TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

The only reason why we don’t rate this with a “poor” is because the people were so incredibly friendly and trying their best. What’s wrong with this resort is NOT the people. It’s the management, and it’s systemic. Just four years old, and it’s clear the rooms aren’t seeing regular maintenance. Rooms are nicely arranged and built however. We started with a two floor suite facing the ocean and on day two, we paid for an upgrade to a single floor suite with a walk out pool. Both steps from the water. This is an all-inclusive resort with a “VIP” service, but compared to other resorts we’ve seen, there really is no VIP or premier service here. Our rooms came with a helpful butler, Danielito, who was amazingly responsive at all hours. We checked in at a quiet lounge with a super friendly staff person, Louisa, who sat with us on a couch as we signed papers, and sold us on buying the upgrade for about 600 dollars. If you’re familiar with the following resorts you’ll understand. This is no Le Blanc in Cabo. This is no Atelier in Cancun. And no where close to a Hotel Moussai in Puerto Vallarta, even though the prices for the nicest rooms are similar. When we told the Delta ticket agent where we stayed, upon leaving the country, that were at Live Aqua, she shook her head no. At the pool, another gay couple, from Mexico, told that they had stayed at another Live Aqua location and were disappointed with this one. The music at the pool during the day was instructive. Less chill and house grooves. More Eminem and hard party music blaring from one large speaker in the corner, where better resorts would use four to six smaller speakers to achieve the same loudness - thats much more kind to your ears. The resort wants to be a chic beach destination but honestly it’s more of a turnt up party palace. Which is fine if that’s what you want. We didn’t need any of our nice dress shirts or white jeans at dinner. Even at the best restaurants here (the French and Italian) people were rolling up from the beach with sandles, t-shirts and baseball caps, sitting next to couples dressed for a nice night out. Here, there are no flowers, tote bags, umbrellas in every room. Our second room did have a plastic beach bag, but it also had flatscreen that was hung crooked to the wall. Photo attached. Luxury can be found in the details. And they are missing here. The pool tiles that look like and should be travertine are chipped. And slippery when wet. The decking that surrounds the main pool is cement, and hot to the foot. The staff tells us that the overhead fans in the seafood restaurant (where they are desperately needed) haven’t worked in over a year. If you’re used to full menus and luscious choices of cocktails at the beach, or ordering from restaurants or room service to your chaise at the pool- they don’t have that. The choices, even in the “VIP” section, were the following: burgers, hot dogs, a burrito, chicken wings, soggy chips and salsa or fries that arrive covered in plastic wrap. Picture attached. Again, Le Blanc this is not. At the Mexican restaurant on site, the place is adorned with dozens of bottles of decent shelf tequila Don Julio. Picture attached. But when I asked for a shot of said tequila, I was informed that the higher shelf Don Julio bottles were “decorations” and I’d have to settle for liquor brands I wouldn’t even buy at home. People in the party crowd, who were wise to this, were carrying around their own bottles of higher shelf liquor that they could not get at any of the bars and restaurants on property. In our room was the traditional laundry and dry cleaning bag. We had some shirts that suffered a spill and needed cleaning. Happy to pay whatever to have them dry cleaned. The next day (a weekday) we were told there was no dry cleaning service. They gave us back our clothes. We went to the gift shop, it was no help. The only clothing for men were cheap T-shirts in crazy bright colors. No polos. No short sleeve shirts. Just t-shirts. And this fits the vibe. We love to rent cabanas at the beach or the pool. At other places those cabanas often come with buckets of sodas or champagne on ice. Sometimes they bring around small trays of fruit. Not here. First world problems of course. But that’s what we are here to leave. We were concerned to see that just down the road, another resort had bars on the gates, and it looked shut down. If this resort closed, we wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps the biggest let down we had was something entirely out the hotel’s control - seaweed on the beach. Pictures attached again. It made what would be a lovely beach mostly un-swimmable. The amount of seaweed washing up on their beach is so much they have a driving beach cleaner clearing it from the sand. Which helped. And to their great credit. But it. did nothing to clear the water of the fibrous weeds that made a swim in the ocean less than appetizing. Because of this, the ample beach outside the hotel and its many chaises and cabanas were empty for our entire visit. The experience here is also currently not helped by major construction next door where the hotel is building more rooms where we are told, will be for families. Construction goes well into the night. On top of all this, the food was often too salty, and poorly prepared. But, plated well. We met the hotel manager very briefly at one point, and it just wasn’t even worth getting into all this. This just isn’t the resort we hoped for, or the resort they sell on their website. For these reasons, we don’t recommend this one and discourage anyone from coming in the summer. (Another visitor told us he was here in March and the beach was great). Pros: Super nice and friendly staff. Cons: Food not that great even in nicest restaurants, seaweed at the beach, not as upscale as advertised.

