Dos Playas Faranda

Al principio no hubo agua caliente en nuestra habitación, pero nos reubicaron a unas habitaciones incluso mejores👍🏽 A los chicos del restaurante cielito lindo les falta un poco de organización, los demás restaurantes felicidades muy bien y mucha variedad, los meseros de iguanas super atentos 😉 El equipo de shows y animación execelente siempre con la energía arriba! Felicitaciones! También a los jardineros que mantienen el hotel muy bonito y paradisíaco!🤩🏝️

This was the first vacation our family has taken. We took our kids (6 and 3 at the time), and were offered a "kids stay free" deal, which made this an especially attractive destination in our case. I don't think anyone would claim this is a 5-star hotel - but this isn't why I'm giving 5 stars. My rating comes from the fact that our expectations were exceeded, and we constantly witnessed the staff working their butts off to make this modest resort into something special. We were expecting just two double beds in our room, but were pleasantly surprised to be greeted with one double and one king (which the kids immediately claimed as their own). There was also a large smart TV, a working safe, and a mini-fridge with water bottles which were replenished every day except our first. Just outside our room was a water filtration system where everyone in our vicinity could refill on clean water. Yes, the rooms were dated, but they were very well cleaned and maintained. Every room has its own modern AC unit, which offered instant respite during the hottest times of the day. With our kids taking naps, and us frequently returning to the room for showers and breaks from the heat, opportunities for our room to be cleaned were scattered and few - yet every day someone was checking throughout the day to see if our room was ready to be cleaned. Despite our own inconsistency, they managed to catch us out of the room and clean it every day. As parents who needed a break from cooking, the food was absolutely the highlight of the trip for us. There was initially some confusion about how many restaurants, bars, and snack bars would be available to us, due to the fact that Dos Playas Faranda and its nearby sister-hotel Maya Caribe share most of their facilities. In all, there are 6 places to get food from at various times of the day. We never went hungry: 1. Iguanas was the main buffet-based restaurant. We went there 1-3 times per day. The quality and variety of food was frankly incredible to us. Some days we were putting 15+ different things on our plates because we wanted to try them all. It has two buffets, one hot and one cold. Each offered a large variety of 10-20 different things to eat at every meal. There are also two made-to-order bars, one or both of which was open at any given meal. At these you could order specials such as eggs, pasta, tacos, etc... 2. Cielito Lindo is the other big restaurant. We only ended up going to breakfast there a couple of times. It also has a buffet, but is set up to be more of a full-service restaurant. We stuck with Iguanas for its big selection because our kids are picky. 3. There is a dedicated building for getting Sushi. It was undergoing repairs while we were there (Easter weekend), so a pop-up sushi bar was set up on the back porch of Iguanas, but they seemed to be back up and running on our last day. 4. A snack bar outside Cielito Lindo, open almost all the time, serving primarily fries, burgers and hot dogs. One of our kids' favourite spots, and a good way to get them to the beach when they were being lazy. 5. A coal-fired pizza place behind Iguanas, near the Sushi place. 6. A snack bar beside the pizza place offering hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, soft serve ice cream, and various baked goods. We took the kids for soft serve every day, and saw that they were diligent about cleaning out the soft serve machine every evening at close. Every day, they rotated the 2 flavours available (between chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla). 6.5. The main pool bar also has hot dogs available. There were 2 bars from which to get drinks, and they were always happy to make us alcohol-free (sin alcohol) blended drinks (e.g. strawberry daiquiris and piña coladas) for the kids so they didn't feel left out. We ended up settling on Mojito as our favourite daily drink. The restaurant waiters also always offered to order drinks on our behalf whenever we sat down for lunch or dinner. I have to emphasize how pleasant and hard-working we found the staff. Not just the bar staff, waiters, and entertainment staff (which were wonderful), but the dozens of staff we saw maintaining the grounds, tending to rooms, cleaning the aviary and kids playground, etc... daily. We were