I have been to Hutalco two times before and stayed at Club Med,which is now LasBrias across the bay and really loved it, that was 8 years ago. Myself, husband and son and our sons friend thought we would try a new hotel in Hutalco, what a mistake. Our trip started with a $50.00 dollar cab ride from airport,
Got to hotel the line was massive, waited over an hour to check in,
no greeting or welcome drink, just very unfriendly front desk employees. We were given adjoing rooms 250&252 we opened our doors to find someone had been lying on our bed prior to us, and the boys room the beds were not made, we then looked at our view of the kids club and kidde pool, the rooms were very outdated with grouth missing etc...We all used the bathroom to find the toilets in both rooms did no t flush. Went back to check in to wait again to upgrade our rooms to the odd numbers at a cost of $700.00, $350.00 each room, the view was much better. We were in 607 and the boys in 233 the rooms were still outdated with grout missing . The only thing you really get with the upgrade is free interent which most of the time was not working, the club preimun room smells like bug spray and unlimited dinner meals at Spainish and Mexican restaurants which were really not good at all. Then our phone in our room rang only once all night long, 2:00am,4:00am, 6:00am I called the front desk several times and went to speak with them about it, and they would tell me each time someone would fix it, well the week came and went and phone still rang only ONCE all night long. Also you can not get decaf coffee there. The first two days I had instant packages in my room after that it became a joke that the resort was out of decaf coffee and they told me they never had it. I then switched to peppermint tea for two days called down for more of that, was told they don't carry peppermint tea, found some peppermint tea bags in Club Premiun room only to find when I opened them they were full of bugs. My husband and son also suffered with the stomach illness for four days, alot of people were really sick, myself and my sons friend got lucky.. In the end the place became a joke, NOT A FIVE STAR, lucky to be THREE STARS on a good day, that was the joke between people we met aruond the pool . , I f you like to read and take a nap, do not sit anywhere on beach or by beach wall the vendors are relentless, loud and not very friendly. They should not be allowed to sit there all day long until 7:00pm sorry. My husband and I work very hard and only get two weeks vacation, I do not need to say 200 times a day NO THANK YOU!!!! So in closing I will never stay at this hotel again.

We have just returned from the Barceló Huatulco. A group of us book the trip several months ago.
We arrived Apr 4th at the Barceló. The resort was rated as a 4 star to 4 star plus.
The first thing we noticed was how friendly the staff was, much more than at our last group trip to Playa Del Carmen.
The resort was built in the late 1980's and it is rumoured to be scheduled for renovation at the end of 2008. The resort is showing it age but is still a very nice place. The staff was on problems within minutes.
Check in process was very pleasant and quick. One improvement would be the assignment of rooms. We were a large group that booked in 2007. The resort could have placed us adjacent to each other rather than scattering us throughout the resort. Bad group planning by the reservation staff.
The group was only premium class so only the base services, base drinks (extra cost for high level of selection / per drink). A up level class was available for $25 per day per person (18% increase). The premium class included three visits to al la carte restaurants per week (only two available Spanish and Mexican). Otherwise you had the available of two buffets.
The pool was great with many levels to accommodate kids, sports, etc. as well it included a swim up bar. No major problems with finding beach chairs.
The beach was spacious and again no problems with beach chairs. The drink service to the beach was good when you tipped the waiter periodically.
The lounge entertainment was great as well as the shows.
The bar service has problems, not do to the efforts of the staff but rather the lack of sufficient staff to handle the volume of requests. This could easily be fixed with more staff (especially bar tenders). There were three bars; the pool open until 6:00, the lounge didn’t open until 5:00 and a late evening dance bar which was extremely smoky (for the non- smoker this presented a major inconvenience and either eliminated dancing or suffer with the smoke (a very poor choice). The pool bar was always short on clean glasses. Actually the smoking was present in all bars, the shows and the dancing lounge. Our group were non-smokers, in several incidences our group left the lounges because of the high level of smoke.
The choice of liquors was low end, especially tequila only two. Beer was Sol and Corona. The wine selection was reasonable.
The food was standard all inclusive stuff, nothing exceptional. The service in the restaurants was very good.
While we were there a large number of people (30% to 60 %) from Canada were sick, not being a expert I can’t state the cause but the food handling and heat were suspected as the cause. Food was in the open and not refrigerated to the level us northerner are use to which could cause an increase level of bacteria that we can’t handle. There could be other causes. The resort was not visibly actively on this problem until the day before we left when a member of our group was invited to an interview with the doctor. Also our tour organizer denied the problem even though numerous people informed them that there were problems. Information was non existent to us guests. In Canada health authorities would have been called in with the level of sickness occurring. Over of 2/3 of our group were sick, some for half their trip.
Check out was very disorganize with resort staff insisting surveys be filled out before your checked out could be completed mean while the buses to the airport were departing. A simple fix would be to distribute the survey to the rooms on the last day, not during the check out process.
The tour guide staff could have explained the process better.
Overall our group had a good time, but we make our fun. The illness did impact the trip, this could have been reduced or prevented if the resort and the tour guide informed us that there was a problem and provided some suggestion on how to protect ourselves.
I would return to the area again but not to that resort, to another I have done the Barceló. We loved the area, the people, the smallness of the towns (there is only about 8,000 people in the area), and safeness.
I would rate this resort as a 4 star no higher.

