Ava Resort Cancun

This hotel has been long awaited and given the hype of the 5 diamond experience we were excited to say the least. Amenities while the hotel looks to be under construction still, the inside of the hotel looks unfinished and unpolished. A lot of unused space and the lighting is lacking. The pool areas are impeccable. Very beautiful and gives a luxurious experience. Staff... not everyone has been the friendliest. I must say Staff by the pool and restaurants are the most attentive and friendly one. The reception is not. They are not looking to accommodate or provide better insight to solutions. I made a few "request" upon checking in that fell into deaf ears. And as the front face of the hotel left me very dissapointed. Food, while there very mixed reviews the truth is dinners have been espectacular. We are happy with the food selection and the actual food. Copal is our favorite rest by far. A true gem of authentic Mexican food. Now the buffets are very repetitive. Same bland food, super limited options. Long wait lines and simply not good. Room service takes almost 2 hours to b3 delivered and its not spectacular. The churros are the saddest we have ever had. While the hotel is promising and has lots of potential their management is not the best. Service is all over the place and given the convention going on at the moment the planning is falling behind, leaving Legendary menbers and regular guest lost in between the crowds. I wish I had waited until next summer to come they are weren't ready for all these guests and the experience has lacked. We are here now and leaving in 2 days. I felt the need to write the review as my memory is fresh and don't want to miss anything The croissants are wonderful and the option to heat them up is fabulous they get extra points but pleaseeeeee being whipped cream to the aroma Cafe area. Read less

We traveled with good friends to enjoy the weather and atmosphere in Cancun...AVA was a spectacular resort, with well-laid out, spacious, ocean view rooms, multiple pools, restaurants, and activities. 10 onsite restaurants with spectacular food (Black Iron Grill was our favorite, be sure to make reservations early). Service was friendly and welcoming everywhere, from our onsite advisors Axel and Andres, to Jesus at the Legends Restaurant, to Alejandro, Brito, and other attentive pool-side staff. We enjoyed fantastic massages and facials in the spa (Elvia was superb), and workouts in the fitness center with yoga classes led by Inty. We had a fun time participating in the Mixology class and trying out the Formula 1 driving simulator. We played the adjacent Riviera Cancun golf course, well-kept but fairly wet at the time from recent rain (be on the lookout for the gator on hole 18:-)). We enjoyed a sunset cruise to Isla Mujeres one evening, arranged through the onsite Vacation Makers staff; we would have done more but there was so much to do and enjoy at the resort! Highly recommend for those looking to kick back and relax! Read less

Unfortunately, our experience at Ava was not worth the price we paid. In summary, Ava booked far too many guests than they were prepared to accommodate. The Resort is unfinished, unprepared, and lacks efficiencies that guests expect when staying at a resort of that magnitude and cost. TRANSPORTATION/LOCATION: The Location is great, a short drive from the airport and transportation was as expected. No issues here. Arriving to Ava, we drove down a long driveway with a metal fence on one side and hundreds of staff walking along the side of the road, I assume they were leaving for the day? Driving into Ava was underwhelming and looked unfinished and industrial. CHECK-IN: Upon arrival, a Bellman took our bags and pointed us to the check in lines. When we walked inside we were not greeted by anyone, no welcome drink, no towel, no hellos. We got in line for check-in. Check in took about 40 minutes start to finish. We signed lots of waivers, it was all paper rather than electronic, which was a bit concerning as they ran off photo copies of our passports and simply lay them on the counter, where anyone could have grabbed them. During check in, a family came up beside us to complain about something and the staff ignored them, then told them to go get in a line, it seemed insensitive, the guests were clearly very upset about something. Another guest came up to get their wristband keys updated, and were upset saying that bellman and arriving guests walked INTO their room as they were showering, which to the least of their concerns, deactivated their own wristbands to their room. The family looked at us and said sternly “Yes, that actually hapened!” EEEK! Finally, we had our wristbands and walked to our room. Unfortunately, they did not work to unlock the door, so we had to go back and do the whole thing over again, this took another 20 minutes. Check-in was rough, but we hoped we were past the hard part. ROOM F&F DECK SUITE: The room size was pretty good. The main bed was super comfy. The kids room was good, cute star ceiling. They need a space to hang wet clothes/towels, and the bathroom is small for 4 people. Having girls, trying to get ready in a small bathroom with showering and the toilet nearby, is not ideal. This suite has plenty of seating, we would have appreciated a vanity area outside the main bathroom to do hair/makeup etc. There is plenty of room for this if they do it. The deck is pretty cool, as long as it’s not raining, or hasn’t recently rained. When it rains, the deck floods, and the wooden awning that is meant to shade the table and chair section is not water resistant, so the entire deck is unusable when it rains, or has recently rained. We love sitting outside watching the rain, so this was a bummer to have the furniture soaking wet and the floor flooded. The furniture never fully dried during our stay, so if we sat, we had to change our clothes because they got wet from the seats. The last thing to stress here is the slamming doors…gosh they need to fix this ASAP. All the doors SLAM shut all night and day long you hear doors slamming shut. I tried to leave one morning early, and tried to shut the door quietly, but, there is no way to do that, you have to slam it shut to get the latch to close. On that note, you also hear people and kids yelling and screaming down the halls all day/night. If you’re a light sleeper, you’d wake up A LOT with all slamming doors and volume of