We arrived to the hotel the week before Christmas (the hotel was almost empty which was great).
The service from day one was great, the staff was very helpful (we made sure the got tips cause that's what they expect :-) ).
There was always a line in the front desk, although the hotel was half empty. You had to wait for 10-15 minutes sometimes just to get the balls for the pool table.
We have a 3 and a 1 year old kids and we got a room without a bath, which is not an option. We had to upgrade to their best room to have a bath (not their fault though).
The breakfast buffet was awesome, but other than that the lunch and dinner was not so good...
The hotel had two nice shows while we were there - a Mexican fiesta and a Latin dance show - we enjoyed both of them very much.
In our last day we noticed that in order to have a seat near the pool (the heated ones) you need to put your towel there before you go to eat breakfast, which is kind of annoying...

in general we got a good return for our money.

Its like a Holiday Inn of all-inclusive resorts .. nothing special. Its far from the happening place - Cabo San Lucas .. Lands End etc. and is a $35 taxi drive away. If you want to just lie on the beach - don't care about activities, food, water etc., you can go here. The food is quite bad (especially if you're vegetarian - its hopeless); their restaurants need reservations almost 12 hrs in advance (which i'd not heard of before in all-inclusives) - the restaurant servers and waiters are very nice and polite however!! They have a sea facing restaurant which is pretty. One of the days that we were there, they had a Mediterranean cuisine .. with nothing Mediterranean however - they hadnt heard of pita bread or hummus (which was hilarious). The rooms are ordinary. The surroundings are quiet and makes for a relaxing lazy ambiance. One more annoying aspect is that they make you wear a band around your wrists for the entire duration of your stay with a fine if tampered with!! All in all, its just OK.

We stayed here three nights, then moved to Riu Palace for 3 more nights so we could explore San Jose and Cabo. The Riu was without a doubt a better resort and IMHO worth the extra $$.
We had a corner beachfront room, which is one of the best rooms you can get. When we first got there I will admit seriously thought about calling Expedia to check out early...the room was dissapointing on first impression. And we travel to Mexico a few times a year so we know there is sometimes musty smells etc because of humidity, but it was also the room seemed tired and didn't impress and could have been cleaned better. But we stuck it out and the view was amazing, we slept with the doors open one night and sleep to the sounds of the waves...the balcony lights go out late at night. We loved that one of the large pools was heated (the Riu wasn't), the a/c worked well and was noisy enough to sleep to, breakfast was good but not great. We were with our baby so we didn't check out any ala carte restaurants but the lunch and dinner buffets were weak. Just not much to choose from. Again the Riu had close to 10 times the choices. It was good for our diets as we just never ate too much. But if food is important, you might look elsewhere. The resort wasn't very busy which can be nice but it also didn't have a lot of atmosphere, but that could change from time to time. The service was pretty good, they did come around and bring drinks by the pool, many resorts don't. The location of Hola is nice, we walked to the Mega and picked up some beer and other items (water and soda in minibar but not beer), it really close and actually ended up walking back from Downtown to the hotel, but its a taxi is recommended. So knowing the pricing of Hola its nice, just not near as good as so many Mexico resorts we have stayed at. We would not go back, but we are used to a nicer experience. On a budget this place might be fine. San Jose is a neat little town but if you are new to visiting Cabo I would stay closer to Cabo San Lucas since that is where the Arch is and where you will want to explore and the 20-30 min taxi ride from this area gets expensive.

We booked a last minute deal...great price which set us up for a great trip. Family with 2 adults, 4 teens/ young adults.

Pros: beach amazing, View was fabulous, 2 warm pools, excellent staff, smaller hotel so easy to make friends..or find your teens, we loved all of the food...and I am a vegetarian travelling with carnivores. We loved the Mexican buffet night the best since we are in Mexico. Beach party was really fun. A nice fairly quiet hotel. Lots of families when we were there. Rooms were cleaned well and nothing missing (we have had that in 3 of last 4 trips to Mexico)

Cons: 1 day of rain (can't be helped), some cloudy but warm weather (again can't be helped). Check in slow due to being apart of fairly large tour group checking in. Internet expensive so we didn't use. Local calls expensive. King beds are a bit hard but we slept really well anyway.

Tips: walk into San Jose...great little city with alot of stores for souvenirs. We went into a store for some glasses only to find out they have a factory in the back and we were able to try glassblowing. Great fun. Take public bus from Mega to Cabo or to Chileno Beach for some great off resort sightseeing and fun. We painted pottery at the hotel for a fun hour. The highlight was definately the baby turtles that hatched next door. It was a dream come true and not something to be planned. Ask the security guards at the entrance from beach to hotel if there are any nests about to hatch so you can be on the lookout. If you want some professional pictures then ask for the guy who takes them. Great pictures a little pricey but worth it.