Zona Hotelera

Zona Hotelera Review

The high-rise-backed Zona Hotelera beach goes by several monikers—mainly Playa Las Glorias but also Playa Los Tules around the Holiday Inn and Fiesta Americana hotels. Most people, however, just refer to each piece of beach by the hotel that it faces. Interrupted here and there by breakwaters, this fringe of gray-beige sand is generally flat but slopes down to the water. Winds and tides sometimes strew it with stones that make it less pleasant. Hit hard by Hurricane Kenna in 2002, the Sheraton, at the south end of the strip, had tons of sand deposited on its beach in 2005; it is, therefore, sandier than its neighbors, although still pocked with smooth, egg-size rocks. Some of the hotels, in particular Hotel Pelícanos and Canto del Sol, have no beach in front of their property; the water laps right at the hotel breakwater, even at low tide. Facilities: Banana-boat rides, Jet Skis, parasailing, snorkeling; food concessions.