Review: Azul Fives Mexico AI Resort
It’s another rendition of the bachlorette! My friend is getting married, and 9 of us girls are going with her to Mexico to celebrate in style. We went through numerous resort options (complete with spreadsheets of course) to finally decide on Azul Fives, part of the Karisma hotels. It has good tripadvisor reviews and looks pretty good in pictures. So finally came July (shortly after my Asia trip), and we were all on our way. some of us are from US, some from Canada, and ended up booking with the hotel directly as they had a special on so we all flew in separately on flights. Unfortunately this method also means no airport transfer was included. So we made our own bookings.
Check in:
Upon arrival, first impression was pretty good – building looks modern, lobby is decorated nicely. As we arrived around 1:30pm local time, our rooms were not ready yet (check in is at 3pm). so we did the preliminary check in and was instructed to come back. Check in process was just ok. Our first interaction with the check in person was not a positive one as she coldly/indifferently asked for our voucher – something we were not aware we should bring – and she insisted that it is part of their registration process. Well, needless to say, we don’t have it, and I insisted that i’m sure she can look up our names and locate our reservations, no? She (sourly in my opinion) took our passports and began processing it. Not a good experience at the start, but we waved that away as we wanted to get our vacation started on a good foot. As our rooms were not ready, we went to the lobby washroom (amazing!) and changed for the pool/beach and lunch. Another 2 girlsfriends arrived the next day and had a horrible experience – they were shuffled around to different rooms and took almost 3 hours to get their rooms sorted. Overall attitude at the check in (and out) was poor – where you expect the friendliest greetings and experience, you definitely do not get.
Grounds/Facilities/Pools:
The resort definitely excels for its buildings, maintenance and upkeep of its ground. Lots of lush gardens, well kept paths, and great looking villa buildings. The first view of the main pool was amazing – an infinity pool leading to turquoise beach water and palm trees. There are 4 pools (or more?) – the main infinity one with the largest swim up bar, 2 long narrow ones in the middle of the resort, and 1 by our villas that is a good size, quieter with a Jacuzzi. Each of the pools has its own bar/restaurant right by it for your ease of drinks and refreshments. showers readily available between beach and pool, and bathrooms well kept and clean. All good there.
Amenities:
2 of my other friends (not part of this group) went to Azul Fives just months prior to us coming, and they had to pay for wifi. Lucky for us, apparently since then, they had done an upgrade and now offers free wifi throughout the resort. You need to download an app first to get a code, and then register for it. Not too bad of a process but we needed help as half of us could not get the app to download. The concierge at the front was very helpful in helping with this. There were also 2 other concierge stations on the resort grounds enroute to the beach, each time we used them to make a reservation at the restaurants – each time had good customer service from them.
Beach:
Unfortunately there were lots of seaweeds floating at the shore, not sure if it’s seasonal, and despite workers raking it in and burying it in the sand, it still accumulated along the shoreline. Otherwise, the water was clear, turquoise colour, and the sand pebble free. The beach is long (not all Azul Fives’ property) but you can keep walking along the shoreline for all you guys that “enjoys long walks on the beach”. Lots of lounge chairs available.
Rooms:
Beautiful and modern and spacious. We had 5 rooms in total, each with king size beds. Some had larger bathroom space, some with larger bedroom space. Each with its own balcony and lounge chair. Very comfortable, very nice! Each day the rooms were cleaned well, all good here too.
Party/Bar/Lounge:
Lots of places to hang out after dark – with great atmosphere and killer views from the balcony of the zky bar. Free flowing, and bar staff were mostly great (bad experience story below). Music was good and solid with variety of sounds – so we had a great time hanging out. I think we lucked out though as there were number of weddings that week so we had plenty of other guests (20-40s to mix with).
Food:
This was so-so overall. Let’s start with the BEST: Thai restaurant (Koh Thai) was awesome food wise. Delicious clams, phad thai, sweet and sour fish were the favourites. The other restaurants for dinner were ok/mediocore: Japanese, Italian, Mexican, general buffet. At lunch, the beach front grill had very good make your own ceviche. Breakfast at both the buffet restaurants (Flavours and La Brasserie) were delicious with La Brasserie having the better decor. Overall desserts at every restaurant was a disappointment (much to my chagrin as that’s my fav!), other than ice cream, which you really can’t screw up – they need a better pastry chef. There was a great coffee shop with lattes and shakes for the afternoon pick me ups. The only confusing part of the food was that there were some elements like cocktails and coffee shop drinks that were not part of the all inclusive, but not clearly marked. Room service is available 24 hours a day, but takes a very long time. Though that is pretty standard at other Caribbean resort, so i’m not surprised there.
Service:
This is the most important part of any vacation/resort stay, and it really does make or break your stay. Our group of 10 had variable degree of positives and negatives with this one. Let’s start with the good: the activity folks by the beach/pool were excellent: Gustavo, Alex, and Josephine (sp?) were 3 amazing hosts and hostess – full of energy, smiles and fun. Alex happened to be at the check out counter the day we were leaving and kindly offered to help us deflate our floaties. My friend and I were so grateful and it made a final good impression on our stay. Groundskeepers/maintenance/cleaners were also good – usually would greet us with a smile and a hola. And finally the swim up bar in the main infinity pool had great bartenders – Henri was one that stood out for us.
The bad: some – not all – some of the the wait staff at the restaurants. When we were at the Japanese and the Thai restaurants, each time the wait staff tried to get us to stop ordering food as it was “too much”. I understand their concern for food waste. but we know what we can eat, and in fact, we ordered more half way through the meal as we finished it all quickly (they are small sized). We just didn’t appreciate being stopped repeatedly at an all inclusive. The 3rd time this happened at the thai restaurant, the waiter got a manager to come and explain that there was a rule for large groups and that we are required to have a set menu. We insisted that we should be able to order what we want, and they backed down. Once again, we finished all the food we ate. Guess they didn’t expect 10 girls to have healthy appetites…!
Here’s the worst service experience however – it was just unfortunate that it was on our last night, so it really left a sour taste in our experience. We were hanging out at the gin bar, in the corner booth, half of us drinking water, the other half sipping on wine (brought over from dinner). At the end of the night, as we stood up to leave, one of us accidentally knock over a wine glass breaking it on the floor. a waiter, named Angel, came over and was immediately upset with us. We apologized and said it was an accident. He then proceeds to say that this will come out of his pay. We stood by awkwardly and wasn’t sure what to say but didn’t leave either, watching him clean up. We started offering to speak to his bar manager to insist that it was an accident. As he was cleaning, he looked up at us and asked where we were from. Thinking it was a casual friendly question, we were about to answer when he goes “must be from Argentina – they never pay”. Wowza. we were stunned. Not only is that the most inappropriate comment about Argentina (none of us were Argentinians), but also most inappropriate to say to guests of the resort. Another waitress (not sure if she was a manager or not) came by, and we told her what Angel has just said to us, and she was nonchalant and really did not care. We angrily left. This “service” experience is the worst I (we) have ever had, and it was really unfortunate as it takes away from all the other great wait staff on the resort.
Overall:
It’s a good, clean, modern resort – for families, and friends alike. I would cautiously recommend this resort as the service is variable. I think the resort has a potential to be a great one if the management can improve the attitudes of the customer facing employees. We did have a good time despite the above mentioned incidents and were very happy with our vacation.
