My wife and I just returned from a (too) short stay at Esperanza where we celebrated our 20th anniversary. I read the reviews and had a good idea of what to expect. I could not have been more pleasantly surprised. The rooms, grounds, food, amenities and staff were outstanding! They truly do know your name within minutes of arrival and will bend over backwards to make your stay incredible. The concierge was very helpful, and open late, to handle those requests that pop up after a few drinks. She was by far one of the best we have encountered in our many stays throughout the world.

The Esperanza is expensive. It keeps out the riff-raff and thus everything is darn near perfect. If you want to grunge, do not stay here....or go into town once or twice and get it out of your system...then return to heaven.

Two tips on saving some dough. there is an incredible liquor store almost right across the highway from the resort. Stock up on your favorites and leave the minibar alone. They push bottled water at the meals (feeding on your fears of Mexican H2O) - you might be better off drinking beer or wine price-wise. They claim the resort water has been through 'state of the art' purification. I drank it and never felt woozy at all. By the way they constantly give you free bottled water everywhere else in the resort except the restaurants....go figure.

All the bills will include a 15% gratuity. Some people hate this. I found that, in all but one instance, I bumped up to 20%, once to 25% - they were that good. The bellmen I also tipped, although I did not have to because it is figured into your room bill, just to set a good tone on our arrival.

As it was our 20th, we splurged on the 'couples' massage......WOW. I don't have much to compare it to, but it was fantastic. I can't imagine how it could be better.

All in all it is definitely a world class resort. As one of the bell hops said when I asked where the ice machine was " Don't worry sir we'll bring it to you - you don't do a thing but kick back and relax".

We will definitely be going back!
Bob

We just returned from a 5 day stay in one of the 3 bedroom villas. The villa itself was gorgeous. Very well appointed and we loved the plunge pool of our ground floor unit. The grounds and view are also great. The service was what you would expect at those prices, but there were some "issues".
The concierge seemed to have a hard time getting our information straight re: arrivals and reservations etc. We also had some problems with what appeared to be padding on the bill, ie, a cup of coffee charged as a pot (for $19!) and a bottle of wine being charged with an extra glass. This is on top of already extremely high prices- $55 for a mexican buffett and $11 for a margarita. Also, an automatic 18% gratuity is added to everything. We didn't expect budget, after all we are used to SF prices, but... A few other things to be aware of- the "free" shuttle is only to the airport and back, you have to taxi or rent a car elsewhere. If you have more than one arrival time it is an extra $63.00. Our least expensive taxi ride was $23 to a golf course 10 minutes away. The mercado that was advertised is closed. There is a Costco 5 minutes away and they will stock for you for a 15% fee. Our order was pretty incorrect, but they were nice about trying to fix it. And lastly, although the coast and beach is beautiful, they recommend against actually swimming in the ocean from there. All in all we didn't find it worth the trek...

Just returned from a 5 night stay at Esperanza. I read so much about the resort being good that I had very high expectations- they were exceeded! The room was beautiful- had the Palapa level Beachfront casita- right on the ocean with a hottub on the deck overlooking the beach- it was great! The rooms were not huge, but they were very well done. Prior to the trip we filled out a paper indicating important dates, etc. I mentioned this was our 10-year anniversary trip and also mentioned my wife's birthday which also coincided with our time there. On two different occasions, we were surprised with dessert (one with Happy Anniversary spelled out on the plate in chocolate) and serenaded by Mariachi band and another at the main restaurant with a beautifully prepared dessert and a gift bag for my wife for her birthday. It was touches such as this, in addition to the unbelievable scenery from this resort that make us want to return again very quickly.

The one negative we had was our air conditioner went out the first day we were there in our room and they had to move us to a lesser-category room for the night. However, they comped the night which was a very generous gesture for the inconvenience.

Just returned from a week at Esperanza celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary. The experience at this resort is outstanding, the employees make you feel like you are a guest in their home. The resort itself is enchantingly beautiful, the rooms expansive (the upper level Palapa rooms are worth the extra charge) and the food is first rate. The weather in June is very hot but the afternoon sea breeze makes things quite comfortable and the evenings are just right. Have stayed at many top hotels but Eaperanza exceeds the well deserved hype.