The St. Regis Punta Mita Resort

This used to be our go to place, sadly I’m not sure we will ever stay here again. Everything has changed. This property is run down despite new renovation and the level of quality of food and food service is seriously lacking. What a shame. One of our favorite places has turned into a hugely disappointing experience. Upon arriving front desk informs us that we had two reservations booked. The website was acting up and Marriot bonvoy membership wasn’t working correctly. Obviously a mistake however she decided to handle the situation by telling us “there may be a penalty for having to cancel a double booked reservation” (we made the reservation the night before at 7pm and flew two hours from CA to arrive at 10:30am.) Clearly extremely poor hospitality and etiquette to treat guests like that. Obviously management had to get involved and finally apologized and corrected it. Food quality is so disappointing as this place once had GREAT food. They have absolutely ruined it. They closed Marietas wonderful dinner completely. Mita Mary is totally changed and food was disappointing. My shrimp and steak tacos came undercooked practically raw and prices are ridiculous. Quality terrible. Pool food is YUCK and drinks SUCK!!!!! They took away the lobby bar drinks like my favorite corn tequila drink cocktail , no more tacos el pastor or churros. Those delicious craft cocktails are gone. Now it’s just a cheesy lobby ho hum bar. The grounds are severely affected by dying plants. All of the palms are dying, everywhere is orange, yellow dying plants that were once lush and green. It is completely obvious that this property is run down, completely changed into an environment that I probably wouldn’t want to visit again. The pool tiles, walkways are falling apart. So rundown and just sad to see. Especially when we could go anywhere, when Four Seasons and Auberge are close by and we never would have wanted to switch because we used to love it so much here. It’s SO SAD to write a review like this about a place like this that once was my favorite and it’s just not the same anymore. :(

The St. Regis brand is lauded for their exceptional service and while they are a top luxury brand, there were a few misses during our week long stay. The property is beautifully maintained and everyday, we saw crews trimming the hedges just right, fixing one of their many water fountains, and raking the sand. Prior to our arrival I arranged transportation to/from the airport and the directions provided were very precise. Upon entering the gate for the resort, you are ensconced with the beautiful, lush greenery of the property. The property is huge as it shares the golf course with multiple resorts within the gates to include the Four Seasons. On your first trip to the property, it is a rather long drive as they want you to take in your surroundings, however, during your stay if you leave the property, they take a shorter exit. When we arrived, we were escorted to the veranda where we were welcomed by the lovely Jessica, who went over our reservation and explained the property. We were asked if we would like the NYT and USA Today daily and we chose the paper edition of both. We were excited to have a full printed newspaper that we could enjoy during breakfast. After about 20 minutes, we were shown to our room and within 10 minutes, Jaime, our assigned butler, arrived to go over their services as well as the room. We had a huge garden view room with a partial view of the ocean that included a private balcony as well as an outdoor shower that was lovely. Having a butler was very nice because you could text them for anything. I especially liked that each day, you could get 2 items pressed per person and they will also run you a bubble bath with salts which came in handy after a full day of excursions. The only complaint we had for the rooms was that the toilet lids did not soft close and instead, slammed down and also, they have the cheap Conair hair dryers, the ones that smell like it's going to catch fire if you use it for too long. I made the mistake of leaving behind my travel hair dryer and I implore you do not leave yours behind as you will regret it. The next day we awoke to discover that the "printed paper" left in our door handle, were just photocopies of each paper and not the whole paper either, so that was a bit disappointing. When we arrived for breakfast, another disappointment was that the free breakfast was only for the buffet. Although they have a menu, it is not free if you order from it. That was shocking because one of our favorite resorts is the Waldorf in Cabo and our breakfast could be ordered from the menu and their food was gourmet and delicious! As we were headed to the pool, I did not see a beach bag in our closet and when we contacted the butler, we were told that they do not provide beach bags! But guess who does, The Waldorf in Cabo! I had several beach bags at home and left them because I assumed the St. Regis would have provided one. Seriously, for the amount of money you pay per night, that is the least they could do. They do have 3 pools on property and only 1 is for adults only which was nice. The chairs are on a first come basis, so each day, we stopped by before breakfast to claim our chairs as we did not want to get stuck with a chair without umbrellas. When you look at the menu, it states that they provide fresh, complimentary snacks daily and that was so far from the truth. Only one day, did they bring around skewers of fresh melon, which I cannot eat. The Four Seasons Wailea, brings their guests fresh snacks, ice cream and etc, about every hour while you are hanging out poolside. The only thing St. Regis provided were complimentary ice buckets filled with bottles of water which was needed and very much appreciated. During our stay, we stopped by the spa and had a wonderful couples massage from Diana and Taymi. Their guide Neidit was also very nice and helpful with the lockers. While we had a wonderful and relaxing stay, it would have been nice if they had a lounge area to hangout or something to do on property. They do have several bars you can enjoy and we did enjoy hanging out with the guys in the lobby bar. The entire staff and the drivers were top notch and very professional. Thank you Alejandro for trying to find Luna (the resort cat) for us!

