We saw pictures of Boca de Agua online and were excited to stay in an architectural gem. They had a discount for stays over 4 nights, so we booked for 5 - BIG MISTAKE.
The hotel seems to have been created exclusively for Instagram photos. It has beautiful rooms and a gorgeous location, but if you stay more than a day things will get tricky. For a hotel billed as a luxurious regenerative experience, service and hospitality were remarkably absent.
When we arrived, we were ignored at reception and had to flag someone down. We were eventually taken to our room but given no explanation of where anything was on the sprawling property - it took us two days to realize there was a whole common area beneath the restaurant. We were never provided options for the wellness treatments or water adventure experiences. Most surprisingly, we were not told how to contact room service (which is through WhatsApp).
Room service was unbelievably slow. We waited an hour for guacamole, for instance. We also had to regularly ask them to refill our water dispenser and pick up left over dishes. This is unacceptable given the propensity for ants, flies, and mosquitos in the area. Housekeeping was excellent in maintaining the room and keeping it clean, however.
Given the hotel’s emphasis on sustainability and conservation (part of our motivation to stay), we were surprised that no one gave us basic instructions about how to protect the local environment. For example, Bacalar restricts wearing sunscreen in water because the chemicals destroys the microscopic stromalites that give the lake its clear vivid character. There was also no mention that we’d encounter foxes and monkeys (that was a beautiful surprise! But why not give us a heads up?).
As for Flora, the hotel restaurant and bar - what a disappointment! The menu is wildly overpriced (compared even to similar restaurants in Mexico City). Apps and mains are double what you could get at any other nice local restaurant. Each cocktail averages above 400mx (20usd).
Every single time we ordered dinner or lunch, there was a problem with the order - we were served the wrong food, there was meat on dishes ordered vegetarian, condiments arrived burnt, sometimes orders were just forgotten. Once we ordered the ~400mx beef kofta and we were served a tiny order of essentially raw meat. The chicken doner contains an embarrassingly small amount of chicken for the same price. One of us is vegetarian and it was surprising how few substantial vegetarian dishes there were. Aside from a few dips and salads, there were few options. You can’t even order a smoothie here! This is all strange for a wellness-oriented hotel located in a country with an incredible variety of vegetarian dishes and protein options. The veg dishes we ordered (cheese quesadillas, hummus) were very small so we had to order a bunch. As a result every single dinner was around 2000mx/US$100.
Given the location, you are basically stuck with eating at this restaurant. The only way in or out of the hotel is a terrible bumpy dirt road that floods when it rains. ALL local taxis know this and will make you pay double or triple what you would pay to get anywhere else in Bacalar. If it rains, the road may even be completely blocked.
The staff who work there are friendly and helpful if you are very specific about your needs. But it’s clear the hospitality issues are
structural - management is entirely absent. We never knew who to actually ask for help from. There’s lots of little issues too - window frames that don’t shut properly, our room smelling at times like sewage (!) - that also tarnished our time at this place.
It’s a shame, because the hotel design and location is gorgeous and the restaurant has all the elements to be really nice. But it doesn’t live up to its promise...
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