Garza Blanca Resort & Spa Cancun

Everything!

no

Food, pool, kids' club

Single Room Interior - no privacy, room cleaning, outside kids' activities

Child friendly. Large and clean

Crowded. Not lots of Luxury for the price

The steak restaurant and the Chinese restaurant are both very good. The food quality is excellent, and the staff in these restaurants are exceptional — professional, attentive, and genuinely welcoming.

The location of the hotel is disappointing, and the seaweed in the water significantly affects the beach experience. From the moment you arrive, guests are aggressively approached to buy memberships and real estate, which is totally unacceptable for a hotel stay. Once staff realize you are not interested, the attitude changes completely — they stop helping, including with something as basic as reserving a dinner table. Before our arrival, we emailed the hotel six times requesting a reservation for a New Year’s dinner, yet this was never properly handled. Tipping expectations are excessive. Staff openly demand 10–15% tips everywhere, and at the pool or beach, securing sunbeds for a family requires paying around USD 20, otherwise no help is provided. Waitstaff often will not bring cocktails if additional tips are not given, despite service charges already being included. The overall experience feels closer to a 3-star hotel, not a luxury property. Additionally, having to sign an electronic receipt for every single drink is inconvenient and not acceptable for a hotel of this category.

We stayed here over the new year holiday and unfortunately the experience was very poor with our room. When we checked in there were all kinds of maintenance issues: the toilet didn't flush, the tub didn't drain (so we had water in our tub for 18 hours), the shades didn't open, there were dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and the phones didn't work to call down to the front desk. It took us almost a day to get someone to come (they kept saying someone would but then we'd have to remind them and finally on day 2 they got most of the things fixed. During our stay more things kept breaking (the phone kept breaking so we had to go downstairs every time we needed something to ask the front desk, the the other set of shades broke, the shower pressure in our room was so bad we used the other bathroom). I think the hotel just overbooks things over the holidays (a nice waiter told us they were "120%" full) so they couldn't keep up with things. On day 2 we asked to change rooms due to all the problems but they were completely full so couldn't do anything. Besides that, the staff is nice and it's a nice location, but for the price having a broken room that can't be fixed or swapped out just isn't acceptable. I can't recommend coming here as the risk of a bad experience is just too high.

Overall: Nice resort, but Garza is NOT "all inclusive", rather "mostly inclusive." The beauty of all-inclusive is you escape to a fantasy world without money or limits — embrace your inner glutton and live like a pampered rich brat. Unfortunately Garza's approach made it impossible to turn off the "what's this going to cost me" part of my brain, and therefore we could never really relax as deeply as I have elsewhere. At every restaurant, a few menu items cost extra money. (Google menus for examples.) Ordering most food/drinks required use to sign a tab on the server's phone, and selecting a tip was often bluntly encouraged by some of the servers. (They would chase you down if you tried to walk away.) The beach beds were extra cost and even the Chromecast on the TV even required money! I understand that these resorts always have upsells: massages, excursions, private chef dinners, etc. But those are not in-your-face for every meal, snack, or visit to the bar. I saw those goddamn phones about 8-10 times every day and it really dampened the experience. ~~~ The good things! I found the resort to be clean, nicely maintained, and comfortable. Rooms were nicely sized, and quiet from hallway noise. The private pool off our room was excellent, we got good sunshine and felt safe for our baby. Aside from asking for tips, I found the staff to be kind and helpful. ~~~ The "good enough" things All the food was 'good' not 'great', I've had both better and worse in the Cancun region. The portions were generous, I was never hungry. The cocktails were good (sometimes watered down, as to be expected). The coffee situation was sub-par. Drip coffee was awful, and the "café" serves the breakfast restaurant and it was hard to get a grab-and-go espresso drink.

We had an excellent experience at the Garza Blanca. The facilities and restaurants were beyond our expectations and the staff were warm, friendly and professional. In particular, our butlers Sostenes and Arcos went above and beyond for us. From helping with dinner reservations, to answering all of our questions, to even making balloon animals for our baby, we were lucky to have them on our trip! Thank you for the great memories!