January 26, 2010
There are five Hacienda hotels operated by Starwood under Luxury Collection Brand. Hacienda San Jose is the closest one to Cancun, Hacienda Temozon is the largest one with 28 rooms and Santa Rosa is the smallest among them with only 11 rooms. The building was built in Mid 1800 and changed various owner before it was abandoned. Then Roberto Hernandez-a Mexican billionaire bought numbers of them changed some of them to hotels.
Before
After “Hotel Lobby”
Before
After
Before
After”Swimming Pool”
How to get there: The hotel is located in local Santa Rosa Village, 360 km from Cancun or 80km south of Merida. Drive from Cancun is easy, the hotel website posts detailed driving direction. Just make sure get full tank of gas before getting on freeway, only 1 Gas service station on Cancun-Merida Express toll road. The toll is almost $30 USD per way!
Check in was fast and easy considered the size of the hotel and was offered a welcome drink.
lobby main building
Room: I booked the hotel in last minutes, so only double bed room left and hotel was fully booked, but the Manager was able to change us to a King size Suite after first two nights. Our first double room was located in side Heritage building and had Plunge pool in the back shared with Room 9 and 10.
Then Our king Bed suite Room 10
Internet/Business center: Free and fast and covers all rooms in hotel
Pool: The hotel has two small pools with no heater, it was cold.
Restaurant: The hotel has one restaurant located on back of main building. The food is good and reasonable priced. However, Lunch and dinner are same menu and selections are not so great. Also, except in house manager and assistant manager in training, everyone else is from local Santa Rosa village, so there may be some communication barriers. I always ordered 2 eggs one boiled and another double side fried. They either made two boiled, or sunny side up, but they made right after I pointed out. There were no set time for Breakfast, I woke up around 1:00 pm, they still prepared BF for us. The house made bread was soooooooooo good!
More About this Hotel: The hotel employees are very friendly and try to accommodate you in every possible way. We arrived on Dec 31st, the entire hotel had a new year eve celebration program starting from 8:30 pm and 5 course dinner from 9:30pm for only $80 USD per person, but after long drive, my wife and I were very tired and could not wait until 9:30 pm for dinner, we decided to eat dinner in our backyard. They had no problem with that despite the kitchen was busy for everyone else.
Getting Around: there are several similar size village around that area with abandoned Hacientas in each village. Plenty things to do to keep you busy, you can go to Celeston to see Flamingo, go to Uxmal Mayan Ruin or Chichen Itza(closer from Santa Rosa than from Cancun). If you want to explor a Cave, there is one 4km long dark cave located not far from hotel.
Personally, I like the hotel a lot and will definite visit other Haciendas next time. If you want to see real Maya and mexico, this is the place to go, not Cancun.
local village shop
local residence
abandoned Haciendas in nearby Village
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip, Starwood Hotels |
January 11, 2010
The hotel is not suitable for couples, there are kids running everywhere. If you want some place quite, go to next door, JW Marriott.
How to get there: Shuttle or rental. Cancun is a tourist city, you don’t feel u are in Mexico at all. As I mentioned in another post, I had rental car from Avis
Room: The room is located on side of third floor and just average size and similar look to all Marriott rooms on earth, but it was renovated. Also, the room on third floor has larger balcony than other floors. Unfortunately, the room has no coffee maker. Next day, Frond desk changed our room to King size after 20 minutes search. The king size room looked bigger than double with a sofa.
View from our room(note there is tiny beach at hotel)
Internet/Business center: wireless 1 day 210 peso, 4 days 6xx+ peso, 7 days 10xx peso. I don’t like hotels that still charge wifi, but I understand this is one way hotel making revenue. Can not complaint too much since I am in the tourist hotel zone。 However, this hotel has one of the worst paid internet connections ever.No business center at this hotel, have to go to JW to print.
Pool: There is only one pool in this hotel and it is pretty big. However, u will see a lot of kids playing in the pool and more than a hundred beach chairs around the pool. Fortunately, I can still manage to swim.
