Rosewood Mayakoba — Hotel in Quintana Roo

We stayed in a "lagoon beachside villa", which means you're on a lagoon, but beachside, no. There is no beachfront--there is a road and then there a lot of houses on the beachfront, not the villas. The villa was lovely appointed--we appreciated the attention to detail--robes, slippers, beach bag, aloe vera, raft for plunge pool, plenty of towels, multiple closets with plenty of hangers, steamer, makeup mirror and vanity area by natural light. The rooms are spacious and well laid out. I did notice that the travertine flooring in the bedroom was crumbling and had to be careful not to stub my toe. The bathrooms are amazing, especially the shower--so huge! You could fit 8 people in the shower easily, and the huge window with the view of the lagoon is picturesque. The bed was very, very comfortable, and it was nice to have the blackout curtains. The TVs do not have any streaming capabilities, so that was a downside. I'm surprised they have not upgraded them yet to include at least Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. This is the first hotel I've stayed at in several years that did not have any streaming capabilities. ||Also--bring your own shampoo and soap because the ones they provide are too fragrant of jasmine (gave me a headache) and they do not lather, so it took forever to wash off the sunscreen or even to simply wash my hands. ||The service is fantastic--staff is very friendly. All of the villas come with your own butler, but we didn't really utilize them much. Golf carts came around regularly to take you wherever you wanted to go. The resort is very pretty, with the exception of the lagoon itself, where many areas were full of smelly pond scum on top. We didn't really spend any time in our plunge pool because the smell was so foul from the lagoon--the algae settled right in front of our villa and didn't move because of the lack of water movement. Also the plunge pool got so hot during the afternoons that it was not refreshing. It was nearly the same temperature as the outside air. And also the area around the filters were growing green mold and lots of leaves in the pool, so it didn't feel very clean. ||There are multiple restaurants on the property, and I went to 3 of them, and all are grossly overpriced for what you get. The food was just average, with the exception of the hoja santa tacos at the fancy bar, which were amazing, but 3 tacos for $50 USD is ridiculous. We ordered room service once--very basic food--guacamole, fries, burger, churros, no drinks, and it was $287 USD. For the price of the food, I was expecting Michelin level cuisine and it was far from that. I don't mind paying $$$ for great food, but the prices do not justify the quality or execution of the food. Even in the US or Europe you wouldn't pay this much for such mediocre food. The drinks at the pool are just ok. Drinks at the fancy bar a bit better, but not worth $30 USD per cocktail. And they take way too long. Waiting 20 minutes for drinks to be delivered is just too long, whether at the restaurant or poolside. ||Bathroom facilities throughout the resort are lovely. Ping pong table was fun, and they also have foosball and billiards too. ||The pool by the beach is lovely. The adult pools by the beach are worn down and need upgrading. Lounge chairs are pretty close together. ||If you're looking for a decent beach, forget about it. It is very very small and there's a lot of stinky seaweed in the water. It's better to go to the pool to cool off. ||I recommend eating at Fairmont of any of the other resorts within Mayakoba because it is literally half the price of what you pay at Rosewood. ||The boutiques at Rosewood are also ridiculously expensive--$300 for a pair of swim trunks? $30 for sunscreen? That's USD. That's just silly. ||Would I stay here again? Only if someone else paid. We can stay at our luxurious Vidanta timeshare for a week for what we paid in food costs for 3 meals for 2 people at Rosewood. Or a week at Vidanta for one night at Rosewood. And they have a swim up bar and much better drinks. ||Rooms are a 5, service a 5, food a 2.5/3, resort...

