Vista Encantada Spa Resort and Residences, Los Cabos Mexico

With new management this resort could be a contender for a true 5* but many things would need to change first.  Not going to lie, the first impressions of this resort is that it is not very well run.  I am sitting here waiting to get into my room, and the person who checked us in yawned approximately 20 times in our faces.  I did however get a complimentary margarita when I came and it was quite strong so that helped with the slow check-in process.  The person who checked us in, gave us the impression that it would be a short wait to get into our room and I sat for over an hour and a half in the lobby.

View from the lobby

There are really pretty views of the hills and beaches and ocean from the lobby.  It is not a large lobby. It's quite squishy but they make the most of it.  I sat in the lobby for a long time and my room was actually ready the whole time that I sat. There was a lack of communication between the maid and the man who checked us in and he didn't text me to let me know like he promised. He actually completely forgot about me, because when I went up to him and asked him if the room was ready, he did not even recognize me.  I approached him and asked about the room because it looked like the room was ready when I walked past it.  It seems the staff are more concerned about talking to each other than actually being good at their job. 

I actually found my own room, I found my own way in and walked around our unit and then went and got a porter to roll the bags just down the hallway because we ended up being on lobby level which was actually 4 stories up the hill. I gave the porter a measly 20 pesos because to be honest he didn't deserve much more.

I checked over the kitchen situation and the nice thing is we had an ice maker but I did not find one paring knife, long knife, sharp knife any kind of knife other than butter knives?  I went to the phone and pressed the button for the front desk five different times and it didn't appear to work.  Then I went to the other phones in the other bedrooms and they did the exact same thing.  This front desk staff appear to be so lazy and untrained, I would not be surprised if they actually turned the front desk button off on all of the phones.  I had to walk back to the front desk and ask for some knives, we still did not get a knife.  I then sent Darren later that night to ask for a sharp knife and they brought us one a few hours after that.  We cook a lot, we cut up a lot of vegetables so we needed sharp knives.  The cleaning staff (females) are very impressive at their jobs!!  Their tip was worked into the bill and I sure hope they received it because they certainly deserved it.  

There were three large bags of Hacienda Encantada Coffee and I'm very interested to see how much they would have charged us for those because they were big. We chose to buy our own coffee and not chance the ridiculously expensive charge.  

Good sized kitchen

First impressions are important and the check in situation left a bad taste in our mouths for a few hours.  However, once I got over the initial first impression of Vista Encantada, I settled in and had a comfortable stay. 

We had a three-bedroom four bathroom unit for the first week, that was quite large.  The kitchen had a 12-ft long narrow island and most everything that you needed to cook except for sharp knives, a dishwasher and an oven.  It turned out that the ice maker did not use filtered water so we could not eat the ice, but there is an ice maker on every second floor.  There was a large dining room that sat 8 and a living room that I have yet to sit in. 

The outdoor balcony had a small cold dipping pool/ whirlpool and a barbecue that is not very common in Mexico.  There was a table with four chairs, two lounge chairs, and two chairs with ottomans and two side tables.  The balcony was very well furnished.  The style of the units was Hacienda and was quite fitting for this Mexican resort.  But there was a weird art/design element that we labeled 'Creepy Carnival'.  They were quite hideous so I had to take a photo of some of them in the units that we were in. 

This dude creeped me out.

We were fortunate enough to be located high enough up on the fourth level to get a gorgeous ocean view.  There are several Beach lots or Ocean front lots available for sale and that was also part of our view.  

Private Master Bedroom Balcony (first week)

4 Bedroom Master Bedroom balcony.

The dipping pool had a whirlpool button on it but the water was cold and the heater was not working.  We finally realized this when we checked into our 4 bedroom unit and the dipping pool was heated that we realized this situation.

Barbecues are very uncommon in Mexican timeshares.

The bedrooms all had very comfortable beds, but with the most ridiculous sized single pillows that we've ever seen on a king size bed. In fact, the group of us were laughing at how ridiculous they looked, not to mention how uncomfortable and lumpy they were.  They felt ancient.

Worlds most uncomfortable pillows.

Pretty bedrooms.

  

The bathrooms unfortunately did not have a bathtub in the 3 bedroom unit but in the 4 bedroom unit there was a beautiful tub, but at least there were two sinks, a separate water closet, and a very nice shower that had a rain shower head with plenty of hot water in the 3 bathrooms.  The extra bathroom in the hallway had a toilet and large sink and rarely was used.

My tub in the 4 bedroom unit for our second week.  It had a Juliet balcony of hill view and a view of the ocean from the private balcony.

 

Double shower head in all the showers.

There was a separate laundry room with stacked appliances.  It is always nice to have laundry in unit especially when you are travelling for several weeks.

The wifi was strong at this resort which is always appreciated.

My impression of this Resort is that as soon as I said no to purchasing the all-inclusive for $250 American per day/ person (I also said no to a timeshare talk), I quickly became a second-class citizen in their eyes and then they didn't really pay us much much attention after that.

The rooftop pool affords gorgeous views of Land's End and the ocean.  You can view from afar, whales spouting and breaching but the sightings were certainly fewer than from the pool at sand level at the Grand Solmar Pacific Dunes.  The pool was very posh and they had very comfortable seating. There was a roped off bottle-service area on the rooftop that we did not see one person in there in two weeks.  It certainly was not logical to waste that much real estate.