TL;DR - it's a beautiful property with stunning hard product. The service was generally awful. We booked a five night paid stay in a one bedroom suite booked through our Luxury Travel Advisor. As Marriott Ambassador members we applied Suite Night Awards and were upgraded to a one bedroom villa. The villa was stunning. A beautiful space with a stunning beach front living room, kitchen, bedroom and enormous bathroom. There was also a small 3/4 bath off the living room. Our stay began with a check in at the lobby, not in the room. Most hotels with villa level rooms perform check in activities in your suite or villa. Not here. Most hotels with villa level rooms have competent butlers. Not here. After being dropped in our room by the front desk staff, we were told that our butlers would be by shortly. Having stayed in many St Regis hotels we were excited about having our bags unpacked by our butler and looked forward to hearing more about the property. A butler did show up, but didn't enter our room, didn't offer unpacking, didn't offer more details about the property or their services (e.g. pressing service, morning coffee/tea). He just told me that our full team would be there the next day. So disappointing. Butler service continued to be disappointing - not bringing coffee/tea service as requested. Once we spoke to a manager, coffee/tea service did occur, but with one bag of tea for an entire pot of hot water (everything felt like a pull here; nothing was anticipated). Not returning messages in a timely manner (they would on average take an hour to respond). After day three I stopped using their services - although my husband did arrange airport transportation with them for our departure. On night two we were not able to sleep because the air conditioner malfunctioned and the fan loudly clanged and banged for the entire night. While they did arrive to fix it the next day, they did so without care to our belongings in the villa (going into the crawl space over our clothing in the closet without moving our belongings. Due to this "inconvenience" we were compensated with a $400 resort credit. A complete loss of a nights sleep for 1/4 of the cost of a one night stay. There were one or two restaurant servers/bartenders who were EXCELLENT. Hugo was outstanding. However all others were lackluster at best. We were sat one morning at breakfast and then moved once we went to the buffet because someone else had been sat at that table. No one offered to help with dishes moving from the buffet to the table. Coffee refills were hard to find. Beach service was inconsistent - on our first day someone brought a bucket of waters and then never returned again for orders (and there's no button or way to summon them). Silly first world problem challenges but not ones that you're looking for at a luxury resort. To be fair, housekeeping was exceptional every day, however at villa level properties, we're used to coordinating their time in the villa with our butler to ensure that they're there when we are not - no surprise that didn't happen here. It strikes me as unfortunate that a property that has an automatic 11% service charge added to the room rate has such lackluster service. Finally, typically when we stay at properties such as this there is a welcome bottle of wine, often from our Travel Advisor. There were three macaroons left as a welcome gift. Not even a bottle of water. This property did NOT feel like a luxury property in terms of service and care. We spoke with a few couples who split their time between the St Regis and the Four Seasons and they said there was no comparison in service - the Four Seasons was far better. I do wish that we would have switched properties after our first night as service did not improve despite taking the time to speak with several managers about our lackluster stay.

The hotel staff is amazing. You expect great service when staying at a St Regis, but somehow the staff here went above and beyond our already high expectations. The rooms are really great, and we had two garden view rooms, so the suites must be incredible. We had a private barbeque on the beach one night, which I recommend to folks in a large party. The only negative that I can think of is that the ocean was too rough for swimming, but since the pools never felt crowded we didn't care.

Top Notch... Butler service at its finest, from the car service to the check in everything was 100 percent effortless. Our room was beyond beautiful and we always had the staff making sure we had everything we needed. Even though the resort was full, we felt like the only guests there. Simply the best!