Monte Uzulu Boutique Hotel — Hotel in Oaxaca

My overall impression, having stayed at the Monte Uzulu for more than a week, is that this hotel is built for Instagram, not for real life. It’s beautiful to look at, but it needs a lot of work to justify its price.

First the good: As I said, it’s very well designed, visually. The balconies on the top floor have a wonderful view. The restaurant is delicious and healthy. The internet was mostly very strong. And the staff—especially the restaurant staff—were helpful and kind.

Now the bad: Our troubles began with the booking process. The hotel demands that you pay your full balance up front. (I’m guessing this is because a fair number of guests try to leave early, as we did.) However, each time we tried to do so, the website they sent us to denied our credit card. This then required them to send a new link (you couldn’t just refresh the page), which usually took somewhere around six hours for them to send us. We repeated this process I don’t know how many times before it finally accepted our payment. It was incredibly frustrating.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, we had trouble finding the entrance, which is on the opposite side of the road from the beach along a narrow alleyway. We then had to climb a couple of steep sets of stairs in the afternoon sun, lugging our bags. When we finally reached our room, we discovered those lovely minimalist concrete walls, which look so nice in photos, absorb all of the afternoon sun, turning the room into a kiln. It was so hot and mosquitoey that first night that we hardly slept at all. (Thankfully, after some wheedling on our part, the staff was kind enough to bring us two additional fans, which, when run full blast, cut down on the heat on subsequent nights. And we were provided with some mosquito repellent tabs you plug into the wall, which, along with the fans, seemed to keep the bugs at bay.)

The other big flaw of this hotel is that it’s far from the beach and there is no pool, so, aside from hammocks and chairs that sit out in the blazing sun, there’s really nowhere to relax other than your room or the restaurant. Most of the guests (ourselves included) took to going to the beach all afternoon, and well into the night, to avoid the heat. A pool—even just a plunge pool—with a small deck area would go a long way to improving things.

We ended up cutting our trip short — again, kudos to the hotel for being gracious enough to refund our last four nights— and changing to the Alquimista in Zipolite, which is roughly the same price, and has weaker internet and less healthy food, but has a pool, a yoga studio, a library room, a spa, a much larger restaurant, along with thoughtfully designed palapas that include mosquito netting and AC, and is situated right on the beach. So for us the choice was...

If you're considering Monte Uzulu, you're probably drawn by the gorgeous photos of the rooms and the view. Rest assured, those are all accurate – we stayed on the top floor so we could have a terrace with the ocean view. We slept to the sound of ocean waves at night and woke to butterflies fluttering among the treetops. I personally loved the large, concrete bathtub, which became essential because I was not used to the heat and humidity of the Oaxacan coast...

Speaking of which – it is hot! It is humid! There are mosquitoes! There's nothing anyone can do about that. The way I stayed cool was sitting in a couple inches of cold water in the bathtub with the mosquito incense burning around me. It honestly was great since I got a view of the ocean from the tub, and the tub water was colder than the ocean water at the beach (which I couldn't really swim in anyway because of the strong tides).

Re. mosquitoes: We personally did not get bitten while sleeping thanks to the mosquito net. But because the mosquito net essentially negates the ceiling fan, we had to sleep with all the folding doors open to the outside to maximize the airflow. We joked that it essentially meant that we were "glamping." Depending on your tolerance for heat and humidity, you may not have the best sleep of your life, but these are the tradeoffs. And while my husband did not get that many mosquito bites, I did have a nice collection after our two-night stay in spite of the mosquito incense, bug spray, and my own Thermacell bug repellent device.

Re. stairs: I'd estimate about 4-5 short flights of varying steepness to get to the top floor from the street. I had no trouble; my husband, who does not exercise, was winded.

Re. parking: We paid 150 pesos per night.

Last, the team at Monte Uzulu were very responsive by email and connected with us via WhatsApp before our stay to coordinate any specific needs and ensure someone could meet us when we arrived. Stefan helped carry our bag up the stairs, and Gabi personally called a local launderer for a rush job. They answered all questions quickly (e.g., you can use the fridge in the kitchen to store personal drinks!) and fixed a broken light right away. In short, really great service and a truly wonderful room!

P.S. The toilet in our room was a stall, so turn on some music or embrace...

Updated because they did respond to an inquiry I had about billing:

I will start with the positives: The staff are delightful. The view and spaces are beautiful, there’s a lot of aesthetic intentionality. The water use and spaces are ecologically friendly. Great location (quiet but walking distance to great beaches & restaurants) and the breakfast was delicious.

The high level reason I am giving 3 stars is because for what you get, the place is very over priced. Aesthetic seemed more important than function. Smaller issues here are that the bathroom has no door, the floor would become soaked each time we showered, and the beds were quite small for two people and more like futon mattresses.

The biggest issue was that there were no mosquito nets, which I know may not look pretty, but are very important. The hotel provides incense and bug spray but the mosquitos did not seem to care much about those. It was very difficult to sleep at night, I had to get up multiple times to put on more bug spray even with incense burning. Other guests were talking about it too. Breakfast was especially challenging mosquito wise and I wore socks, sneakers and pants which was not what I had in mind for a beach getaway. In addition to lost sleep and annoyance, providing adequate mosquito protection is important to prevent the spread of disease.

We also noticed some lapses in staffing. We ran into a couple of guests on separate occasions that had arrived to check in, but no staff was there to help. I want to reiterate that I think the staff was friendly and did a great job, the problem to me seemed more on a management level, there should not be just one person responsible/ on call. The staff on duty were also unable to help with a question I had about being over charged. And we did not receive any sort of guest book detailing services, instructions for stay / check out, or events. I don’t think it is the on-site staff’s fault that they do not have access to payment information. I do think the guests should be able to talk with someone directly who can answer billing questions, especially considering the cost of the rooms. Overall I can say with confidence that I would not recommend staying here and will stay somewhere else next time I visit...