Villa La Valencia Beach Resort & Spa Los Cabos, México — Hotel in Baja California Sur

After reading a few of the other feedbacks I feel like I need to be more specific regarding our stay at Villa la Valencia. Overall our stay was great and we enjoyed it.

PROS +resort is very beautiful and the ambience was relaxed and luxurious and the view to the ocean is unbeatable +most of the staff are very friendly and really working hard for you to enjoy your stay +in the resort there are 4 restaurants, El Patron, mexican which also serves the breakfast buffet, La Taberna, italian, La Latitud steak house and Coralle pool side restaurant which also services asian style dinners. La Taberna and La Latitud require reservations which were not easy to get in a family friendly time from 6-8 pm. +La Taberna italian restaurant serves the most consistent and good quality food but none of the restaurants are actually worth the prices. +lazy river is the best pool feature they have and we enjoyed it very much resort is being kept clean and tidy from the rooms to the outdoor spaces for the kids 11 and 13 years they had some outdoor games they enjoyed as a active gym goer and personal trainer, I appreciated the gym and it was fairly well-equipped by Techno gym equipment. +Lobby bar was really nice. Those nights when they had only one bartender, he was really sweating to serve all the customers. They could always have two bartenders available to make it smoother for the customers and less wait time. CONS -we arrived on Saturday afternoon around 3:30 and had had a long day since 5:30 am so we were eager to start our vacation and have our lunch. Unfortunately the check in process took some time and our rooms were not ready at 4 pm when they should have. Concierge service was not as understanding of our travel day and tried to sell us their timeshare presentation right away and wanted to know what tours we like to do while staying at the resort. We were not ready to discuss this as a first thing. After being firm with the concierge we rather have a lunch first we were allowed to leave. Unfortunately we didn´t have our room ready yet at 4 or 4:30. Instead we left our luggages to the bell man and were assigned a hospitality room to change as our rooms were not ready at 5 pm either. We got our room after 6 pm. -We felt the concierge service was not what concierge service usually is in a resort. Their main priority was to get us to their time share presentation. I am happy we were firm not to get involved as we heard instead of spending 90 min with them it could be a half day event. -prices in the restaurants are outrageous. We could eat in a Michelin star restaurants with these prices and none of them could be considered as such. The only reasonable way to eat in the resort is to have all inclusive package. Otherwise it would not make sense to spend the money. -We ate twice in El Patron mexican buffet. We were looking for a versatile mexican food but unfortunately the only mexican which was available was mainly tacos with different kind of toppings and this was available also at the breakfast if you wanted to. To me mexican food is much more than tacos and there could be plenty of other options to provide. Though ladies doing the actual work were providing great service! There could be just much more versatile options. -Coralle pool side lunches were not the greatest, they fill you in but it not great food. Some of the pool service people were exceptional in service and others not so much, slow and rarely available. -Coralle´s asian style dinners were okay but if you are looking for an authentic asian you are not going to get it in this restaurant. -Unfortunately they do not accept kids under 16 year old to their gym, not even with the parents. Our kids would have wanted to use ellipticals and treadmills but they were denied even when both of us were there with them, which was a bummer. -we were told ahead of time we can use the resort credit for example in their Spa but it is not true. It cannot be used in spa nor their deli market. It has a few things you...

Dear GM Ignacio Yee,

Had I based this review on our first impression, I would have given 0 stars. As you can see from your negative reviews, your guests all have the same complaint- the check in process and Hidden fees. You state in your template response:

"Thank you for taking the time to write a review for us as this allows us to improve our service levels.We are sorry to hear your stay did not live up to the expectations. We have taken your comments very seriously and you can be assured that we will take them into consideration"

