The St. Regis Kanai Resort, Riviera Maya Reviews

We stayed 6 nights with our two daughters who are in their mid-20s. It is a beautiful hotel and only has 120 rooms so it is not crazy busy like the giant ones closer to Cancun. That said at some points it did seem a bit sleepy as most of the rooms were taken by a conference who were doing their own events separate from the restaurant. The hotel has basically been open a year and we really enjoyed it and would recommend it, but they have a few kinks to work out. Here are our pros/cons. I know the cons are longer than the pros but we really did enjoy the hotel so I write these for the management to see the issues and address them rather than complain as most were relatively minor things. Pros: beautiful modern design honoring the Mayan culture. It sits on over 2000 columns on top of the mangroves. There are great sightlines and views from almost everywhere. They use a lot of water features and plants all over the hotel to create a great vibe. The rooms were beautiful with modern layout and great views of the pool and beach area. The pool areas were very well designed with infinity edges facing the beach. They had lots of comfy lounge chairs and poolside beds and the drink/food service was super attentive/fast/nice. Also every hour or so the pool staff would bring around free food surprises - small smoothie shots, fresh juice popsicles, etc. In terms of activities, the hotel offers several interesting classes each day (salsa making, beer tasting, cocktail making, hand painting, guac making, etc.) and almost all the ones we went to were well done. The breakfast buffet is solid (not amazing as other places in playa but very good) and we had excellent service during breakfast — never having our coffee cups go empty or our used plates sit for more than a minute. The bar was nice and they had a champagne sabering each night like all St. Regis hotels. The bartenders were good and so were the drinks, Cons: We are quite used to resort price up charges having travelled to 5-star hotels all over the world but the St. Regis seemed over the top expensive - for example we had to buy a bottle of Sun Bum sunscreen and it cost $48 vs $18 on Amazon. I get that they’re going to up-charge things like that in a hotel but 3X is too much. The same was true for drinks. We appreciated that they provide you a “butler” during your stay to coordinate everything for you but we had two issues with it 1. They did not tell us about it ahead of time or the fact that they communicate via What’s App so we tried to download it on the spot but couldn’t create an account (probably some security feature about creating an account outside your home territory?) so then we had to try and communicate via Apple messages, 2. Our butler was attentive about some things (telling us he was going home that night) but not about replying to some requests… and isn’t that the whole point of having him? Moreover the concierge booked our dinner reservations each night and sent