Zona Dorada Holidays from £1,453

Let me start by saying I’ve stayed here a few times and always have loved it. The rooms are beautiful still the staff is very friendly until something comes up then you can feel tension. I’m not gonna go into full detail about everything but I’ll just say this. You need to understand if you’re staying here. You’re going to hear loud music played at the pool during the weekends very hard to relax in your room with thumping music. Second and the part that made this stay very difficult was the Wi-Fi would drop every 30 to 45 minutes. The TV in the bedroom wouldn’t play anything because it couldn’t get a signal and they tried to make up excuse after excuse saying the rain does that although it didn’t rain the whole time I was there and then I got an email from the owner saying that the Head staff told him it was my phone configuration. It ended up being something we talked about the entire stay, which is a shame because again the place is beautiful.

The trip was wonderful food at the place is outstanding

Customer facing staff (servers, concierge) were outstanding. Kudos to Leonardo, Ulyses, Omar, Alex and Alfredo. Back office staff (room staff, admin) not quite so good. We only got nightly turn down service about 50% of the time and our welcome letter was addressed to someone else. Emilianos restaurant was disappointing. The main room was closed and we were shunted into a spare room, square with white walls, little decoration and no entertainment - the atmosphere was terrible. We dined on the patio a second evening, and it appears they had a static menu as we could spot no differences from our first visit. To cap it all, the food was overcooked. Fortunately, the hotel offers complementary dining at its sister locations. Tau, on the beach, was our savior. The service was excellent both during the day and at night, and the food outstanding. Their menu varied night to night, they had an excellent singer providing entertainment, and the open air ambiance completed the experience. Well done to Leslie and her staff of Saul, Isaac, Antonio, Enrique and Erick. We also went to the Andrea restaurant in Velas Vallarta, but after being served by a disinterested water in a room of screaming children running around we vowed to never go back. Finally we went to Grand Velas and dined in their Piaf restaurant. It was the culinary highlight of our trip. Overall, though, we had a very pleasant experience at Casa Velas. Would we go back there? The jury is still out on this.