Viva Tangerine by Wyndham

“Excellent”

It was very great, I really liked the bar the music the people very kind and nice and francisca was the best always smiling and super nice, the shows were great. Very good family or friend place, and all the workers were very great and super nice

“Best time of my life”

I was having the best time of my life. The Animation Team was amazing, la Baby,lava,smilla,sombra, Coco, koyote, Pirro but especially Franziska. She is doing a great great job. The shows were amazing and ive net nice people here. I will come back for sure

“Pleasant but many irritations”

I’ll sprinkle the positives throughout this review, but the negatives seem to dominate. This is a relatively small resort is a small town. It is not a great place for city walkers or shoppers. There are no good sidewalks, many loud motorcycles, loud traffic, and mud. The food market across the stre… more

I’ll sprinkle the positives throughout this review, but the negatives seem to dominate. This is a relatively small resort is a small town. It is not a great place for city walkers or shoppers. There are no good sidewalks, many loud motorcycles, loud traffic, and mud. The food market across the street sells liquor, but apart from that, there are no bargains. Needful Things dollar store down the street sells some products at about twice the price as at home. There is a good pharmacy at the corner of Principale (Route 5) and de la Loma that sells medicine without a prescription. The Catholic parish Our Lady of Guadalupe is a 7-minute walk south of that corner; Sunday Mass is at 10AM (contrary to the 9:30 time on the sign). The resort is on the beach, which is great for walks; it’s not too crowded and the few hawkers aren’t pushy. We never had trouble finding lounge chairs on the beach or by a pool. There are always big waves and a strong wind (the flag is always yellow or red—never green) but there is not a threatening undertow. There are many kite boarders on the weekends. The sand is mostly fine and easy on the feet. After we booked the flights, Air Transat said our class was “Eco Budget,” which meant we had to pay $35 each way for each piece of checked baggage. This was not indicated on the Red Tag nor the Air Transat websites; we only learned this after we paid for the trip. Classic bait and switch. We arrived at about 1:30PM but were disappointed to learn that we couldn’t get into our room until the official check-in time of 3PM; this was a long wait in clothes better suited for Canada in November and with active 2 ½ year-old twin boys. Surprisingly, the receptionist said our package covered the in-room safe, which is usually US$2/day. We had to ask for help to programme it. The day we checked in, a leg fell off of our bed. (The day we checked out, a leg fell off of the chair.) We had to remind the front desk that we had requested a crib. That was a lot of trips to the front desk. Most of the building do not have an elevator; we were happy to be on the ground floor. The beds have a weird centre support about 2cm short of the floor, so that every time you turn over, it noisily hits the floor. I used a book to fill the gap and silence the problem. The collapsible crib was not fully latched so a rattling noise woke us every time the toddler moved; I had to partially disassemble the crib and close the two latches. Our room was on the south west corner of the property: just south is the main road (we could hear some trucks and motorcycles at night), west is a large swamp (with noisy bullfrogs and mosquitoes), and east of the property is a tall broadcast tower. These might present health issues for guests and staff. Twice, we had to hide in our room while staff used a gas-powered fogger to spray insecticide. One fellow guest told us the staff also fogged the buffet. Other guests complained of noise in their rooms near the main pool. Property drainage and plumbing are problematic during the frequent November rain storms. The reception area was ankle-deep in water. Our sink and shower drains backed up. We had trouble flushing and the toilet bubbled overnight. Staff had to mop the Italian restaurant and other areas. The architecture and landscaping are quite pleasant. There were pretty Christmas decorations all over the resort while we were there in November and December. We had some problems with our room. A dying battery caused the smoke alarm to wake us at 4AM. A technician had to work on our AC four times and it still didn’t function properly. The soap and shampoo dispensers in the shower were miserly and there was no hair conditioner. There were no face cloths or facial tissues. There was no clothes line in the bathroom so take a length of string and some clothespins to hang wet clothes on the balcony. The bathroom sink plug would not hold the water, so take a small basin and some powder laundry detergent if you plan to wash clothes. Room service is staggered: they take away towels around 10AM, then they show up to make the beds and sweep the floor, and finally around 3PM, they bring in fresh towels and two bottles of purified water…inconvenient for us and inefficient for them. There is no “do not disturb” sign if you want to take a nap. There was an empty hook on the wall promising a hotel-provided umbrella; we found the unhookable umbrella in the closet behind an ironing board on the last day of our stay. On the positive side, the hair dryer worked fine and the bar fridge was quiet (though not stocked). The wifi worked in the main room and on the balcony but did not reach into the bathroom, where many people like to read their email. The local channels on the TV are pretty useless and I couldn’t get it to connect directly with the internet; good thing I took along a laptop and an HDMI cable to keep the toddlers entertained with streamed programming and video files on my hard drive. There were three power failures while we were there; it took awhile for the generator to kick in and even longer for the wifi to be restored; take a flashlight or be ready to use your cellphone to get a little light during these outages. Also, take along some empty plastic bottles for an extra supply of purified water from the bar (the only place it’s dispensed). If you have niños, you can beg for some leche fría (cold milk) at the bar, but beware: they tend to serve leche caliente (hot milk). One neighbour said this was his third room: the first one was much smaller than what he had booked and the second one flooded. Another guest told us he had mould in his room. On different occasions, a cat and two microscopic frogs from the neighbouring swamp snuck into our room. Many cats roam the resort property and stray dogs (not threatening) roam the beach. Mosquitoes bit the toddlers in our room; take a fly zapper. The buffet has enthusiastic staff, but all beef, poultry, and pork seem to include bones, gristle, or skin. I appreciated the occasionally offered blue cheese, watercress, pumpernickel bread, the soups, the varied vegetables, the pineapple, passion fruit, and papaya at most meals. The house wines and beer were potable but not spectacular. Portions were plentiful in the Italian and Mexican à la carte restaurants; meager in the Melt/Fusion à la carte restaurant, where lighting is a weird fluorescent and the ceiling is made of doors. The “apple strudel” at Melt and Italian have no apple in them. The beef main course at Mexican is marvellous; b sure to take a camera so they can photograph you in giant sombreros. The extended-hours snack restaurant (which becomes the Italian à la carte in the evening) offers re-heated deep fried fast food—not appealing. The restaurants and pools seemed heavily used by nationals on the weekends, so get to the restaurants at opening times to get a table. The toddlers appreciated the kids’ pool and the large shallow areas in the main pool. The third pool seemed unused and always in need of a chlorine shock. The water in the hot tub was not very hot. The children's club, which we did not use, had an unremarkable play structure (no slide) and the few times we saw it in use, the children were watching a TV screen. Only twice in the two weeks we were there, we saw the facilitator take the children to an activity at the pools.

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