PS: the GALA next door started renovation while were there, so expect construction next door for awhile.

April 4 - 11, 2008. Single, female, Canadian, mid-thirties. Had a GREAT time!! Vacationed alone!

So this was a brand new experience for me. I have travelled far and wide - but always accompanied by friends or family. This time, however, I couldn't find anyone to go on this last minute trip with me so I plucked up my courage and went all alone by my li’l ole self!

As if you didn't already know, first I have to tell everyone what a great source Tripadvisor is for information, advice and contacts!!! Travelling alone, even though I'm pretty sociable, I did have some apprehensions about not knowing anyone at all. In the Huatulco TA forum, another couple posted a "roll call" for my same trip dates. I responded saying that I was going down alone and that I'd love to know some friendly faces before getting down there. I met three great couples through TA and, with the guests at this resort being sooo friendly and open, our group very quickly grew into the double digits. Never did I have dinner alone! Really really great people!

QUICK SUMMARY OF HOTEL...............................................

-It is a nice place but don‘t go expecting precision and refinement
-Food - just ok
-Drinks - we experienced inconsistent strengths so just ask for more if it's too weak
-Room was a-ok and very clean (bathroom needs facelift but no concern to me)
-Shower good and warm and strong
-Minibar stocked just fine
-Hallways and heavy doors can be loud so maybe bring earplugs for naptime if that will bother you
-Lobby Bar - nice but last call is around 11:30 I think and only option becomes the disco
-Disco - did not like it at all - small, very smoky, too loud to just hang and chat - wished they would keep Lobby Bar open a bit longer - a small group of us took our drinks from the disco back out into the lobby area for awhile and, whether it’s allowed or not, nobody gave us the boot
-Shows - only saw one - Las Estrellas (The Stars) - and I found it entertaining
-Pool and beach - very nice - I found the ocean swimmable but perhaps not for little kids
-This resort is popular with Mexican families which I loved - the kids are so cute!
-Family/couple oriented resort - if you're looking for a hopping singles scene, this resort is not it.

THINGS TO DO................................................................

Snorkel at hotel beach:

Get snorkel gear from the hotel sports hut and check out the fish by the rocks at the left side of the beach (left as you're facing the water)

7 Bay Tour by Boat:

MUST DO! - lasts all day. I went with two families with one of the beach tour guys named Tico (who I would highly recommend). Little boat - 8 of us. We did the 7 Bay Tour. Awesome snorkelling at La Entrega (you can go there by taxi too) and also pretty good snorkelling at Organo. Stopped for lunch at Maguey - beeeaaautiful beach and crystal clear calm water - you can also get there by taxi. Excellent trip.

Hurricane Divers:

I loved them. During 4 days of my trip, I did my PADI Open Water Diver scuba certification with them. Antonio was my instructor and I felt very safe with him - and confident in both him and in Hurricane Divers and also in the standards they upheld. The diving was great - my only other comparison is 6 dives at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and I would rank my enjoyment of the Huatulco dives right up there!! There are so many sites - I just wish I could have done more!!

Restaurants:

-Don Porfirio - just outside the Barcelo - delish!! I had the jumbo prawns. Yummy! It was a fun, charismatic little open-air place - they played disco music all night which I loved. You gotta go!

-La Crema - La Crucecita - some of he best pizza I have ever ever had - again open-air funky upstairs restaurant - you can do half/halfs for the toppings so try as many as you can - the La Crema Special was so good. So was the seafood one. While we were there it only opened at 7pm. You gotta go!

-Tipsy Blowfish - La Crucecita - we didn't really go for the food - but we had fun listening to the live band and meeting the owner's gigantic hound. Go if you get a chance.

-Cristal Rose - La Crucecita - it was OK but I probably wouldn't go back. Not that there was anything wrong with it - the food was good enough but I just think there were other places that were more fun and had more character.