kids/adults walking by talking/yelling/having fun, but loudly. The A/C worked well, and the King bed was very cozy, we appreciated that. At times our wall felt damp, we were concerned about structural safety after hearing other guests complaining about water running down their walls. The resort itself, seems poorly, or" rushed to be" done. It has rust-like stains running down the entire face of the resort. When you look at the resort form the pools, it looks like a ginormous apartment building with clothes and towels and random items hanging over ledges. If you go on your desk at night, instead of hearing the sound of the ocean, you hear numerous other rooms’ noise….kids iPad games, people talking, kids crying, TV noise…..it was not relaxing at night hearing multiple other families’ noises the than what we would expect form a relaxing beachfront room. HOUSEKEEPING: Generally good, a few issues. There were no sheets on one of the kids beds when we arrived. We asked the bellman about this and he said to call housekeeping. We called housekeeping right away to request bedding for our daughter’s bed, which they confirmed they would bring within the hour. Then we left for dinner. When we returned to the room, still no bedding. After a long day of traveling, we were tired. We called housekeeping again, waited an hour, called a third time….and finally at 11:30PM, we left the room to look for linens ourselves. We found a dark utility closet with flickering lights, and inside were 3 rooms, one which had racks of sheets. No pillows, no blankets, just sheets. Good enough. We grabbed sheets and we made the bed ourselves. We called housekeeping to tell them we were going to bed and to just bring it the following day. Nonetheless, housekeeping came at 2AM. We had generally decent housekeeping service the rest of the week, with the exception of one day. We had been at the pool all day and at 5:00PM Housekeeping still had not come, we had no clean towels. We went back to the housekeeping closet to loom for supplies, and were pleased to find clean towels on the racks this time, so we took what we needed and made the room up ourselves. BREAKFAST BUFFET: We did the buffet breakfast for all breakfasts. The food was good, but there were lines for everything. Eggs took 15 minutes or more, pancakes took at least 10 minutes…no one ate together because everyone was standing in lines for food. Service at the buffet was hit or miss, half the time no one acknowledged us. I had to go into the service area a few time for cutlery and napkins, for example. We didn’t care so much, but other resorts are more on top of this so it was noted. The remainder of our trip we ate at the buffets for breakfast, we were turned away twice, being told the buffet was full and we could only get “to go” containers. We just went to the buffet at the other end of the resort which had seating. ROOM SERVICE: We were told over and over again by guests that food either doesn’t come, or arrives cold, and lacking the full order. We tried room service once, after an hour and a half, it never came. We didn’t try again after that. POOLS: Our first day at the pool there were no towels left. I stood in the “towel line” for over 45 minutes until more towels arrived. This was frustrating, all the other guests were irritated, this turned into all the guests complaining collectively about this, that or the other….It was a concerning start to the vacation. Later in the trip, I did find the Pool towel closet in an unfinished alley with electrical wires exposed. I just went there for towels prior to going to the pool to avoid the towel line moving forward. The middle pool is large, it’s pretty cool, but not a lot going on there. You have to bring your own entertainment. The Family pool/activity pool had 2 fun days, entertainments staff did little to nothing the rest of the days to carry out or involve guests in published activities. New Years Day was the best pool day because they made it a fun party. Other days were sleepy. Getting pool chairs at this pool was a challenge. Vacant cabanas they wanted to charge us for, I paid for that one day after no pool chairs were available at that pool. Service at the pools is terribly lacking unless you are a member with reserved pool seating. Everyone else is ignored, or, orders taken and never delivered. We tipped well to the pool service attendants, and unfortunately a $20 did little to nothing to improve service. I waited 3 hours for a margarita one day, our attendant was unable to get the bar to fill his orders, the guests around us had the same issue. We felt bad for the attendant who was trying so hard, but couldn’t fulfill his customer orders. We have never seen service this bad at all inclusives. I think they were simply, understaffed. Lastly, the inflatable obstacle course in the large pool is awesome. It’s a big attraction that a lot of families wanted to participate in. Unfortunately, due to inefficiencies, this also caused guests a lot of frustration and irritation. To do this obstacle course, one first had to wait in a line to sign a waiver. This line took me an hour and 7 minutes to make it to "waiver signing time". All lines here were in the sun, with no shade. These were paper waivers filed in a cardboard box with your room number, names, kids ages and names etc. After your waiver is on file, you then must stand in the other line to do the course. BUT, staff take lunch 1-2PM, so you have to plan for that. We finished the waiver line at 12:30, and the course line was already long, so we were told to come back after lunch. Sigh…okay. We came back to get in line for the course at 1:40, there were a few other families in line with the same idea, so, we waited. Staff was late coming back from lunch, so now we were waiting 30 minutes in the sun again. Staff required the entire party to be there in the line the entire time. Although, there was an exception to this rule, where Spanish speaking families were able to only have ONE person in line for their group of however many people, meanwhile, English only speaking families who had a child run to the water to cool off after standing in line for over an hour were yelled at by staff for “not being in line”. Several guests noticed this, and tried to call it out, but were threatened to lose their spot in line. Staff had an umbrella for shade. This entire process needs to be re-evaluated and made more guest friendly/fair. To do the