Binniguenda Huatulco

Charming and personal

Dinners

Quiet, clean, safe. Food was delicious and diverse, with local flavors, including cooked insects(!), and nightly show was terrific. Staff very friendly and with a few exceptions described below, very helpful. Lots of families w kids as well as adult couples, which was a comfortable atmosphere. Beautifully maintained grounds and clear efforts at preventing pollution and waste, as well as sustainability, such as providing refillable water bottles rather than packaged plastic bottles. Close to port for water-related activities, or a fast and inexpensive taxi ride to local towns and shopping or AMAZING restaurants. Local bus service is also easy to use and convenient, 7 pesos. They outdid anything I’ve ever seen with their New Years celebration.

1) The beach is a few blocks away. There is a designated section of the public beach just for hotel guests, w chairs and tables, a few cold snacks and a drink kiosk. A bus from the hotel runs every 20 minutes there and back. I misunderstood this on TripAdvisor as I asked for a beach hotel in filters, although I would argue I was misled. The reason I wanted a beach at the hotel was exactly the reason we did not enjoy this activity: packing. Snorkeling gear, towels, books, hats, and not forgetting anything to avoid a potentially 40 minute round trip on the bus was more stress than I wanted for my vacation. This is NOT a beachside hotel. 2) Poor customer service. I had booked a red eye and we arrived around 10 AM. I had emailed previously and was told they would try to accommodate an early check in. We were invited to change in the lobby bathroom but there was no clean place to do so. There is only air conditioning in the rooms. We sat by the pool in our clothes. They asked me to check back every hour, which I did, but we spent 5 hours in the heat, in our clothes until 3, the normal check in. I don’t know why they couldn’t make up our room out of order, as check out is 11. 3) Poor customer communication, maybe. I’m not sure if this is a language barrier, but information was difficult to obtain. I discovered the gym on day 3, despite having asked for a map on check in, which I was told did not exist. I had no idea a gym existed. I kept discovering that I would miss a deadline to sign up for a table or activity by 9 AM when I caught the warning in Spanish the night before. Then I’d have to rearrange my schedule to get on line to sign up. I had a constant low level of stress to be on top of whatever I needed to know, which was not relaxing. 4) Limited hotel activities. If my teen hadn’t met similar-aged people with which to hang out, she would have been miserable. Book a daily activity!