The St. Regis Kanai Resort, Riviera Maya — Hotel in Quintana Roo

If you love personalized service, top facilities, and a low density property, St. Regis is for you. Period.||Nestled in the Kanai mangroves, it shares the same area with Marriott’s Edition Riviera Maya. It’s important to recognize the emphasize on being integrated with the mangrove and be relatively far from the beach line, avoiding eroding the area and creating a sanctuary where you don’t feel bad about the impact on the environment. Key points:| Unlike Edition, it's aimed at a wealthier and more demanding audience. Families will be there, but it's feels like an hotel for an adult crowd.|- Speaking of families, they have a very well-equipped kids' club. And it's quite isolated from the adult area (i.e., within walking distance, but cleverly located).|- Large spaces and fewer than 150 rooms; you'll never feel overwhelmed.|- Spacious rooms. Even the standard rooms are quite comfortable.|- Lovely pools. NO fights about the beach loungers! Plenty of areas to be solo, with your friends, or your family. No broken loungers. All in mint condition.|- The resort is about 3 years old, so the rooms are in perfect condition. The food and drinks are consistently of better quality than at similar resorts. In my experience, better than at Edition. The only thing I found subpar was the french toast: Waldorf Astoria is still the winner! Breakfast is buffet-style, impeccably presented. You won't be disappointed.|- The Bar is a must, and you have to try the Kanai Bloddy Mary; arrive before 6:30 pm so you can see a nice ceremony around champagne. They are proud of the quality of their cocktails and service, and they deliver! I came back for that reason!|- Toro is the signature restaurant. Mexican fusion. Very well executed, delicious food and impecable service.|- As I said before, a key distinction here is the attention. From everyone. From your arrival, the kindness of the bellhops who help you with everything with your luggage, the prompt and warm service at the front desk (kudos to Thalia, who is not only efficient but also charming and passionate about St. Regis and its history), to the lovely attention to detail from everyone in the Chaya restaurant (Guadalupe, Aaron, thank you for your excellent service). I'm sorry I can't remember the names of everyone who served me. But everyone, from the room attendants to ALL the guys at the Riviera restaurant, always had a smile and a genuine spirit to make you feel comfortable. THANK YOU.|- One of the hallmarks of the St. Regis is its butler service. Dali and Carlos made our day. Absolutely necessary for a hotel stay? Hmm... not really. But once you try it, you're spoiled forever: morning coffee in the room, ironing service, activities, dinner reservations and recommendations, nice touches for the celebration we were planning. Carlos went above and beyond and solved my requests with kindness and enthusiasm. THANK YOU.|- Great gym; looks new and has state-of-the-art equipment!|- I didn't try the spa, but it looked amazing.||Go to the St. Regis if:|- You value service, tranquility, and attention to detail.|- You don't mind being isolated in the middle of a mangrove. |- You're willing to pay high prices. Kanai has three hotels (St. Regis, Edition, and Etéreo). St. Regis is the most expensive.|- You're not looking for a wide variety of dining options. Depending on the number of days you stay, you might repeat at restaurants. Remember that you can visit options at Edition and Etéreo. At Edition, you can charge your bill to your room at St. Regis.||Avoid this hotel if:|- You're on a tight budget. It's Marriott's top-of-the-range hotel, and the price is accordingly. You'll pay around $50 per person for breakfast, for example. If that's unacceptable, look elsewhere.|- You're looking for a party and/or socializing with a lot of people. Are you a party animal? Bumble/Tinder/Grindr? It's not here, of course. This hotel is designed to be low-crowded, even during peak season. If you need the social excitment, remember it's quite close to Playa del Carmen; go there.|- You want to be on tours most of the time. Despite the fact your butler can arrange excursion outside the complex, if you don't plan to spend most of your time in and around the hotel, look for another option closer to Playa del Carmen.|- You don't like personalized service. It's valid!||I'm beyond excited to return to...

