Nice rooms and i fell out of the double bed a couple of times because it is kinda bulgy. We should have got a queen, but hey. Was there with a party of 50 and half of us came home after the trip with the runs so stay away from any tap water drinking. Natcho(Ignacio) and Crystal were super funny entertainment staff and should get a raise for what we put them thru (maybe a tv show too). Claudia, thanks for the great job watching Willie for us.
Tennis was fun and the sports guy didn't understand "we need more balls". i think internet for the laptop was dialup 56K and as slow as 1992. not worth the $20/day. Starbucks is just up the hill a ways, and high speed for a drink. Some trouble with the room electric door lock and TV internet too. new hotel i think so still sum bugs to work out.
Food is remarkable and Chef Ramsey would love it. and remember to book all the a la cart stuff for sure as well. For a Canadian, this is pretty much paradise! cept for the tapwater. A local told me if i wanted to swim at the beach, dont fight the riptide because that is how you drown. go with it if it takes you away from shore, a fishing boat will pick you up. wasn't brave enough to try that tho. for sensitive skinned folks, shower with soap after pool or ocean cause you may get the itch.

I stayed at this hotel based on a recommendation from a friend. There are not many all-inclusives to choose from in the San Jose/Cabo San Lucas area so the easy choice was Barcelo! Five of us (in our late 30’s and early 40’s) spent seven days at the resort and had nothing but excellent service ALL day EVERY day! We were part of the premium plan and we did enjoy the extra amenities that the program offered, especially the VIP lounge where you could grab food/drinks/water throughout the day. I especially liked going there for breakfast when the buffets could get busy.

To make it short and sweet, the things that I found to be the best were as follows:
- The beautiful ocean and pool views.
- The comfortable rooms (including the beds!)
- The comfy chairs (with pillows) located around the resort and on the beach.
- The excellent service at every restaurant and every lounge.
- The food!! Probably the BEST all-inclusive food that is offered out there. It was every bit as good as those resorts that are not all-inclusive.
- The spa was AMAZING!!! The prices were incredibly affordable…better than any other resort prices that I have seen. Also, as part of the premium club, we received 20% off services, which can really add up to a big savings. Ask for Angeles for your massage – she was wonderful!!
- The location – could walk 10 mins to San Jose and only a 25 min cab ride to Cabo (which was about $40 for 5 of us). The bus was the best value - $1.50 to $2.00 a person and you could pick it up right across the street near the Mega Store (which is like a Wal-mart).
- The free drinks! They never ran out of any type of liquor, even though I read that in reviews prior to getting there. I think I may have consumed 4 bottles of Bailey’s myself!
- The free shows – yes, some acts were cheesy and yes, some acts contained music in another language, but overall, they were entertaining and many times, we were pleasantly surprised at how good the vocals, costumes and dancing really was. Plus, they offer free drinks during the show as well. How can you not like that??!

Now, if I had to come up with a few things that I didn’t like, it would be as follows:
- It did seem a little difficult to get into the ala carte restaurants. You definitely needed to make reservations ahead of time (a few days) and even if the restaurant “appeared” empty, that didn’t mean you could necessarily walk right in. But, we learned after the first night and just made our reservations for the week. And, believe me, it was worth it. Again, the food was out of this world!!
- The pool was FREEZING… I understand a pool is meant to cool you off on a hot day and I really do like the water very, very cold, but this was almost too much. It was tough to stay in sometimes, especially if you weren’t in the sun (or drinking heavily!)
- The fire pits were never lit. Every day, the hotel would say that they would be turned on the next night, but we heard that for days. We didn’t miss it terribly, but it would have been a nice added touch to some of our evenings.
- There was construction going on outside the VIP lounge (on a terrace) and outside the workout facility (another terrace). The noise didn’t really bother me, but we would have liked to have breakfast on the terrace outside the VIP lounge because there were several days that the buffet didn’t offer outdoor seating. But, here’s the thing… we all talked about this while we were there.
The construction was something that would have caused some people to complain to the hotel and to write bad reviews. But, the reality is that these resorts are open 24/7 and repairs will have to be completed at SOME point while guests are on site. Once you think about it that way, you realize it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things and it didn’t change our mind with how much we loved this resort!!!