ONLY CONCERN.............................................

Similar to another recent review, there were many people that became very very sick while I was there. Hugely fortunately for me, I was not one of them. I, too, asked the Signature representative and I suppose it is possible that she didn‘t know anything but her disinterested response made me feel quite dismissed. I think it should be part of her job to be well-informed on this kind of thing so people have a place to go with questions. With all the people that were ill, of course our immediate thought was that it was something in the hotel or the hotel food/drink.... now I’m no doctor and it may well be hotel-caused, but perhaps it could have been something on our plane like Norwalk Virus (check out Wikipedia) or something else altogether. I was trying to think if any of those that fell ill were NOT from my plane and I drew a blank (but that may be wrong). I know some people will have pretty bad memories of their Barcelo experience and I feel awful for them - and I do suspect that the hotel could have given those people a bit more TLC like free room service or something. Now, for those that are thinking of going, I would think that the hotel is indeed aware of the issue and will be doing everything in its power to remedy the situation (hopefully it has been remedied already!). The hotel doesn‘t want to have people getting sick any more than vacationers want to get sick! It’s tough but try not to worry about it - take some meds maybe before you go (Dukoral? Best ask your doctor.) and be sensible. I suppose this kind of thing can happen anywhere (see Carnival Liberty on Wikipedia) so you can‘t live your life worrying about all the “what ifs”.

ALL SAID, HUATULCO IS A GREAT PLACE AND THE BARCELO IS A GOOD HOTEL - DON’T MISS OUT.

I hope this helps. Happy travels!

PS - The Crown Pacific looks very nice but it is not on the beach - it is across the street and then some.... it is very very close to the beach (and I think it has a reserved section with lounge chairs) but weigh that in your decision if it‘s important to you. ( ;

We arrived at the Barcelo on Easter weekend of 2008 for a week of fun in the sun, and I must say that we were not disappointed.

The Barcelo is a little worn, but everything is clean, clean, clean! There was never a thing out of place.

Room - Nice, roomy, and clean. Maid service was excellent, and the refrigerator was stocked daily. We were on the 5th floor overlooking the playground. This was realy nice on Mexican night as our room overlooked the party. We had a nice view of the mountains and the ocean. It would have been nicer to have an oceanfront room with the ocean breeze blowing through the room, but we were pleased with our room. We did have to climb the stairs and hoped this would offset some calories consumed. The elevators were always working and were quick.

Food - There is always plenty to eat. We would call it average, but since there is such a selection, we aways found something to eat. Breakfast was excellent. Super OJ! Fresh fish and steaks are cooked to order from 1-5 daily at the buffet.

We did not like the Spanish restaurant, but we did like the Steak House and Mexican. The buffet had its good selections and poor ones. WE just didn't eat what we didn't like and looked for something else.

We did not have any problems with illness. However, we were super careful. We have had more problems in the states with illness after eating out.

Bars - Okay! Drinks were not diluted Good Beer

Resort - A typical all-inclusive. The beach is a little steep, and the sand is soft. That made it difficult to beach walks. Pools were very nice and temperature was good.

Activites - Plenty to do

Fishing - WOW! We had buena suerte! We went fishing on the White Shark with Roberto and Tino. We caught lots of bonito and then went deep sea fishing. We were about 6-7 miles out when we had two black marlins on at the same time. We released one and kept one because it was done in by the time we got it in. The guys were WONDERFUL and spoke exellent English. We had so much fun and highly recommend them. The guys took the 150 pound fish to the marina and shared it with the other fishermen. Then the brought two small roast size pieces back to us. We had the chef at the Dona Rosa fix it for us for lunch and gave him the remaining fish. He fixed it three ways, and it was so delicious.

Excursions
We went on te jet ski bay excursion with snokeling. It was well worth the money. We do not care for the big catamaran tours.

We went to town by taxi.

Finally, we took a taxi to one of the beaches where we went on the jet ski to get in a little more snorkeling.

Snorkeling was good.

Staff - Front desk staff was a little on the unfriendly side. It appeared to us that they were just very busy

Bar staff - Sometimes ignored guests. The also were not very friendly

Entertainment - Typical for all-inclusive or maybe a little better than what we have seen in the past.

We had a wonderful time in the resort and town. I have traveled to Mexico since I was a kid in the 1960's. It had the feel of the Mexico I knew when I was a child. Plus, the resort itself had a majority of Mexican tourists visiting while we were there.

We would return in a minute to Huatulco. We never got to the mountains and would like to explore that area a little bit.