My family & I came here for a one week stay, Tuesday - Tuesday, we were a group of 10 people with 3 different rooms. We had a number of issues during our stay with all of our rooms, mainly with the cleanliness of the rooms (all 3 rooms had a mildew smell when we checked in) I stressed at check in we have many allergies so these room need to be deep cleaned and the front desk staff confirmed they will be but as the week progressed more issues came about proving they did not deep clean and they were not just small instances. We were patient in getting help from the staff with these issues day after day. On our final night, I go to my sister's room to meet them for dinner. I sit on their bed that was made like housekeeping fixed it and there are pieces of broken glass all over the bed. I was distraught as I could have easily cut my arm open if I sat 2 inches to the left. I asked my sister and her partner if they broke a glass in the room. They both were in the bathroom getting ready and they said no, we came from the beach and only have been in the bathroom / closet getting ready. So obviously this is very worrisome. As I'm investigating I see more broken glass pieces on the floor on both sides of the bed & under the bench in front of the bed. We report it to the staff, they respond saying they don't know how this happened, offering no solution. We ask them if someone can come reclean the room and clean up the glass (why should we even have to ask this?) They came about 40 mins later to change the sheets, I stayed in the room to make sure everything was changed properly and cleaned bc at this point we have lost trust in the housekeeping /management. We ask the management to keep us posted on the situation and want to know where the glass came from since it wasn't from us. We wait and wait no response from management even as we keep following up. On our checkout day I go to the front desk to speak to management again as we still haven't gotten an answer & I'm told management isn't available. I ask when will they be available as we are in the process of checking out, then magically a manager named Emmy appears. (when I was told management wasn't available a minute ago?) She is telling me they are still investigating and don't have an answer for us, it's been over 24 hours at this point with no solution/answer. Then another 2 managers appeared, Mathias and someone else who didn't speak at all, even when I asked for his name/position. All in all the General Management, Mathias M. does not take accountability for the staff's faults nor has any empathy about the situation. I am appalled at how these managers (Emmy, Mathias) and the other gentleman who was there but didn't tell me his name treated us at checkout. They were insinuating that this broken glass must have come from us as they asked us well who had access to your room? Shouldn't the hotel management have that information? While they have yet to even ask the housekeeper about the situation who cleaned the room that day. Emmy also lied to me about a convo she had with my sister the night before and also was incorrect about a number of other things, not only did she not apologize but just told me they are looking into it again. We felt so disrespected after spending a week at this hotel & dining at all the onsite restaurants / using the spa/ room service & beyond. We spent a great sum of money and gave them all this revenue only to be treated like this is a Motel. I am obviously beyond frustrated as this is a St Regis, we stay at luxury hotels for the accommodations and top notch service & comfort, but at this location this is not the case. We came to have a relaxing beach vacation with our loved ones and came home more stressed than when we left. Shame on you St Regis / Marriott, due better or lower your prices to match the bad service you are giving to your week long guests. Updated 4/22 as they responded they will follow up RE this, they never did... Comes to show they really do not care about their guests and their...

the Pros: Property is beautiful. Architecture was unique, décor took into account the area and the culture and tastefully done. Check in was done promptly, and we were led to our room by our personal butler. Bathroom is huge, almost half of the room is the bathroom and closet area, so depending on what one prefers, this could be a plus. We got a Grand Luxe with private plunge pool. The plunge pool is a decent size and our kids thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a huge plus. Our kids utilized the kids club, which they loved. Decent, attentive service by our butlers / team, and good service and convenience with the golf cart taking you around the property and to neighbouring property. Complimentary guacamole and salsa classes were nice. Pool and beach attendants were very attentive and great!

The Cons:

Personalized Service / Greetings: We booked through our luxury travel agent, and we communicated with the butler team about being there to celebrate our wedding anniversary. - This was communicated (as I understood) and well documented many times over. During our entire stay, there wasn’t even the slightest acknowledgment about our celebration. We were also there with our kids. I had also - communicated this long before arrival. Other hotels/resorts we’ve stayed at in the past would go out of the way with small gestures to make the kids feel welcome and personal – small touches like a bag of candy, or have kids robes and slippers ready, kids amenities kits, etc. This again was not done, but I understand in no way the resort was obligated to do so. In our experience, with the Marriott brands the personalized service and greetings can be very hit and miss, while Four Seasons and Rosewood etc. are consistently above expectations.

In room dining: We used this twice – once right after we checked in as it was late in the evening. There was no in room dining menu – I actually had to walk to the St Regis Bar to order, only to be told the item is available through in room dining. I wouldn’t have known since this was not mentioned nor did we see a menu. The second time we used it was during a day of rain. We ordered a few items – one of which was the chicken tenders for my son. This was the most serious issue during our stay. The chicken was undercooked. See picture attached. The in room dining team took it off our bill and replaced it but both my son and my wife had taken a bite and swallowed it already. When my son said the chicken tasted funny we didn’t think much of it, so my wife took a bite. “Luckily” my son didn’t get sick, but my wife did for one whole night of (TMI) frequent bathroom visits.

Bugs!! / Housekeeping: We started noticing tiny little bugs crawling on the makeup counter and all over the closet. See pictures attached (hard to see but we shared the videos with our butler and our travel agent). Housekeeping came and frankly were dismissive. They think it’s ants and asked if they came come back to take care of the issue. After they supposedly did a cleaning, we still saw the bugs. Not sure what was done frankly. We decided to ask for additional luggage stands and just put our suitcases in the room not touching anything. we started hanging some clothes in the closet, at least they won’t be touching the wooden drawers and the like. The whole clothes hanging bar in the closer broke and fell. See picture. A much more minor issue in comparison - housekeeping removing our kids face towel and hanging them on faucets – pretty gross. Housekeeping left their dirty rag in the room, not replacing dirty espresso cups or used wine glasses; not enough towels in the room; had to ask many times to bring everything.

Unfortunately, the bug problem got worse two nights before our departure. I am not sure if this is a problem in every room. They were crawling ere all over our computers, ipads, and frankly not sure if they got in our clothes. We switched rooms the...