We’ve stayed at other resorts in the area before, most recently at the St Regis Kanai last year, so my comments / comparison will primarily be with that property.||Our stay was for 4 nights from Jun 27-July 1.||The Rosewood Mayakoba, being a Rosewood branded property, comes with the service you would expect. The service is much more personal, attentive, and genuine compared to St Regis.||Every staff member were super friendly. Those whom we met addressed us by family name.||The property, completed in 2007, is definitely showing its signs of aging. It is in desperate need for a refresh. Sure they are renovating the Punta Bonita pool, but everywhere else needs a refresh also imho.||Our family of four stayed in a Deluxe Lagoon Suite, with a king bed and sofa bed. We checked in early but had originally booked a Lagoon Studio suite with 2 queens, but it wasn’t ready yet. The room does seem to have gotten a minor refresh though. Was well appointed.||Bathroom was nice and the tub was big. Kids had a great time especially when they set up a surprise bubble bath. However, we did use the tub the first night and my son found a small shard of glass. I had thought it was just bath salt that wasn’t fully dissolved but it was glass. Good thing no one got cut. We also found the tiles peeling and found pieces of tile in the tub.||We tried the kids club, but the kids had no interest. The hours seem limited (closing at 5pm) and the activities were not interesting. My kids liked other kids club we’ve been to (including the St Regis) alot more.||Service is sometimes slow, but perhaps due to the size of property (everything is super far apart). Service was also lacking at Casa Del Lago pool. On our first day, it was not busy at all and we had to set up our own chair and had to walk to the bar to ask for a menu. Second day they had no chairs but we were lucky to have found 2 to share. We also overheard a lady get up to walk to the bar asking about status of her order as she said “it’s been more than half an hour”. However, we are glad they allowed families here (vs. Originally stated) because otherwise we would only have access to the Aqui mi Quedo pools which were no fun especially for the kids. ||Aqui mi Quedo pool needs an overhaul - super small pool(s), and the material is so rough that my daughter scratched /scrapped her toe badly. Not sure why it has to be that material…||Beach is almost non-existent - not the resort’s fault but it’s quite sad. Everyday it’s completely overrun by sargassum seaweed. It also smells bad by the beach and beach pools because of it. They really try to clean it up but hauling away truckloads upon truckloads of seaweed everyday, but doesn’t help much tbh…||We booked a Rosewood Elite rate which included breakfast. Was ok… nothing to write home about. Frankly the breakfast at St Regis was better. Much larger spread, and much better quality. I do recognize this is subjective.||Nothing on the menus for the onsite restaurants really interested us so we went to eat at Fairmont and Banyan Tree for dinner. We only order lunch poolside and again nothing to write home about. Overall, there are more variety, and especially at Bassano at Fairmont, much better value with their ongoing 30% off promo.||Food overall was much better at Kanai (across Etereo, Edition and St Regis restaurants). Both were expensive but food was much tastier at Kanai for a similar price point. Food in general is just outrageously expensive for the quality. We travel a decent amount and don’t mind spending alot on food (my kids are well eaten and have had many meals at Michelin starred restaurants of all price range) and they didn’t eat much on this trip at all. I do admit they are picky eaters, though. Just expensive for what it is and frankly, felt like they gauged knowing your options are limited.||Lili - one of our butlers - was the lone standout. Super attentive, super friendly, and surprised the kids. ||Out of 5 stars:|Overall: 4 |Room: 4.5|Food: 3|Service: 4.5|Ambience...

This is hands down the best resort in the world that I have ever been to. I've traveled to dozens of countries and tried many Rosewood, Four Season and other high end properties and this is the top one. We opted for them to give us a ride back and forth from the airport and the magic starts then. Caesar met us just outside the airport and whisked us over to our brand new Escalade where Aaron was waiting with doors open and cold towels, cold water and cold coronita's waiting inside. The drive was 40 Minutes and the Amazing Aaron even stopped to let us pick up some snacks, and some other room munchies.

Arriving at the resort, we were greeted by several of our friends (staff members) who felt more like family members as this was our 10th time coming to this resort over the last 10 years. Jose Maria and Christian greeted us with open arms and a cool refreshing drink. It's like seeing old friends and after a quick catch up on the last year, we jumped in the little boat that took us to our suite.

There is art, wildlife and beauty everywhere on the grounds of this large resort. The trees, walkways and grass are all meticulously manicured. Our room was immaculately cleaned and there was a beautiful welcome amenity of a Oaxacan Mezcal that was delicious and refreshing. As repeat guest, I can tell you that every time we come, the welcome gifts and amenities surprise us and keep getting better. The housekeeping staff remembered requests we had made in previous years and we had fresh half and half for the coffee, limes to cut up for beers and a fresh fruit bowl with peaches, nectarines and banana's that was refreshed twice daily. Our main housekeeper Dorian kept the room in perfect condition and even left me some sun balm one day when I got a little too much sun.

Our butlers, Yes 2 butlers, were available for any special needs and both Jaime and Ivan spoiled us with attention, even though we really didn't need much from them. They checked in every day and made sure we had reservations and everything else we needed.

We went to the beach and pool area every day and planted ourselves in the sand right by their "food truck" in the Aqui Me Quedo area of the resort. Diego the manager stopped by to say hi as we knew him over the last three years as our server but he recently got promoted within the resort. Our new server named Luis was the absolute best. He didn't bother us but instead anticipated when we would need something and just magically showed up. We always had cold water and ice buckets and when we would order food he made recommendations and after the first day he remembered that I like a particular black ash habanero sauce and I never had to ask again, it was always on our chips and salsa platter. On the last day he spoiled me with some roasted Havana peppers (hotter than Habanero) with our fish tacos. So awesome. We were also spoiled by a new amenity ever few hours, like ceviche, sunglass cleaning and even the new Coconut O'clock where they give everyone a fresh cut coconut filled with coconut water. they added rum to mine too, very fun.

They have a new bar experience called Zapote Bar, just voted one of the top 50 bars in North America, where we ate dinner one night and met our new most favorite server Fernando. The cool thing was that when we went back a couple of days later, Fernando saw us and said he would take care of us, wherever we sat. We grabbed a spot at the bar and were joined be some friends we had met years ago at the same resort. We were spoiled even more by the resort director, Mr. Daniel Scott, who checked in on us and then stayed with us through happy hour. Then they announced the bar had just won the top 11 spot on the list and everyone cheered and we all had a complimentary shot of Mezcal. It was like we were part...