Restaurant: The hotel has many restaurants
1 Sasi Thai restaurants, don’t suggest to eat there, not best Thai food.
2 Mikito: Japanese restaurants have Susi and Taipan food. I did not eat Susi here, but Taipan Beef were very good
3 One Steakhouse I did not go,
Beach: The beach is white sand, and soft, I think it was rocky, but the hotel made a lot of effort to make beach better. The beach restoration project is done, I will show you some picture during the progress. The work finished in just few days
Snorkel: No way!
Getting Around: Get a car, there are several shopping center and countless convenience store in hotel zone, but no supermarket. If you want to buy some groceries, you need to drive to downtown Cancun, there is Wal Mart there. Drive in hotel zone is easy, but in Cancun City is not, the road is very complicated and sign is not clear. It reminds me driving in New Jersey, where you have main road and service road. Cancun center has many roundabouts, the hard part is every roundabout has traffic from main road and service road. Easy to get confused.
To be honestly, Cancun is just like Vegas, only difference is location. You don’t feel u are in Mexico at all. If you want some true Mexico experience, should try to somewhere else as we eventually decided to go to Santa Rosa
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip, Marriott |
January 10, 2010
I took this flight from CZM-CUN, even got miles posted to my Delta account.
Check in area
In bound flight arrived from Cun with 2 passengers
Cozumel
Cancun
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
December 24, 2009
Sometimes you just can not be too nice. I mentioned below, the buildview room Internet was not working correctly even with antenna. I was trying to use Internet on my bed, the reception was completely lost. I went to front desk again, this time I talked to the manager, it only took her 2 minutes to find a room for us!
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip, Marriott |
December 24, 2009
I have complainted about my experience as Marriott elite here, now more to say!
As I said earlier, we had 4 paid nights(My wife name) and 7 awards(My name) and I emailed them month ago to ask them link the reservations to prevent changing rooms, they also emailed me back and confirmed. At checkin, the agent had no information of linking two reservations and told us to check out after four nights and check back in with my name.
They also could not find a King size room, not they don’t have any, they are available for upsell. Fine, the next day, I went down stair to see if there was king size open up. After 20 minutes digging, they finally found one and we changed our room to king size oceanview.
Today, I checked out my wife room and check back in, they spent another 15 minutes digging, then told me there was no way to keep the same room because the room I had was a connecting room, need to gave to family with kids and I was assigned to a Buildingview King size room overlooking the hotel building(not JW) next door. Fine, changed to third room. since I booked use points, I got what I booked.
After I moved to the Buildingview room, the room has no wireless reception, so I went to front desk again to see if there was any room to change. The same agent offered me an antenna, so I can connect to Internet. The speed is very unstable and slower than the last room I was in. I went to talk to them again, they started to BS “Sir, the entire resort is having internet connection problem, they are fixing right now.” I told her the Internet was working perfectly in last room.
Then she started to dig again for room, finally, she told there was same type room available on second floor, but only for 3 days because a family is coming and requested for a connecting room, If I want the room, I have to move again. I told her my current room is connecting too, she did not answer my question. Now, I am getting very tired of asking for changing anything, just thanked her and left.
Do they still have room for sale? no, not really on the Internet except Suites and Building view room, but they do have room available to sell at front desk. While I was at front desk, almost every guest was asked a option for upsell to a better room. I was offered to a Oceanfront room for additional $110 per day in smoking section.
That’s what happened so far to two Marriott Elite members. I know nothing was guranteed except room type in my reservation so I am not complaining, just tell u the story what to expect as a Marriott elite member.
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip, Marriott |
December 23, 2009
I canceled my reservation for new years eve 5 nights at Le Meridien Cancun on points and changed to Hacienda Santa Rose, a hotel with only 11 rooms.
I did not book Hacienda hotels at first place because I was not thinking of renting a car.I eventually decided to take a car, but still did not thinking of changing hotels. After those days in Cancun, I didn’t feel I am in Mexico and finally decided to change the hotel. it’s too crowded here.