Check it out for sure – you won’t regret it!

We spent a week at the hotel in mid November. Here are some of the things we really loved about this hotel:

The food was consistently good tasting and made with high quality ingredients. We especially enjoyed the food at the Spanish restaurant. The service at the restaurants was typically very good.

The drinks were equally good, and they used decent size glasses too. They were certainly not shy about the amount of liquor they dispensed. I did notice however that each bartender would use a different brand of liquor, so the drinks often did not taste the same from one to the next. The two main pools and the beach had wait staff that periodically came around to take drink orders. This was not offered at the adults only pool; At least not while I was ever there.

The lobby bar is actually in a separate room, next to the lobby, so it was not really obvious that it was there. It had many nice seating options, as well as a small selection of goodies to eat and a specialty coffee machine.

The martini bar was also really good. I liked the apple and chocolate ones the best.

The room was huge and very well equipped with a nice soft bed, and a massive bathroom. The room was also very clean, and was maintained in that state throughout our stay. For a hotel room, it also had very good lighting.

We also had the best maintained in-room mini bar I have ever experienced. Every single item we removed was replaced each day, without fail, with lots of bottled water available. (Would have been nice if there was an alcoholic beverage other than beer offered too though. Most women do not like beer, so there is just pop or juice.)

They had many different kinds of pillows available, and I had a hard time with the "default" ones on the bed. When I asked what the others were like, they just decided to send me one of each. I think we had a dozen pillows to choose from each night. The hard part was finding the one you like the night before.

We witnessed a dozen weddings taking place at the property over the week we were there. I can not speak for the satisfaction of the happily ever afters, but I can tell you that the staff took great care with each one to make sure that the other hotel guests did not accidentally walk through the ceremony or procession. Many of the weddings had quite elaborate settings staged for the party following as well.

There were always tons of chair available on the beach. All the lounge chairs on the beach and around the pools were also the rattan type weave, so they were supportive. No saggy mesh or worn out straps.

Here are some of the things we observed that could be improved upon. Do note that they are our observations. We still loved it at the Barcelo, and even the aggregate of the below would not prevent us from returning to this hotel:

The chamber maid kept removing our used towels and floor mats. Most days even those we had hung up to use again. With the exception of the first and last night, they were not replaced with fresh ones. One day we were down to one towel between the two of us, and finally called the front desk. Someone came and brought us a whole fresh supply, which luckily took us through two more days before we had to call again.

We were in a club premium room, which was supposed to come with preferential reservations at the specialty restaurants. This was however not our experience. While we understand that not every restaurant is open each night, and there are other guests, we were not even once successful at getting a dinner reservation for our preferred dining time...even though we booked all our meals on the first day.

The reservation slips we were given clearly stated that reservations would be held for a maximum of ten minutes. In light of that, I did not appreciate, that for two of our reservations, were were told to go have a drink and then come back, because were were there 3 and 5 minutes too early. I thought that was tacky.

As part of the club premium, we were also checked in at the premium club lounge rather than in the front lobby. When were arrived, a bellman immediately whisked us away through the crowed lobby down a passage, up an elevator, around a corner, and presto, we were in a cozy lounge, being served cocktails while awaiting our turn to check in. Once the man at the desk took all our information, he gave us the room keys, room number, a property map and just told us to go back to the lobby and find a bell man if we wanted help with our luggage. Were were rather dumbfounded...neither of us had even paid attention to how we had gotten to that room. Once we made our way back to the lobby, there were so many people, we wound up just finding our luggage and walking around until we found the room on our own...no quick orientation, no mini tour on how to get around, nothing...and from watching others get checked in at the lounge over the course of the week, that was the norm...even when it was not crazy busy.

They also only ever had one person staffing the desks in the lounge, where you also had to make your dinner reservations and that kind of stuff. If they were checking people in, they refused to even talk to you to answer a question in-between parties being checked.

