I was back at Las Brisas for the forth time just before Xmas and it was a bit disappointing compared to previous visits. The trip started on the wrong foot with Sunwing Airlines not informing passengers we had to backtrack and fly to another city first to pickup passengers and then make our way down to Huatulco. This added about 4 hours to the total travel time and their response was just poor. Sunwing gave us vouchers to use at the airport for meals but none of the foodservice places would take them! Said they didn't accept these or trust Sunwing. Excellent. In the end, we arrived, the weather was spectacular as always and my favourite bartenders were there to greet me with a cool drink.
For those who have not been to Las Brisas, please understand that the property and service is great but I was used to a higher level in my previous visits. I hope they were just off for some reason this last time and not that this is an indicator of the new norm.
Construction was a bit of an issue and this information was not provided to us prior to booking - great tour operators will advise you of such things but this was not the case. Loud construction was underway at the main stairway area by the adult pool section to the lower beach bar area along with the Solarium restaurant on the activities beach. The restaurant was completely shut down and they seemed to be gutting it for renos. Put it this way, it was loud and if you were at either the adult pool or activities beach, you weren't relaxing unless you had really loud music playing on the iPod. But hey, it truly is paradise so I wasn't going to complain about this.
Certain staff were more incredulous than I've experienced in the past. The bartenders and restaurant employees are fantastic, particularily those of the main bar and Bellavista restaurant. Outstanding!
The animation team who lead daytime activities and evening performances, however, leave something to be desired. They have attitudes that you cannot believe! Either looking down their nose at you or alternately being innappropriate toward you. Flirting is fine but this one guy who also passed himself off as the gym manager was just plain annoying. Not sure how many times I could explain I wasn't interested in his personal salsa lessons and i'm sure i was not the only one. That was definitely annoying.
Also, I have never experienced truly ignorant behaviour at Las Brisas but there was a girl working the activities beach towel station one day that actually frightened me. I am always super friendly with the staff and normally get excellent response. This girl would have none of that. Upon returning our towels one day, she took them, gave me the most nasty look and then turned around to do something. Now protocol is that they give you cards back for the towels because if you do not return the towel cards at the end of your trip, you are liable financially for them. I said excuse me to her and she ignored me. I again tried to get her attention and she again gave me a look that I thought would be followed with her fist coming at me. I asked for the cards twice before she acknowledged it and finally handed them over. She was the most horrible person that actually deterred me from going back to that beach for a while.
Room towels were not well replenished throughout the trip. One day we didn't get any bath towels, the next no hand towels. This went on a few times and even when I called to get them, I only received them one time. Multiple calls, only one was responded to. That was dissappointing and my worry was that they would think we had stolen them.
We had a late checkout upon departure and had our room until 5pm. I don't know if management hadn't informed the cleaning staff about this but from about 3:30pm on, they were knocking at the door to see if we'd left. Phoning and hanging up multiple times for the same purpose. I actually had to call the front desk and tell them to stop calling us. This stopped it but I should not have to request not getting multiple hang ups while they check if we're still in the room!
The one fabulous thing about Las Brisas is the on-site currency exchange. I always know I don't have to take pesos with me but rather can easily get them there and at a good rate. The only thing I found this time was that you must have perfect cash for the exchange. There cannot be a crease or dent in the cash, otherwise they will not take it. Said the bank returned it to them if it wasn't in truly mint condition and then they were out the amount. Seemed strange to me since I hadn't heard of this the three times previous I'd been there. Good thing I had gotten my money out of a bank ATM and most of the cash was new. Otherwise, i'd have been in trouble - keep this in mind.
Overall, Huatulco is spectacular and generally, Las Brisas is great. I will go back again and hopefully then, will be able to report the few annoyances of this most recent trip were just blips in their usually high level of hospitality.
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