It’s good to have points, so I can still make those last minutes change without additional cost!!
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
December 20, 2009
I took the flight from Cozumel to Cancun yesterday, which was the shortest flight I ever took with commercial airlines.
The flight was 4:00pm today, so I arrived the CZM airport one and half hours prior to departure as usual. Since the flight number is AM9720 operated by Mayair, I assume this is just like some kind of United Express flight and proceed to the AM check in desk.
Once I told agent the flight time, she advised me the flight is on MAYAir and it is not in the main terminal building, it’s in the small building outside of arrival hall. I walked into the building, there was no one at check in counter, in fact, there was no check in counter at all. I confirmed with the only person at security, I was in the right place.
Around 3:10pm, few more passenger arrived, a man came out with binder and asked everyone for ID to matched name with his “list”, that was check in process, no boarding pass, no luggague tag, nothing. At same time, the inbound flight from Cancun arrived, Only 2 passangers came out of aircraft. I wonder how the airline still make money with $140 revenue for the flight.
Around 3:45pm, we started clearing security and board the plance, the plane was a Shorts 360 with 19 passanger seats and flying time to Cancun was only 15 minutes with 1500 feet attitude. No flight Attendant, no lavatory on the plane. To be honestly, the flying expereince was a lot of better than those Turbo Prop used by United Express.
The Flight left CZM on time and arrived CUN on time at 4:20pm, that’s when the problem began. I did not know the plane was landed in FBO terminal, which for Private jet and choppers.
After I got my luggage, Mayair employee told us there will be a shuttle take us to terminal 2, where we can connect our flight or go to rental car. We waited, waited, waited until 5:00pm, the shuttle finally arrived. I thought terminal 2 or rental car facility must be very far, it turned out the Avis rental car only 5 minutes walking distance from FBO terminal parking. The shuttle dropped us off at T2 and Avis rental location already insight, it’s pretty much same distance from T2 to Avis compare to FBO Terminal to Avis. Finally, at 5:45pm, I got my car.
If you ever need to take flight from Cozumel to Cancun, here is few suggestions.
1 No need to arrive CZM early, 30 minutes prior to departure is more than enough.
2 don’t worry about luggege weight, no weights scales.
3 Either have pre arrange transportation at CUN airport or
4 For rental car, don’t wait for shuttle, take a walk, once u exit the FBO parking lot, you will see rental car company.
PS, I booked my tickets from Orbitz.com for $74 each.
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip, Airports |
May 25, 2009
Wifi connections in Europe are every expensive at hotels, one day may cost you 30+ euro, sign up this ATT Wifi Premuim membership for only 19.99 per month with 1 year contract, you can get unlimited wifi service with free roaming on thousans of international locations.
Many roaming services are provided by ipass.
Although I had some diffculty on first time using it, it’s working very well after I figure out how the connection sofeware works.
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
May 24, 2009
I am currently in Europe now, one liter of gas cost approx 1 euro. the car I am driving has 80 liters gas tank. so a full tank of gas will cost 80 euro, approx 110 USD
In US, with a tank of 20 gallon and 2.5 per gallon, full tank will cost only 50 USD
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
May 21, 2009
Just two months ago, US dollar was relatively strong, which makes international trip a lot cheaper.
now it is heading down SHARPLY
today 1 Euro = 1.39 USD, 1 pound=1.58USD
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
April 23, 2009
The banyan tree Ringa is located in a local Tibet village, 20 mins outside of shangri la town in yunnan Province, some hotel villas were even coveted from local Tibet home.
The view is stunning, and will be even better in May. the tempture different is huge during the day. I still didn’t feel warm enough even after I turned all 7 Air conditions on. since the location is more than 3000 meters above sea level, I kept waking up at night due to highland effect.
Here are some photos from hotel
View from yard
bath room
Hot pot dinner
Posted by Troy under 2009Trip |