Had a great time at the hotel. However, I booked through Fiesta Americana and was charged twice, once by the hotel and once by Fiesta Americana. I would not have known if I didn't check my credit card statement. This happened in May. It took them one month to refund the double charge, and it is still short. They have not rectified this to date. Very unprofessional and unacceptable. No one has ever called me to address this issue. When I called they were rude. I have emailed numerous times. They say they have fixed the problem, but the refund is short. Beware!

To make a long story longer this resort was OK but left something to be desired at the end of the day. The rooms were nice and modern, however there was a strange sewer-ish smell coming from somewhere in the room and the smell would not go away. I guess previous guest complained and the management decided to include an “aroma therapy package” to cover up the smell. That was a big miss. There’s also construction currently being worked on so the view isn’t the best. You go out on the balcony to look directly at exposed beams and concrete. Yikes. Most times the bars served watered down drinks and never offered shots of any premium liquor. The only time I got a decent cocktail was at dinner in the Japanese restaurant. The food was decent, Japanese restaurant had the best food, the Mexican place was a major miss and the other two restaurants I never got to. The service is slow and delayed with room for improvement. There were too many inconsistency’s in the service, there was either no water provided, no menu (QR code) to scan, no champagne for a mimosa. Too many failed opportunity’s to impress paying guest. And one thing that left a terrible taste in my mouth was being discriminated against at the swim up pool bar. My partner and I swam over to the bar only to receive blank stares and the continuation of their own personal conversations. We waited patiently to be served only to be ignored by the 4 bartenders further and when other guest arrived at the same bar maybe 5-10 mins after us they were greeted and served promptly. That to me spoke volumes and I then made up my mind that I wasn’t ever going to return. One server named Ramon stood out from the rest and he had an amazing attitude and was very welcoming. He made us feel like he was happy to provide service for my partner and myself.

So many of the staff are helpful and very friendly. Josue and Johnny poolside were super sweet to us. Also made my birthday extra sweet, such a great time. I would definitely come back again and recommend to friends and family. They made us feel so welcomed.

First, I’ll acknowledge the good. The property is beautiful and clean. Our rooms were done nicely every day. The experience at the spa was wonderful from the minute we stepped in. Our massage therapists were incredible and so welcoming. No complaints about the spa. Food was pretty good. Some dishes were better than others, but most were tasty. The biggest issue in this hotel is the service which was hit or miss. Some staff were super attentive while others didn’t even say hello. The best service was provided at the French restaurant. The runner up was the Mexican restaurant. At the Italian place, our waiter didn’t give us a QR code to scan for the menu and didn’t even give us a couple of minutes to look over it before asking us what we wanted. He was dry for the rest of the meal. The Asian restaurant was the worst! Very understaffed with only 1 person tending to the regular dining tables. He took 10 minutes to bring us water and the food took very long to come out. The pool bar Horizon was never ready for service at 10 am. We asked for mojitos around 10:30 am and they said they didn’t have any. Turns out they hadn’t prepped the mint and other stuff they needed. We saw someone else ask for piña coladas around that time and they were told to go back in 30 minutes because the frozen mix wasn’t ready. If the bar opens at 10 am, then everything should be prepped beforehand so that it’s ready for service when it opens. Not at 9:50 am like they were doing. Some of the bar employees would ignore you when you went to get a drink. They would talk to the other employees while serving you and the conversations weren’t work related. Some employees looked like they didn’t want to be there. Unfortunately, when service like this is provided it ruins the whole trip. Excellent service is key to a great experience and that was not the case for us. For the price we paid, we expected much better service than what was provided. The entertainment was okay. The best was the silent disco which was super fun. The karaoke was also pretty fun. Also, the so called “concierge” staff that gives you a tour when you arrive only wants to get you to attend the “welcome breakfast” which is all a trap to sell you a vacation plan. Then, when you don’t show up for the “breakfast” they call you and if you don’t answer your phone they will hunt you down the next morning at the buffet. They try pressuring you into attending talking about “we will get in trouble with our managers if we don’t do it.” Those are words that came out of Felipe’s mouth when we didn’t show up for the meeting. Respectfully, that’s not my problem. It’s my vacation and I spend it however I want to. Situations like these are inappropriate and make people feel uncomfortable. If someone doesn’t show up for those types of meetings the first time then that should be taken as a sign that they’re not interested in it. It really takes away from the experience when you have people like that harassing you. In conclusion, we will not be returning to any Live Aqua resorts due to this experience and we will not be recommending the resort to anyone. We had really high hopes for this resort due to the excellent reviews on here, but I’m starting to think most of the reviews are fake. Don’t be fooled by them!!