom They moved our luggage to the middle of the room during cleaning and just left it there without putting it back where they found it. They left our door unlocked after turn down service. They left the door wide open during turn down service so there were moths and mosquito inside the villa that were not there hours before.

Breakfast. As Diamonds this was included with our stay. We were told breakfast is from 8am to 10am. We got there at 9am and things were already "finished". We picked a table with shade and they didn't wipe off the table mats. We asked to have the table cleaned again and the guy came over and looked at us and just flipped the mat over without wiping and just walked off. I also saw one of the servers pick up a piece of dropped potato on the table and instead of throwing it away he tossed it back into the serving dish. Breakfast was good quality and tasted good. However, the overall hygiene and again service was an issue. Even though breakfast didn't end until 10am by 9:30 they had packed most of the stuff away and broke everything down.

The on property activity were nice and well thought out. I wish the property let us know of the activities prior to arrival so we could plan to attend.

They have a on site stable offering horse riding. We did the ride into the desert and beach sunset. It was a great ride with rescue horses and I would absolutely do it again. The riding program deserves 5 stars on its own.

I would definitely return to the property in the future as they mentioned a new wellness center that is being built. I hope by then they will have better trained staff to go with their 5 star amenities...