Finest Playa Mujeres

I wrote a review while still at the hotel (on our second day) because the initial impression was that strong. Now that we are home and I’ve had time to think about our trip to the Finest Playa Mujeres I wanted to write a second review. Having previously stayed at the sister resort the Excellence Playa Mujeres my expectations were that these two resorts would basically be identical other then the fact that the Finest was child friendly - they do not compare in the slightest. Visually they were almost identical which made it easy to figure out where things were, but that was were the similarities ended. Would I stay at the Finest again, probably not, id rather spend my money elsewhere at a resort that offers better service, better food and ideally no cockroaches. The check-in experience I’d give a 1 out of 5. The staff were mediocrely friendly, uneducated on the resort itself which was very surprising and after multiple interactions before even checking in they became quite rude. **I should add here that after seeing my initial review on Trip Advisor I was contacted by a manager who apologized for our experience and offered a few free services to the Spa which we never actually received** The food id give a 3.5 out of 5 - this comparing it to our food experience with the Excellence which i gave a 5 out of 5. The food doesn’t compare on taste, quality or temperature, but visually it’s the same. The taste is just okay, variety is very random and not as child friendly as it should be, the hot food is warm at best but it all looked great. Service at the restaurants was all over the place - some servers were amazing (Ivan at the Market Kitchen was beyond amazing and my toddler loved him), but others seemed very irritated. The Cafe which has coffee and ice cream for the kids never had more then 3/4 flavours of ice cream in a machine that held much more and most of the time flavours were already gone. The room id give a 5 out of 5, but also a 1 out of 5 depending on what you are asking about. We stayed in a pool family suite and it was absolutely worth the money. They layout was perfect for staying with children of any age. The room was clean, they maintained the pool multiple times a day for you (cleaning out debris). The negatives would be that they do not offer new toiletries each at or from new guest to new guest but they simply refill bottles. Probably the biggest negative for me was the bug factor - the ground floor rooms have lots of plants which meant lots of mosquitoes (make sure you bring A TON of bug spray), you also cannot leave anything out on the counters in the room because little ants will swarm (we had sealed bags of things and they still came), and lastly on our last night a pretty large cockroach crawled into our room from under our door. The grounds/beach id give a 4 out of 5. The beach (the normal section) does not have enough palapas with views of the ocean, the majority of them are behind a grassy hill. The Finest and Excellence sections of the beach had more for sure (but if you stay in a pool family suit that is t an option). The rest of the grounds were well kept, always lots of towels to be had by the beach or pool and they were always working away to keep it that way. Overall I’d say I was pretty disappointed not necessarily because of what we spent but more because I had the assumption the quality would be the same and it wasn’t. If you have never stayed at the Excellence then I’d say the Finest is an really great option to a top quality all inclusive experience not like your normal all inclusive. If you’ve stayed at the excellence and want to bring the kids this time - is go elsewhere.

This was our third visit to an Excellence resort and the first to the family suitable Finest. Two previous visits to the adults only Excellence next door. All of these collections have one thing in common.......PERFECT service. We arrived for spring break and unfortunately the world was dealing with the coronavirus outbreak so many families were leaving early. The staff was extremely professional and never missed a beat, even as they knew the resort was losing guests and would probably need to shut down for a month or so. We were always greeted with smiles and excellent service. At the Finest I highly recommend the Club upgrade as you get access to the nicest lounging and the best service at the beach. You also are placed in the rooms closest to the main beach and pool area, but everything is within a easy walk. Plus the upgrades in room service as well as the dedicated restaurant made it worth the extra cost. The food at the restaurants is all very good, with many options to choose from. The nightly entertainment was also exceptionally good. You will not regret booking at these properties. I would like to recognize a few of the service team members for there awesome service. We spent most of the day at the Club beach section and had perfect service. Luis, Angel, Oscar, Sean and Damian did a fantastic job making sure everything was to our liking. Isabell and Omar always made sure we had all the food or drinks or "Buckets of Coors Light" (LOL) we could handle. And Felipe and Roger were also very helpful and did everything in there power to make sure we had a great time. Thank you to the Finest management team for having such great employees!! Please make sure you get all these people back on board as soon as you open back up. If you have to be selective to start back up, you and the guests will be greatly served by the great professionals I named above. We will be booking again soon and cannot wait to come back!!