May House — Restaurant in Cancún

I have now been here for 4 months. I was going to stay for 2 more but I will be leaving one week early, tomorrow, due to my experience here in July and August. I will start with the positives. May and June were fantastic and 50:50 English:Spanished based in terms of guests. Great beach, pools, housekeeping, bellmen, front desk staff, and member services staff. I am a memebr here.

I usually come in the winter when it is about 90:10 in Enlish vs Spanish speaking guests. At that time everything is half and half Enlish and Spanish in terms of entertainment, services, and language spoken by customer facing staff and general respect. What I learned this summer is that it is abount 95:5 in Spanish vs English speaking guests for July and August. That's actually great because the guests are mostly from South America and are personable and interesting folks.

The problem is with the hotel staff and management itself. Gone are the 50:50 English language, English music, and English speaking, client facing staff. I spoke with many Enlish speaking guests and we all had the same experience. Here's the order of service and respect on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being high. Spanish speaking guests = 10; Non spanish with breasts = 6; white males = 4; black, brown, chinese, and aribic males = 1.

I asked Celine of the entertainment team why English music was not played. Her answwer to me was that she and Juan (the other entertainment staffer) were Sapanish. Juan called many of the bingo games 100% in Spanish. This is the first time that I ever have been told that the entertainment team is there to entertain themselves with music that they like in my 30+ years of travel. About 50% of the time that I called for room service the person on the other end of the line couldn't speak English. This is after paying about 5K USD per month and being an Elite member here.

In terms of management, Jose the General Manager is a a waste of time to talk to. He is the typical tourist management team lead that lies to guests and has very low morals as a matter of course. He is really powerless to do anything or give anything away to compensate for member facilities that have been removed since the point of membership purchase. I am sure that the owners love him once they have your money!!!

On the front desk there are 3 managers. Anna is great. Sergio and Ignacio demand respect and when they don't hear what they like they hang up on you even though their resort disrecpects you based on language and colour from the get go.

The head of Memebr Client Services is Selene and she is great. She truly cares and it shows. Her entire team cares and is great. I brought several issues to her attention and all of them, that she was able to impact, were resolved in a timely and adequate fashion.

My advice to Canadians and Americans would be to go to Cuba in the summer time (yes Yanks you can - google how to do it as a cultural event - go to a museum). You will still get the same attitude from the Cubans and the food won't be as good but for about 40% of the cost of just the room here (this is not all inclusive) the food and alcohol is included and the beaches are...

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU CHECK IN We had booked two weeks in a studio at the Imperial Fiesta Club at Casa Maya through Interval. I understood that all units have balconies. Well, it turns out that only 1- and 2-bedroom units have guaranteed balconies. 2-bedroom units can be split into studio and 1-bedroom unit with a flimsy door that separates them. You can hear next-door conversations or children screaming. But that was another matter. At check-in we were confronted with the fact that if we wanted a balcony we had to pay upfront an additional $600 for the two weeks. Two weeks in Mexico without a balcony? No thanks, so we paid. Had I known this fact I would definitely have chosen a different hotel. This kept bugging me, so two days later I wanted to find out what the actual cost of the different units were and I found out that no studio was even available at the time. This is when I really felt being taken advantage of and I contacted the manger as it had been suggested in some of the replies of not so glorious reviews. She confirmed that if guests request an upgrade the fee is an additional $300 per week. Fact is that I never “requested” it but was taken by surprise at check-in after a long flight from Canada. Today I know I should have requested to first see the booked unit before making such a decision. The manager told me she would “take care” of this but nothing ever happened. It had happened to me before in Mexico that my booked unit was not available and I was upgraded without an additional cost. Fortunately the unit on the 8th floor that we received had probably the best view over a beautifully landscaped area around the pools and the beach. The property inside and outside was kept exceptionally clean. If you have any say in the location of your room it is good to know that not many units facing the ocean get any sunshine on their balconies (only four on the 8th floor from about 2.30 to 5.30 pm in December and January. All lower level units have loggias that are enclosed on three sides. Both buildings throw a lot of shadow during the day onto pool area and beach so you may have to move a lot if you like to be in the sun. The rooms on other side of both buildings on the other hand have sunshine all day. This side faces a four-lane street and the lagoon. You can buy price reduced vouchers for the buffet on Saturdays and Sundays only. They come in a book of 10 which means a couple eats at the buffet restaurant on five days of a week. Each day has a different theme but the variety was not overwhelming. We were talked into buying two books for our two weeks at check-in time but did not enjoy the selection anymore after one week. There are no other restaurants in easy walking distance. There is a small convenience store which offers mainly snacks, beverages and packaged food. Sadly it did not stay open until official closing time of 11 pm. We were four guests who arrived at 10.55 pm thirsty after a long day of excursion. The clerk was counting her money and refused to sell...

We had a very enjoyable stay here for the most part. The staff is friendly and attentive. There's a nice beach right there at the property with a lifeguard and a fun looking obstacle course floating in the water. The palapas, beach chairs and umbrellas are in nice shape and there seems to be security to ensure that only hotel guests use them. The pools are also maintained quite nicely. There are two restaurants in the main pool area as well and the food is pretty decent at both. One has a dinner buffet most/every evening.

We had a two bedroom, two bathroom unit. It was quite spacious. The master bedroom has a king sized bed which was comfortable enough for my needs. There is sort of a walk-in closet in between the master bedroom and master bathroom. It had plenty of hangers, a safe and an iron & ironing board. The master bath had nice tile in the shower and the single sink and counter were also nice and we'll maintained. There was a bar for handicapped use in the bath tub/shower. The living room area was decent sized and had an acceptable couch and chairs for relaxing. It also had a Murphy bed. There's a lot of sleeping space in this bedroom unit! The balcony area is HUGE and the ocean view was amazing! The dining room area had a large round table and was laid out with plates, glasses and silverware when we arrived. The kitchen is small, but very functional with refrigerator, stove top (no oven), microwave, dishwasher, kitchen sink and a tiny pantry. There were pots and pans, a blender and all kinds of utensils. These units are very well equipped.

The second bedroom is a lockoff type of arrangement for added privacy if desired. It had two twin beds and can function as an independent unit with its own bathroom, safe, iron & ironing board, mini fridge and microwave. It had its own balcony as well.

A few gripes are that the rooms do show their age with the decor and the suspended ceilings in some areas. Some renovations are definitely in order. Also the AC vent in the master made an annoying noise the entire time we were there. I guess I could've and should've called maintenance to look at it, but didn't. I just slept with plugs in my ears that I brought with me. Every morning without fail there were noises coming from above us like chairs and tables being moved around which was also annoying, but not a huge deal. Perhaps they were making improvements. Also near the end of our stay the ceiling started leaking water near the kitchen area. Though this is in the Zona Hotelera, expect to take a taxi (or drive if you rented a vehicle) most of the places that you want to go.

All in all this was a great place for us to stay and would do so again when we...