Views at dusk.

This was the warm pool that had the best views of Lands End.

This was the other pool that looked towards San Jose del Cabo.

Rooftop bar that was barely used due to the price of the overpriced drinks.

The hot tub.

There was a workout center that was extremely nice and large with a ton of equipment up on the rooftop pool level. We played pickle ball every day so I never worked out once in it but Corinne did.

Once again at these posh timeshares, the happy hour drinks were extremely expensive and we did not even purchase one. We just bought alcohol and mix and made our own drinks.  If these timeshares would only learn that if you drop your prices somewhat, people will buy them. Consequently, the staff on the rooftop pool bar we're not busy because there were not many people drinking because the drinks were just too expensive.  We ate one of our meals in one of the numerous restaurants here. It was at the Hacienda pool restaurant and I ordered tacos and they were just ok and very expensive.  At this property which is also coupled with the Hacienda Encantada the prices are pricey and chose to take an Uber and leave the property to eat  out or make our own meals in the kitchen.  There is a free shuttle that you have to book in advance and it takes you to Los Cabos and drops you off at the Marina Fiesta Resort which is their sister resort.  This goes every two hours.

This resort contained four pickle ball courts that you did not have to reserve and the people that came with us on this trip brought their own pickle ball rackets. It was a perfect situation and we could use the courts whenever we wanted to.  

There is a lighthouse that is up on top of the hill and we tried to walk up to it  but it is Federal Marina land and we were not allowed.  It would have had very pretty views. 

There is also a gorgeous little church at the top of the hill that also has very good views.  

The grounds are very extensive at this resort and are quite well maintained with gorgeous colors of different bougainvillea. 

One of the hallways.  I did love the floor tile that the designer chose.

One of the doorways to one of the separate residences within this huge complex.

Joelle and Craig.

Continuous killer views from our Rooftop pool.  There was a hot pool, cool pool and hot tub which all were infinity.

One of the Hacienda pools.

Many pretty fountains throughout the resort.

You can explore the rocky beach if you are willing to scramble over rocks to explore.

We were staying two weeks at this resort and had assumed that it would be an easy transfer but we were wrong.  They kept telling us that it would be quick but it was not.  We did not get into our next unit until after 4:00 pm.  The front desk guy kept telling us that he had sent the bellboys to get our luggage and store it but he kept forgetting.  He said that he would send the maids to clean our next unit's kitchen so that we could transfer the cold items but none of this happened, he kept forgetting.  When we finally did get into our unit, the kitchen was missing so many things, but it had knives.  It had a whole wood block of knives so the other unit we were in obviously had this stolen by a staff member or patron and it was never replaced.  Our new unit was missing the large frying pan, the kettle, the potato peeler, the makeup mirror from the Master bedroom, one of the housecoats from the Master bedroom etc etc.  Inventory obviously does not take place after every check out which it needs to at every resort.  One of the bedrooms did not have the body wash, shampoo, conditioner and lotion.  The staff here are fairly incompetent except the maids who clean very well and are very sweet and seem to be very good at their job, but who is taking all of these items?

Personally I would never buy into this resort because most of the staff are so poorly trained or simply not fired when they should be.  This resort could so easily be a true five star with someone in charge to shape up the staff.  Consistency is key.

There was construction next door which did not bother us except for the last two days.  There was a big machine that was hammering at boulders trying to split them so that they could be carried away.  It was a jack hammer on steroids basically.  This was annoying and not reported to Interval International.  It should have said ongoing construction on the notes when I did these exchanges.

Lovely large balconies in both of our units.  The Master bedroom had its own private balcony as well, which I loved for working and reading.

Strange bulky TV stand in the Master Bedroom.  This was not well thought out, it destroyed the flow of the beautiful suite.

My private Master Bedroom Balcony was huge.

The four bedroom unit had a card table and a wine storage area which I thought both were ridiculous and the space could have been better used to increase the kitchen size.

I would not return to this resort for a couple of reasons.  One is that it is not directly on the beach. It is on a cliff and I prefer the beach so that I can walk and the other reason is that the male staff are not that good.  The lack of inventory-taking of the kitchen and bathrooms and bedrooms was extremely frustrating to deal with.

The units were very large.

Large hallways in the units.  An empty umbrella stand but we had 4 umbrellas in our second unit.

The living room couch was leather and extremely slippery and uncomfortable and the cushions would slide out.  The ceiling beams though made the unit look very pretty and ascetically pleasing.

Slippers and housecoats were supplied in the 3 bedroom unit but we only had one in the Master bedroom of the 4 bedroom unit for the second week.  Even though I talked to our butler and reminded him twice we still did not get another one.  The one that was supplied was a child sized housecoat that made me feel like Jethrine.

Very pretty views.

Views from the top of the cliff.

We had lovely views of the ocean off of our balcony for both weeks.  We even saw the occasional whale breaching from our balcony.  With a change in management or if this resort is purchased by a better managed name then I would consider returning.  Regardless, we all had a good time with these first world issues.