Are you reading the reviews? Have you taken them into consideration? Although the resort was lovely with beautiful pools and impeccable rooms, the check-in process was unbearable, and the attempt to host an event for our 60 plus guests was next to impossible. Knowing that 40 guests were arriving at the same time, the lobby staff were ill prepared. It took several hours to check in with the amount of paperwork, pictures, signatures etc that you required. In addition, several guests had issues with their reservations, causing the check in process to take over 3 hours. After a long flight, and having children with us, we were not prepared for the check in process. We attempted to find water and food while the check in line was long, but were denied access as we didn't have bracelets to show we were guests. In addition we were stopped several times on our way to the on sight market and were told if we didn't leave, they would call security to escort us out. When I finally reached the front desk, I was irritated, as I'm sure you can imagine. I was greeted by a less than enthusiastic person who proceeded to explain to me that after booking months ago, I called to upgrade my room a few days prior in efforts to accommodate 2 additional guests. I paid the $400 difference in price, however I failed to disclose that the upgrade was due to additional people staying in the larger room. Please note, we were NOT All-Inclusive, but yet required to pay an additional $1000 at check in addition to a $500 deposit. Being that we budgeted for the trip, it was not feasible for us to do so. We attempted to cancel our reservations but would not be given a refund to the $1600 we paid. Fortunately, my sister (the guest of honor) resolved the issue by paying the additional $1000 and we were able to join in her 50th birthday celebrations. Several of our party had similar issues in their experience with some rooms not being ready until after 8pm. This put a damper on the overall experience; however outside of the lobby, accommodations were lovely, staff were gracious, and the pools were amazing. As a business owner, I do utilize my reviews to improve so I will offer some suggestions for you: Offer water to guests checking in. Allow for them to purchase from the bar or store while they wait. Advise guests via your website that accommodations are per person and every guest is accounted for and are required a bracelet to be on the premise. Bracelets are frequently scanned, cannot be removed during your stay, and cost $150 to replace if lost. Send out forms prior to guest arrival so they are aware of deposits, fees, and the rules to make the check in process more efficient. Advise guests that discount cards are only given after you attend a time share presentation. Most importantly, provide customer service training for your front desk staff. Kindness, validation, and transparency goes a long way for dissatisfied customers.

For future guests, if you're still reading this, the closest restaurants are about 25 minutes away, so I highly recommend all-inclusive if you choose to stay here. Also, you have to check out at the front desk and receive a pass to leave. Account for the check out time so you don't miss...

I saw see very different rating in Google and in TripAdvisor when I booked this hotel. After staying here, I would say the feeling is mixed. I absolutely love this hotel, but I really hate the force selling for membership program.

To summarize Fabulous hotel facilities (room and pools are fantastic). They really put effort maintaining it. Cons: The water in the room is small though and in some of the rooms you get noises from nearby hotels, which is not something this hotel can help. Food is awesome; if these restaurants run by them own, I would expect at least 3.7-4.5 rating on Google. I like the Mexican and Italian both a lot, following by the steak. But you need to sign the bill for all meals (though you have all inclusive package) because they want the tips you put there, which is fine (most of the time, I enjoyed the service. Staff in the restaurants are mostly energetic and full of smile). Three star services because of force selling. For service, I feel It is really a mix! They have very good staff, but they also have many staff only focus on getting your tips or have no smiles at all. So the experience might depend on your luck. Let me tell you what stopped me from rating this hotel 5 stars ( I really want to).

When we arrived the hotel, we were told that we need to book reservation for all dinners while staying (though we bought all inclusive package). Reservation itself is fine, but we were told that we need to book it thru the concier, then the lady WENDY at the concierge didn’t want to do the dinner reservation for us. She focused on selling us the time share program. She forced us in a way that really annoying. I kept telling her we are not interested in the program; all we need was dinner reservation only, but she would just ignore whatever we say and keep telling us that we get big discount for other popular tourist activities if you go to the sales event of the program (but in reality not really. You can find the price by yourself; you just need to google these activities. ) Note if you agree to make a reservation, she would ask you to pay for a 200peso/per person for deposit for making a reservation to the sales event. She said the deposit will get applied to discounted tourist activities.

Another example of the service is that when I needed towels and I called room services the first day I arrived, the line was always busy and I needed to go to the front desk straight to get my towels in the end. I would not expect that for a five star hotel. Understanding sometimes line can be busy but when you need something urgently this can be a really bad experience.

I saw many people were doing maintenance to the facilities in early morning when I woke up early to take a walk, even though the facilities are new. I don’t want to leave bad comments, but overall Wendy destroyed my experience. We want our trip to full of joy with the time spent with families, not spending time listening to your selling event. Stop forcing people and learn how to treat your customers; be a true 5 star hotel at “services “ will certainly increase the Google rating a lot.

@Wendy, if you see this comment, think about all of the hardworking staff in the hotel. Don’t let your selling activities destroy customers’ experience and make all of the efforts other staff put into maintain the facilities and provide good customer experience in...