Blue Diamond Luxury Boutique Hotel

We spent a week at the Blue Diamond Luxury Boutique Hotel near Playa del Carmen. A place that we really wanted to love. Alas, it was not meant to be. It is also a great example of why you cannot let designers be in charge. Everything looks great, but many things are just not functional.  TLDR: We won't be back, but there are bright spots. The food and staff are awesome. The quiet retreat side they push, not so much. This hotel might be for you if the bright spots outshine the weaknesses for you. About us: We are regular travellers and have stayed at multiple resorts in Mexico. We are comparing our trip to other trips in a similar category of hotels. The hotel was at 42-50% capacity when we were there, and I would not want to be here at full capacity. What is great: Staff: pretty much everyone is awesome. Friendly, smiling, waiting to help, and making it feel like they care. Staff like our waiter, Antonio, who we had a few times, make it fun to be here. Fabian, who really takes care of you. And many others. Food: the food makes the place. Almost everything is really good, and a couple of exceptional dishes. Only the junk food is terrible, which is a pretty good thing when you think about it. The pastry chef deserves mention. And also kudos to the executive chef for the menu and the consistent execution. They will struggle if it gets a little busy, but we only had two real misses at breakfast. The poached eggs were more like hard-boiled eggs. What is OK: The room: spacious, quiet (except for construction, more later), well kept overall (with some notable exceptions). We enjoyed the room. We had a Laguna room. You can hear your neighbor a little bit, but mostly if they slide the massive doors or rearrange the furniture. It is mostly quiet. The bicycles: they are nice to have since the resort is a long 1.5 km line. Many have under-inflated tires and need maintenance. Plus, people are hoarding them so hard to come by. One bar: Yes. You read that right. There is only one bar, near the pool. They claim to have another one near the Amber restaurant. It is a corner for a couple of sofas (that are atrocious to sit in), so it's not really a bar. Activities: We knew they had very few activities, and it is OK with us. The cocktail class with Leopoldo was the best; he is just awesome. However, the number of spots is extremely limited and are released on Sundays. So, if you fly in mid-week, you are likely screwed. Spa circuit: We went twice. The first time was great. Everything was hot (sauna, hot pool, and hammam). The second time, not so much. The sauna was OK, but the hammam was turned off and cold. The pool was lukewarm. Very disappointing. What is terrible: Construction of a mega hotel next door: no one told us this, so it is very frustrating. A massive hotel is being built as close to the property line as possible. Noise from 8am to 7pm. Cannot enjoy the pool unless you love the sound of a jackhammer in the morning. Yes, it will eventually stop. But it likely will be replaced with loud music and pool parties these place tend to have. I fear that the quiet side of the hotel is gone forever. What's worse is that they have another property nearby and probably does not suffer from the noise. We don't allow access during the day, even though the day pass system is already in place. Pro tip: change your policy during construction… Music from the Rosewood: construction on one side of the resort, and yes, by disco music on the other. It was an issue on Saturday night. Music is going until 3am. The problem is that the Rosewood has the disco facing toward the North, and there is a bit of undeveloped land, so the sound travels. Plunge pool: some rooms have a plunge pool. They should call them Cold Plunge Pools. No hot water. It was a selling point for us, and we did not use it once. Plus, you can see the hot water tap. It has been disabled so management made that decision at some point. Terrible. Oh and the spa at the pool? Cold and non-functional. Lighting in the room: the lighting decisions are terrible, particularly in the bathroom. Not enough light and all yellow warm lighting. That is not the type of lighting for a bathroom. The bed: rock hard. If you like sleeping on rocks, you will be well served. No handles: No handles anywhere! It's like the designer decided that minimalism meant removing all handles. Try to operate a heavy sliding door without a handle...This is just one of the many terrible design decisions throughout. Like a 6-inch counter at the bar, you can thoroughly bang your knee on the concrete. The chairs: I am almost 6'3" (188 cm), so I am tall. I am not tall enough to comfortably sit in almost every chair or sofa on the property. The backs are metal bars cutting into your very flesh. My solution was to borrow cushions for other chairs or sofas to make it bearable. The sofas are insanely bad and uncomfortable. Many things are broken: yes, I know, it is typical to have broken things in this category of hotels. But when the door to your awesome patio cannot be opened, it is frustrating. Plus, the sliding doors require superhuman strength to open. [Details]

Stayed for a week and it was really nothing special really not a 5 stars hotel. First of all the beach was always full and of weeds everywhere on the beach really not pleasant did not even go in the ocean once.
Then the room was nice but the 2 last days no hot water in the shower. The food was good but there's only 2 restaurants not a big choice.
You need a shuttle to get around because it's a lot of walking and the shuttles aren't always available.
There is no entertainment, even the tv channels were 99% in Spanish for rainy nights. [Details]

So starting from the beginning…we had gone for our honeymoon and once we finally got to our room the first thing we said was it's definitely not like the pictures we saw online. Went to use the bathroom after a long commute to the resort and the toilet was stuck with shit all the way to the top; so we didn't get to use the bathroom for another 2 hours. then we noticed the room itself was not in clean condition (dirt dust and dead bugs) laying around the room; my wife had to clean it herself after complaints to Mr. Aldo at reception who is a very nice guy in putting words together but did not deliver anything he promised, for example he said the general manager would reach out to us for some special accommodations for the mishaps, a deep cleaning in the room which was never done, etc etc. it was lie after lie which we didn't appreciate because we payed good money for this experience and there was no effort on the resorts behalf. That same night, because of dealing with this issue, we got late for dinner. We were starving but couldn't eat till they didn't come clean our room. When we went to the restaurants they had, everyone turned us away saying there's no space and they are closing soon. One restaurant actually had space and told us they couldn't take us because a reservation was required. So then we had to fight the restaurant head to get a seat and get some food! Eventually they let us in after we explained multiple times why we were late. Then the next day we woke up to a zoo in the room with lizards crawling the walls and called reception to complain; it took them 45 minutes and a few call backs to come to the room, with my wife freaking out and us not knowing how dangerous they really are. It was truly turning into a big mess when all we wanted to do was relax, so once the help finally came to the room they didn't accomplish anything because by that time the lizards went into the vents and were hiding, so dealing with that for our whole stay turned into lack of sleep and just making sure the lizards don't go into our belongings was our whole stay and experience there. However it does not end there when we went to use the sinks it would always start with yellow water then eventually get clear , never had hot water so we would have to shower by the spa area because things worked normally there, which tells us that they have a functioning facilities but they choose not to for certain areas ( saving on hot water BILLS but charging clients full dollars for there stay). We kept complaining to Mr. Aldo and he kept saying he is doing something about it with the 3 general mangers but nothing was done throughout the course of our HONEYMOON trip! THANKS FOR NOTHING DIAMOND LUXURY BOUTIQUE. All in all I would like to give the waiters and waitresses 5 stars ***** they were the best part of the resort experience and concierge Carmen and Christian are a big help with putting everything together for your days at the resort; they take on more then they really should, so would definitely like to thank them. [Details]

I enjoyed the cooking lesson and the short sail and snorkel that was included in the price. I think the cenote on the property should have little boats to toodle around in! So much privacy here. There is a dress code at Ambar Restaurant, which is kept by the guests. Very classy, bring some nice clothes. Live musicians at the restaurants which were enjoyable light jazz or easy listening. Room was lovely and spacious. Good drinks, no fall-down drunks. Small pools. If you want a better beach, walk for half an hour to the left, right to the end. fantastic. [Details]