obstacle course, the first time took us over 2.5 hours of waiting in line for 15 minutes on the obstacle course. The second time we did it, since our waiver was on file already we just had to wait in the course line for approx. an hour. In the sun, and not a single person (not even kids) could leave for a minute to get wet or you get yelled at or lose your spot in line. Again, Spanish speaking families were allowed to have just one person wait for an unlimited number of people when their turn came. This made the line for this required to wait, incredibly long, and fully in the sun. DINNER RESERVATIONS: Shaun tackled this one while I did the obstacle course waiver line. Dinner reservations were in the lobby. He joined a line and waited 2 hours for his turn to make dinner reservations for the week. He was able to secure dinner reservations for after 9PM at the restaurants. This was fine for us, being West coasters, but, several East coast families were complaining about the lack of dinners times available to their young families at a decent hour. We felt fortunate to be able to get the reservations when so many others could not, and to be fine with the later reservation time. This is a huge oversight at the rates they are charging for families to not be able to secure dinner reservations at a decent hour. Especially when room service is not an option. They need to make this more efficient, no one wants to spend their 12K vacation waiting in a line to make sure their family can enjoy the inclusive dinners they have paid for. DINNER RESTAURANTS: If it’s one thing AVA did right, it’s the food at their dinner restaurants. We had amazing experiences at dinner, excellent food and service. The Mediterranean, Mexican, and asian restaurants…YUM! This did stand out for AVA compared to other resorts. Then one exception is the night We dropped the kids at kids club and did the adult only French restaurant. After an hour and 45 minutes we still only had our appetizer served, and we had to leave to pickup the kids from kids club before they closed. We just walked out, because we had to go or be charged by kids club. The appetizer was amazing, we wish we could have had our mains… but , there was high maintenance table that I think consumed our servers’ attention. This was a slight bummer since it was our only “date night” without the kids. We just grabbed tacos from the taco bar on our way back up to the room. We got lucky with dinner reservations and also by just dropping into restaurants on the nights we could not get a dinner reservation and getting a table from reservations that hadn’t show up on time. We appreciated that they honored the “ late rule” to existing reservations and gave tables to families who were there ready to eat. KIDS CLUB: So much potential here, but they have to iron out several issues to make the guest experience better. For their kids first time, you have to wait in line (again) to fill out a waiver. This took about 25 minutes. They take 35 kids at a time. So, if you are 36…you form a line to “wait” for parents to pickup their child so your child can go inside. A line forms, and we were all told that we, and the kids had to be there IN LINE to get in if a child left. A few nights, we waited in line up to an hour to get in. Surely, there is a better process here? Once inside, staff does not follow the published activities. Our girls wanted to go to do specific activities, the first time the activity simply did not happen. MY 11 yr old daughter told me that when the kids asked about it, stuff laughed and just tried to get the kids to go do other things. The second time we check the girls into the club, we asked if the specific activity was taking place, staff assured us it was happening and we left. When we picked up our kids, our girls told us that staff told all the kids that their parents “didn’t sign them up” for the activity and only 6 kids were allowed to participate. This was frustrating, because we specifically asked if that activity was happening and we were never told that we had to sign our girls up for it. While our kids found something else to do, our oldest told us that several kids were crying about not being able to participate in the published activity. Another evening, our kids told us that they ddi enforce “movie night” but that the kids all had to stay inside the movie room and were not allowed to go play on the other equipment. They did not enjoy the movie and felt it should have been an option rather than requirement. More concerning than the poorly executed kids club activities, there is a MAJOR security issue in Kids Club. While waiting in line to get our kids into kids club one evening, the family in front of us was able to get one child inside, and were waiting to get their second (now crying) child into kids club. They asked to check on their son who was inside and were told “No” they cannot go in. No adults allowed. Fair enough. Except, 15 minutes later, they allowed 5 adult women inside kids club to collect their children. What? They would not allow the mother in front of us inside, but they allowed these 5 women inside? That was confusing. While that was happening, a group of 6 (2 males and 2 females, 2 kids) exit from Inside the kids club to the checkin area. We all asked how that family was allowed inside. The family replied to us directly and said that they came in through a door that children were EXITING out of that led to the ballroom hallway area. They said they saw 5 kids run out of a door and they then opened that door and it led them into the kids club and then they made their way through kids club and out the door were we all stood. Kids Club staff all ran to find the kids who escaped. WHAT?!?! The kids club is pretty cool inside, but they need to get it together in there and make the check in process more efficient, even a digital way to let parents know they have space and then a ten minute window to get your kids there? Again, waiting in line for an expensive all inclusive is not how we want to spend our time. SUMMARY: For what we paid, this resort grossly missed the mark. We think they rushed to make AVA profitable, overbooked guests that they could successfully accommodate over winter break, and will have a hard time recovering from the investment in such a large property that they cannot accommodate what they are advertising. Unfortunately, we cannot recommend this resort, and will not be back. Read less