Waldorf Astoria Riviera Maya

staff service good

good execelennt

Poor value for money!

We had a wonderful stay at this hotel, made even better by the truly helpful and kind staff. A special thank you to Cinthia and Esperanza, who run the crafts by the pool each day. They were incredibly patient, warm, and engaging with our kids, and our children absolutely loved participating in the activities. It was so nice that the crafts were available poolside, allowing our kids to stay outside with us rather than having to go indoors to the kids’ club. This was a huge plus for our family and made the experience more relaxing and enjoyable for everyone.

Cinthia and Esperanza were wonderful during the craft making experiences. It was such a treat for our family during the trip

Overall we had a great stay. It's a great place if you want to simply relax by a beautiful pool for a few days. If I could give it a 4.5 or 4.75. I would give this score to reflect that the food was "meh" (consistently bland) and the shower had some pressure and heat issues (possibly due to capacity crowd as it got better our final day). Additionally the lounge chair situation was unnecessarily annoying because of their policy of allowing guests to grab chairs early morning and hold chairs for the full day. The gym had sufficient machines but no view so if you like a serene setting for the gym, this isn't it. The spa was beautiful. One day housekeeping hadn't cleaned one of the rooms even at 5pm and another day at 3:30 they still hadn't gotten to our room. As I mentioned, they were at peak capacity. The property is beautiful but be aware that there is nothing much to do on site except sit by the (very beatiful) pool. The beach by the hotel is relatively small. It is pretty to overlook the water but other hotels near us had much wider, more inviting sandy beaches. Also to note, the hotel is a long drive (about 30 minutes) from the main area with hotels and tourist restaurants so if you want to eat off site, the recommended restaurants are a good distance away. Rooms are generously sized and I appreciate that there is room to unpack. The dressers are in the bathroom space, which works well if you have an earlier riser and don't want to wake the other inhabitant. Overall the staff was very warm and they were well staffed, even with peak crowds. We were there for peak winter travel days between Christmas and NYE. We were not happy when we arrived and learned that everybody reserves their lounge chairs starting around 7am and even though people are gone for hours, the chairs stay reserved. I would urge the hotel to reconsider this policy. Many chairs were empty for hours on end while other guests had to make do with locations that were shady by afternoon. To their credit, they remedied the situation after our first day by finding maybe 100 extra lounges (not as nice as their usual ones) which they added to the set up to ensure there were sufficient lounges for all guests. The pool areas are beautiful and the two pools are very large so even with a lot of people in the pool, there is plenty of room. One of the pools was heated. It was also nice that there were 4 large hot tubs adjacent to the pool. The pools have a large ledge that is shallow which works well for little kids and parents so the parents aren't stuck at a kiddie pool. The food was a little disappointing, overall bland.

I should have listened to the reviews that talked about the horrible food - it was awful. But you can read that in plenty of reviews, a hand in hand issue with that is that it is a 30 minute (on Sunday evening) to 45/ 60 minutes (@ 130 USD for a family of 4 taxi) any other day to get to the restaurants in the hotel zone (basically all of the ones you would want to go to). So you feel trapped but if you stay you will be miserable. The beach is tiny, the restroom facility in the pool area is unventilated and smells really bad. There was a pet stain (huge) on the hall carpet for the entirety of our stay, mold in the grout in the showers, and for the New Years Dinner there was almost no service, I will try to upload a video I took from that night that shows empty drinks and zero staff walking around. To do all of the "water sports" you have to leave the hotel. Our room wasn't serviced several times even though we said we would be leaving the room in 30 minutes, one day it was serviced because I called for it. There are two towel/ bathing suit/ robe hangars on the walls.... so you end up with towels everywhere, bathing suits draped in strategic spots, etc. Very strange for a 3 year old property. I have seen multiple reviews that just have a name and rate this hotel the highest rating and I really question those if they are real. Also, the manager on New Years said that it was a 4 star hotel, not 5. I would say 3 at best. Positive side, the wait staff for breakfast was great as were the staff at the pool.

The ladies from kids club were so kind. Cynthia and Esperanza went out of their way to help us and make a great experience for my kids. I highly recommend this hotel for families. Arts and crafts were fun. My favorite was bracelet making with my daughter.

The ladies from the kids club were so kind and considerate when we were painting piñatas. They were helping me throughout the whole process step by step.