Medary.com

In April, 2007 we spent five nights at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  It was advertised as a 5-star very relaxing resort.  It was anything but.  Read on to learn of the problems we had with this location.  (We sent a letter to the hotel at the end of April but got no response.  Just another example of their poor customer service.)

We had a guaranteed and confirmed reservation. Because our flight to Cabo was delayed, we arrived at the hotel on April 13 at 12:20 AM. When we arrived, the night manager told us that due to a reservation systems error they were overbooked. He said we would have to go stay at Pueblo Bonito Blanco in downtown Cabo San Lucas for at least the night and possibly longer.

Another couple from our flight was also checking in at the same time, and was being given a similar story. The night manager kept saying that he could not guarantee us a room at Pacifica starting on April 13 since the manager that could make that decision came on duty at 9 AM and so we were told to contact her. Recall, please, that we had a guaranteed and confirmed confirmation for five nights, which the property was not fulfilling. We said to the night manager that certainly at least one Pacifica guestroom would be vacated by departing guests and then that room could be ours. However, he kept insisting that he had no idea if anyone would be departing and even if they would be, he couldn't guarantee us that we would be able to check in. We are left with the impression that the words "guaranteed" and "confirmed" have different meanings within the Pueblo Bonito organization than elsewhere in the hospitality industry. After arguing for two hours, we finally agreed to this and found ourselves in an old, musty smoking room with two double beds!

After 5 hours of sleep, we arrived back at Pacifica at 9:15 AM on April 13 in order to speak to the day manager. She was nowhere to be found so we were told that she would meet with us in the restaurant. We had a complimentary breakfast and waited for her to meet us in the restaurant. At 11 AM I asked a waiter to find her and then a phone was given to me and she was on the phone. She explained that we were going to get a room but it was being cleaned and we should come to the front desk later to check in. We finally got to our room (#1334) at 2 PM and we were pleased to see that it was clean and had a king-size bed and was not dumpy, old and musty like the Blanco room.

We met with the Rooms Division Manager and he told us that there was a water leak and that was why so many guests were not given their rooms. He assured us that the rest of our stay would be superb and that we would get an invitation to the Pacifica's 2nd anniversary celebration on Monday, April 16. After our meeting we talked to four other guests and it should be noted that none of us ever saw any workers dealing with water leaks and we were all told different stories at check-in when our rooms weren't available. So, we don't really think there was a water leak. We think that Pacifica overbooked on purpose and just tried to get the guests to stay at a sub- par resort that allowed children.

On Saturday, April 14, we decided to eat breakfast in the restaurant. We received exceptionally poor service. I had to refill my water glass from the bathroom, while my husband had to wait 10 minutes, three different times, for coffee refills. We only left a 10% tip and wrote on the charge slip why the tip was so poor. We also told the waiter on three different occasions to just leave the pitcher of water and carafe of coffee if he couldn't provide refills in a timely manner, but he kept saying "No". On the way out we also told the hostess about our poor refill service.

That night for dinner we decided to eat at the outdoor pool restaurant since we had already eaten breakfast at the other restaurant option. I requested ice water and a yellow lemon for my drink and the waitress said she didn't have any yellow lemons and only had limes. I told her that the inside restaurant did (i.e. the one that served us breakfast) and that it was jut over there, about 50 yards away and she continued to say that she didn't have any lemons. So, I said that I would get it myself and she was okay with this! I also asked her if one of the seven propane heaters that were near us could be brought over to our table since it was getting cool and she said that they were out of gas. I then requested some pool towels for warmth and she provided these. I was wearing the warmest clothing I brought (pants and a jacket) but I guess I should have brought my winter coat, too! I went next door to the inside restaurant and the hostess and waiters were appalled that the pool kitchen didn't have yellow lemons and also didn't have propane in the outdoor heaters. After these two unpleasant Saturday dining experiences, we decided to ask to speak to the restaurant manager. We went to the front desk at 7 PM with this request and were told that restaurant manager would call our room that night. He didn't.

On Sunday morning, April 15, I left a voice mail message for the Rooms Division Manager since he had assured us that everything would be excellent for the remainder of our stay.  Well, it hadn’t and his front desk staff never had restaurant manager call us the night before so I wanted him to get us in touch with the restaurant manager.  The restaurant manager did call us and after hearing about our problems on April 14, he invited us to dinner that night and we did experience good service.  The resaurant manager also told us that he looked forward to seeing us at the 2nd anniversary celebration since the Rooms Division Manager told him that we were going to be invited.

On Monday, April 16 we still hadn’t received the 2nd anniversary celebration invitation that the Rooms Division Manager promised us so I called and left him a voice mail.  We were trying to plan our day around the celebration and it felt weird calling about an event and asking for our invitation, but we assumed that the staff had misplaced it since we had seen other examples of their poor follow-thru.  He got back in touch with us and told us that the celebration had occurred that morning and since it was only in Spanish, guests weren’t invited.  I would have thought that he could have at least notified us in advance that we were not going to be invited since both he and the restaurant manager had made such a big deal about it.  We were really looking forward to it since we wanted to see what a Mexican hotel anniversary celebration would be like.  Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed when the Rooms Division Manager told us after the fact that we weren’t invited!

On Monday, April 16 I decided to take advantage of the book exchange at the Activities Center but found it closed. The 2007 Activities schedule that was in our room said that it was closed on Thursdays. After 10 minutes I was able to find out that the 2007 schedule in our room was old and housekeeping hadn't bothered to replace it. The manager in charge of the Activities Center opened it for me and I was able to exchange my books, but the entire process took 45 minutes. By now, we had almost become used to the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica staff's consistent inability to do what they told us they would do. Their ability to seemingly lie to our faces had exhausted our sense of outrage and by the end of our stay caused us only weary amusement.

On two occasions after housekeeping cleaned our room, we had to call for an extra washcloth since only one had been left in the room. Our reservation clearly had two people in our room so I don't know why housekeeping insisted on only leaving one washcloth. I also noticed that the rooms on either side of ours had Pueblo Bonito slippers in them but our room did not. Housekeeping obviously needs a checklist of things to do for each room in order to make sure that the correct Activities Schedule and number of washcloths are in each room and any other miscellaneous items are put in the room, too.

We were also disappointed to find no drain plug or basin stopper for the bathroom sink. I needed to hand wash some clothing and when the sink doesn't hold water that makes it difficult. We made two calls requesting a stopper/sink plug, but were ultimately told that they didn't exist at Pacifica. However, a bucket was provided for our hand washing needs.

We travel regularly and frequent many five-star hotels and resorts, and have seldom encountered any problems at all at other properties, let alone the long list of service failures we encountered at Pueblo Bonito Pacifica. We would not recommend this hotel, or any of the others in the Pueblo Bonito chain, to anyone.