Villa de Sol
 

any thoughts? I have heard mixed reviews - everyone agrees that it's beautiful - some say the service is amazing others say mediocre and that they nickel and dime you the entire stay...any other feedback would be appreciated.

do a search on this web site for villa del sol. there are a ton of back and forths over this subject. generally to me that means that you should watch it because there are lots of resorts where people never complain...i.e. casa que canta (only good things i've seen).

TRY THE WEB SITE www.zihua.net. THERE IS A VERY GOOD FORUM THERE AND LOTS OF INFORMATION ABOUT ZIHUAT.

On the other hand, we had friends go to Casa Que Canta & say the food was mediocre, there were no lounges available around the pool & the walk to the beach was ridiculous. Point is, everyone has a different opinion. We have stayed at VDS & loved it. Any hotel can nickel & dime you but it's up to you what extras you purchase. I do not like their habit of adding a 10% service charge to the entire bill (Lots of hotels do that) & since we had paid the package in advance & tipped as we went,though charging it to the room, we did not pay the additional charge. It would have been 10% on top of 15 to 20% we already charged! It does say it is discretionary, so have them explain it to you upon check-in. My husband just laughed to himself when someone told us about their policy of not wanting you to use their frig for other itmes than they stocked. We did as we pleased & there was no problem. <BR>OK besides that, it was a beautiful, romantic, secluded hotel that we enjoyed very much. Good beach, fun beach restaurants to walk to, inexpensive & good food, quaint town, good shopping. Go & decide for youself!

it may seem funny that they watched what we put in the fridge..but they did. they marked every beverage and food item that was in there and took ours out if they didn't have a red mark on them (come on!). the staff were not friendly if you didn't want to order beverages on the beach or have lunch there everyday. i realize that they earn money that way, but with a 40 dollar lunch every day it is a bit excessive. i recently returned from Caneel Bay in St. John. While the room we had was much less deluxe (i.e. no plunge pool).... i thought it was more worth the money. no one bugged us, no one cared whether we put our own stuff in the fridge, and they went out of their way to make our trip special (i.e. having chilled champagne waiting for us because they found out it was my husband's birthday. VDS knew it was our honeymoon, but did not even say congrats. They tout this wonderful breakfast delivered to your room each morning... coffee with coffee mate and tiny (!!!) coissants. they expect you to pay 25 dollars for a lame breakfast at their restaurant. At Caneel, everytime we turned around there were tons of towels, bath and beach, there were extras to make you feel like the trip was worth it. There may have been lots of people there to serve us, but while we were there at a low time of year, there was very little serving to be done. I would return to Caneel in a heartbeat...VDS, i'd think twice. nancy

Hi Michelle: I'd ditto Nancy's comments and only add that Villa del Sol's policy on beverages made myself and my husband feel like we were teenagers hiding beer from our parents. Don't worry that we are in our thirties. It seemed insulting to us at the time, and frustrated us that we were paying so much for such ridiculous treatment. If you go to villa del sol, be sure to bring your own red marker and a sense of humor. Or at least your highschool year book to help you feel at home. Fiona

What a shame, it is such a beautiful hotel. I wonder if the management has changed since we were there in Oct 2000?<BR>Lunches were running about $25.00 for 2 with beer/wine then. And they cheerfully made other restaurant suggestions & even reservations. Well Michele, perhaps you should consider elsewhere. Along the western Mexican coast is also Hotel Costa Careyes & Tamarindo, north of Manzanillo or Punta Mita (overpriced to me) north of PV. Check out differentworld.com. Good luck!