Matices Hotel de Barricas — Hotel in Jalisco

Hotel is a very new concept and has a great theme with the barrels, but, they are not in the hospitality bussines, even they charge like a good one, they lack of a General Manager, and the knowledge of international tourism level attention, actually they lack of the most essential principal of hospitality. We book for Christmas Eve and Christmas day stay, and it was a nightmare. Let's start for the room: At this hotel you will get an extra charge for a third person to stay in the same room even that they have two double beds in the room but okay so we booked a third person, when you get to the room there is only two towels, and two sleepers, we had to call them so we can get the third towel and sleepers. You would think that next day you would not have to call again right? Well we had to. They use a very small water heater in all the rooms, so hot water is a privilege when 3 people need to shower because time to recuperate hot water is too long. They do have a split system A/C but not heather, when it was at least 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside. (-1 centigrade). Coffee maker is under the TV stand with no power outlet near by, so you have to take it out and put it inside the closet and extend the cable to reach the power outlet. They will only leave you one roll of tissue paper. (For three people). Let's now talk about front desk. They need to train people at the front desk. They have no manners and no idea what dealing with tourism it's about. when I got there to check in, the front desk guy greeting was just like raising his eyebrows like what do you want, to which I answer nothing don't worry I just came to sweep your floor. (Totally, stupid manners). So somebody else approached and checked us in. Now let's talk about the restaurant and food: Food is terrible. They have a very nice underground restaurant that half of menu was not available, so we decide to go upstairs for the buffet, well, flys everywhere, they do not allow self-service, so you have to wait until the person in front of you go all the way down on the buffet and these takes long time due that they only have one person serving the food with a 7 stations buffet. Food is horrible and no hospitality from servers, they are there just basically to clean tables. They are rude and no hospitality manners. On Christmas Eve were told that restaurant will close at 8 p.m., well we call to make the reservations for 7 p.m. and they told us that the restaurant was closed since 6 p.m. without them letting us know. So we have to transport to downtown to get food. There is non-zero NADA communication between the front desk and the rest of hotel, like activities planner and the actual guides, we reserved a horse ride and when we got there to confirm our horse riding with the activities department, they did not know anything about it. There is anybody to talk about this problems, the one in charge is the one that raised his eyebrows to me. To bad for the money invested in all infrastructures and salary for this people. Owner needs to urgently hire a General Manager with experience in Hospitality. I sent an email to the owners office with no response, I would like to think it is for the holidays, but hopefully he will get in contact later on. Thank you...

We have stayed here several times before and found it to be an avant guard experience. In the beginning they really tried so it felt like a great experience sleeping in these tequila barrels. That was a couple years ago....I have no idea what has happened since but I can say after staying there again this week we won't be back again. The last trip we took there in November was marginal at best and the trip this week was terrible. There are other lovely places to stay in Tequila and we will spend our money elsewhere.

We were supposed to have a barrel and when we arrived were told they were sold out and were given a casita. It was absolutely FREEZING!!!!! There were no heat options so we asked for extra blankets (and brought in THREE of our own out of the car that we keep for the beach) and it took forever for them to bring us one blanket. We had no towels in our room and had to keep asking (we wanted to shower before heading out although it proved to be too cold to even consider getting undressed). We waited five hours (asking hourly) and we were finally delivered two semi-damp towels. The rooms usually have robes and slippers and all we had were two empty hangers, no robes and no slippers (which would have been nice given the temperatures). And if you DO shower you need to make it VERY QUICK because your hot water runs out in a jiffy! They have ridiculously small hot water heaters in all the units.

The restaurant, while cool to look at, has terrible service. Servers by the number will walk by you and never even look over. So when you finally flag one down to place your order, don't expect to get it or have it be correct. Be prepared to reorder and ask again. Once you get it don't expect to be checked on. And the food? No bueno. There are a MILLION places to eat in Tequila where the food is FAR better. And as for breakfast....it's a buffet with all the flies you want. And you have to wait for someone to serve you and often the beans are scooped into the chaffing pan right out of the fridge so don't expect them to be hot. And certainly don't expect a smile.

The front desk check in experience is awful. They are horribly understaffed!!! So pack a lunch and prepare to wait....and wait. And all the while the usually one person who is doing the check in is also answering a phone that never stops ringing. So get comfy.

They tout themselves as a boutique hotel, and maybe in the beginning they were, but the quality of this place has gone down, down, down!!! The rooms are more run down, the customer service is terrible all the way around, the food is subpar and for some reason they must like all the ducks and duck poop that covers the walkways and grounds surrounding the restaurant....it's very gross. So....adios Matices! You used...

I was so glad to have this experience. I booked this as part of a get-away. I can't speak to the value of the hotel because I did not pay for it, but our time at the hotel included complimentary breakfast, a tequila tasting, a tequila tour, and a horse-riding excursion. It was a lot of fun even in the heat of the day. While this is desert area, it never felt too cold in the morning or evening at this time of year. ||The rooms are old-fashioned tequila barrels with built out mini-decks to spend your evenings or mornings. The rooms are very modern and each has a different motif. I loved my sunset. The bathrooms are spacious with wonderful amenities including a gorgeous shower and very nice towels. They also provide complimentary water for most of the day, which is needed in this desert atmosphere. ||On site, there is both a dining hall for breakfast and a restaurant. The restaurant is expensive by Tequila or Guadalajara standards, but excellent pan-Mexican food and very high quality.||The hotel is also co-located with one of the best tequila distilleries. It manufactures tequila for multiple brands, including and probably most famously Carlos Santana's tequila, Casa Noble. We enjoyed all the features on site including the tequila tasting, tequila distillery tour. There were several opportunities for complimentary tequila from check-in and free margaritas. ||We also took the opportunity to enjoy dinner in the sky on site which only happens once per year. It was a wonderful Mexi-Japanese affair. Wonderful, sensual flavors and a ton of fun. ||Two areas of potential improvement. The horse riding really should only be done by those familiar with horse-riding. These are authentic vaqueros, and their Spanish as well as their English is hard to discern, because they are truly country people. Their horses are well trained, but you'll be sitting on a bone saddle, and if you get into any trouble it's hard to communicate. ||The second is that in spite of the hotels complimentary bottles of water, you need a lot more than they afford you. I found myself over drinking at breakfast to make sure I was thirsty throughout the day. Make sure you stock up on complimentary water and grab some bottled water in town. That said, in the room there is also complimentary powder coffee and tea - chamomile and lemongrass. ||Internet and TV isn't the best, but your not here for those things. ||I had a great stay and would go back...