just beside-ourselves with how much care they were putting into the property at all hours of the day. Yes, the facilities can be called dated, but I would never call them run-down or neglected. For example, one recent review nearly scared us away, claiming that they must never clean the beaches due to all the seaweed (Sargassum) - but in the 10 or so times we hung out at the beach and watched the kids play, I must have seen staff wheel away 30+ wheelbarrows full of seaweed. It was a lot to keep up with, to be sure, but they were absolutely on top of it. The kids playground was a highlight for my children (6 and 3). It was relatively small, but they were eager to return 3 or 4 times a day. It was located beside a set of tennis courts (+1 pickle-ball court) that seemed well maintained, but we never saw them used (likely because it was too hot to imagine doing that much running). The playground was also located next to an adorable outdoor aviary! They had dozens of lovebirds and cockatiels in one cage, dozens of finches in another, and what I believe were a few doves in a third. The hotel property was adorned by what felt like 20-40 beautiful peacocks and peahens roaming around, just doing their thing, as well as dozens of iguanas, and a few other wild creatures I'm unable to name. My kids never ceased being thrilled every time they encountered these animals, it really added to the experience. Another favourite spot the kids kept wanting to return to was the Kio Pond in front of the sushi restaurant. It only had a couple of giant fishes in it, plus a small fountain and waterfall, but the kids had to come visit them multiple times a day! Every evening, at about 8pm, there was a different show put on, typically behind the Iguanas restaurant, by the pizza place and snack bar. We often only caught the first 30 minutes, due to the kids getting tired, but there was a great variety of professional performances, including dancing, singing and acrobatics. Throughout the day, often by the main pool beside Iguanas restaurant, there were short 30-60 minute events organized by the enteretainment staff to engage the guests. This included things like music and exercise, and setting up water-sports for whoever wanted to participate. The activities for the day were posted to a chalk board by the pool each morning for us to plan around. To our pleasant surprise, there was even a special Easter weekend event organized for all the guests with kids. The entertainment staff organized a large Easter egg hunt with toy eggs hidden throughout the grounds, and a variety of prizes ensuring every participant was rewarded. When some of the bigger kids began to dominate the main egg hunt, they were even attentive and kind enough to quickly hide additional eggs a bit further away (by the gym) and then went around to some of the smaller kids whispering that there were additional eggs to find over that way. This is the kind of above-and-beyond consideration that I feel is worthy of a 5-star review. Some miscellaneous notes and disclaimers: - We aren't big believers in tipping culture, but after doing some research, we decided that it would be kind and appropriate to bring a small pile of 20 and 50 peso notes ($1-3) to dole out throughout our stay. We left 50 pesos on our pillow each morning for the cleaning staff, or on our table after a meal where we were waited on, and 20 pesos most times we requested service from a bar tender or snack bar. This didn't end up being much money (less than $150 over 7 days), but we got the sense that it was well appreciated. That said, we witnessed that the majority of guests did not partake in tipping and were nevertheless treated with great kindness and diligence at all times, so I don't think our experience was continent on our tipping. - We had read many, many times online that VisiTax was not enforced, and we could get away with skipping it. We decided nevertheless that it was legitimate and the right thing to do, regardless of enforcement. Lo and behold, we were actually intercepted (politely) at the airport when departing to ensure that we had paid it, and to scan our QR codes, so I'm glad we took care of this in advance. - As you may have read elsewhere, the room stay does not include the environment fees. We were asked to pay for this on arrival. The numbers seemed scary at first glance (4 people x 7 days = 555 MXN), as we weren't yet familiar with the exchange rate, but this was only CAD $40 all-in, no big deal.

Benito, Jasiel, Esteban, Isabel y Fernando excelente equipo de animación. Realizan diferentes actividades para mantenerte entretenido cada hora del día. El ambiente es familiar, la playa es bonita, limpia y tranquila. Eduardo y el Sr Apolinar los mejores bar tender