On the second day we discovered that the mini bar fridge in our room had stopped running. Since it had power, and we could hear the thermostat click when we played with the lever, we decided it was broken. While at the lounge for a pre-dinner drink, we asked the lounge concierge to send someone to check it out. By the next evening, after returning from dinner, it had still not been taken care of, so we called the main reception. Someone was at our room within 5 minutes to take care of it. Another 10 minutes late we had a different fridge, fully stocked with cold drinks. So...call the front desk if you need something. The lounge people have way to much to deal with on their own to get any of it done. They really need a second person there.

The Wifi access was also very touch and go. Some days it was just outright down, and on others it would hang every few minutes. If you need reliability, bring your own.

On the week days, there were always plenty of chairs available around the pools, no matter what time you came around to the pool, but on the weekend, people would go out and put something on them, and then left. There were very few chairs with shade, and it was quite disrespectful of the those guest who reserved their chairs, but did not even bother to show up until after lunch...meanwhile others were forced to sit in the sun for hours....or leave... The hotel has a no reservation rule, but they do not bother to enforce it.

The one thing that I was genuinely disappointed in, was that the travel agent informed the hotel that we were there to celebrate our 25th anniversary. The hotel did not do anything whatsoever to acknowledge that fact. Not even a "Thanks for spending your anniversary with us." On our 20th, we were at a Resort in the Caribbean, where they served us a little candle decorated cake at one of the specialty restaurants one evening, and congratulated us. A hotel in the Mayan Rivera once put a bouquet of flowers from their gardens in our room with a "Happy Birthday" note, because they saw on my passport that it was my birthday. I was very disappointed that our 25th milestone passed with no acknowledgement, given the fact that they put so much effort into the weddings.

Now, would I recommend this hotel to others...ABSOLUTELY. I would feel confident that they would also have a good time. I do not know that I would spend the extra money for the Club Premium again. I do not think it is necessary, or particularly worth the extra money.

My wife and I brought along our 14 month old daughter to the Barcelo in Los Cabos in mid-November 2012.

The positive aspects of the resort are as follows:

(1) Each and every person working at the Barcelo had a smile on their face. They greet you from the moment you walk in, and do their best to ensure your stay is comfortable. This was certainly appreciated.
(2) The daytime atmosphere was relaxing. There was "something for everyone". As examples, aside from the usual "fun in the sun" activities, the resort also offers billiards, table tennis, and a cigar lounge. Although we did not participate, there were numerous other activities on-site.
(3) Our room itself was very nice. The room was equipped with a "smart TV" where one is able to control everything from music to tray pick-up to the internet to room temperature with the press of a button. Our balcony had spectaculr views of the resort and ocean. Lastly, we were impressed with the spacious bathroom and daily room turnover.
(4) The breakfast buffet was phenomenal in that there was something for everyone.
(5) We upgraded to the premium for $35 per person/per day and in my opinion, was totally worth the price. This includes access to premium alcohol, unlimited room service (otherwise you have to pay for room service), unlimited reservations at specialty restaurants, and unlimited use of Wi-Fi.

What we did not like:

(1) The resort hosts quite a bit of corporate and other private (i.e. weddings) events. The set-up for the events were usually in the middle of the resort, namely, just proximal to the beach or between the pools. The problem is that these events usually take place in the evening to late hours of the night. The noise can be heard throughout the entire resort, and this is problematic because the guest rooms are situated on either side of the pool areas. For 2 nights in a row, our sleep was disrupted for the majority of the night.
(2) If you are a vegetarian, the food options at the buffets were limited. We noticed that the usual options (enchiladas, pastas) were available throughout the day without much other variety.
(3) The pool water was always cold. I wondered if it was just myself who had felt this way, but numerous other guests we met said the same of the pool. Even when the ambient temperature was 88 degrees Farenheit, the pool water was cold. This made it difficult to remain in the pool for a prolonged period of time or take part in the pool activities.

Overall, if we came to Mexico again, we would probably not stay here again, mostly because of the lack of swimmable beach, cold pool (thus limiting a key daytime activity), and lack of variety in the buffet (although if you are an omnivore, you'll have no problem).