Absolutely glad to give a review of UNICO 2087
I was able to book a great deal with 2 other couples for a quick getaway. We flew out of IAH only because United had some cheap flights and the grandparents are closer to Houston than DFW. The room priced well compared to what I've quoted the resort at before so it was a win-win for all.
We stayed 4 nights, and while I normally like to stay longer or switch resorts it was just the right amount of time to dip my feet back into traveling after all of the COVID closures and travel bans.
Arriving at the resort all luggage is sanitized, you stand on a mat with sanitizing liquid for the bottom of your shoes, temperature taken and given hand sanitizer. We were told that masks were recommended for all guests for all inside areas --- lobby, restaurants (when not eating/drinking), spa, etc I would say 99% of guests did not adhere to this recommendation. In our group, we did our best to social distance as much as possible and but we didn't even bring our masks out with us for the remaining days of the trip. All staff at the resort wore masks I never saw an employee without one. Majority of servers at pool and restaurants were wearing gloves. We saw them cleaning high touch areas like the bars and furniture inside constantly. Pool chairs were sanitized every morning.
Overall, it is a beautiful resort. It is small compared to Secrets, Excellence, El Dorado Royale, etc but, it is marketed as a luxury, boutique resort so it made sense. The landscaping was gorgeous and you would not have even known there was a category 2 hurricane that hit the week before. We saw minimal damage from the hurricane on the transfer but that was closer to the airport and north of Playa del Carmen. The grounds were immaculate; the dcor in the lobby and throughout the resort, including the rooms, is modern luxury with a familiar rustic feel. I loved the minimalistic approach to their dcor but it still had some charm that made you feel like you are in Mexico.
I like that there are not too many room categories to choose from. It is basically Ocean View, Swim Out, and Ocean Front; there are some larger suites that I did see and they were nice but I don't think they were necessarily needed for one couple. From what I heard; they are mainly reserved for their timeshare clients. My husband and I stayed in an Ocean Front Room and the view could not be beat. I personally think this is the room to reserve here but since all rooms have some sort of ocean view, I don't think you could go wrong with either one. One couple in our group had a swim out room. I liked these and if you are a regular that will always book a swim out, I think they were good. That being said, some of the swim out rooms were not as private as others. Most are right along the main walkways that guests are constantly walking along to get to restaurants, pools, etc Luckily, I was able to request that their room had a little more privacy and not along these major walkways. They were located on the end and landscaping hid them back more. The rooms were clean, stylish and had plenty of room. All ocean view and ocean front rooms have a large balcony with jacuzzi tub. Our room was extremely cold the entire time and we couldn't really get it to turn off without just leaving the balcony door open. I'm not complaining because I would much rather have it be too cold than too hot and not working. We wanted to eat breakfast on the balcony but the sun was a little too much just coming up over the ocean.
With every room you are assigned a Local Host. This employee is your contact for any needs or requests during your stay. Our host was Javier and he was excellent. He used WhatsApp to text us and we could request anything and everything from him. He set up all of our dinner reservations and made sure we had our favorite pool server every day, no matter where we were located. We did not do any excursions but he could have set those up also. The only thing he normally would do but cannot right now is make spa appointments. We had to do those on our own (More about the spa in a minute). They normally have mixology classes and other fun foodie classes, like making authentic guacamole, but with COVID restrictions they are not allowing those at this time. We told him we were bummed about this and he set up to have our little own do-it-yourself mixology class in our room one night. They provided all of the ingredients for a signature cocktail along with the recipe.
There are three pools and all were very nice. Two are located in the central area of the resort and the one closest to the beach is livelier and where all the activities are. The swim up bar is closed right now. The third pool is more of a 'quiet pool' and smaller with less chairs. There are a few hot tubs around these pools as well. You can rent private cabanas around the two main pools for $180 per day. All the pools are heated in the winter, along with the swim out room pools. No issue with temperature of pools. We did have issue with reserving pool chairs local host will not do this; although I did ask. We had someone go out every morning around 7:00am and put towels and hats on where we wanted. I was disappointed in this but to get the good chairs sometimes it is that way.
Beach and ocean were the best I've seen in a while in Riviera Maya. I was told up front that the beach at UNICO was hit or miss and it definitely was a hit this time. Blue/teal water for miles and clear! No sargassum at all and white sand. Water was cool but not cold. UNICO has a small section for beach chairs and they were all taken every day when we would go for a walk around 9am. Our group was not really into the beach that much, so it wasn't a big deal, but if you are wanting to lay on the beach all day it would be best to get out there early. No cabanas on the beach but they did have umbrellas.
I had two issues with the overall service at the resort and these are both COVID restrictions related. Normally, you are able to make spa appointments and dinner reservations ahead of time on their app or by calling/emailing the resort. I've told this to my clients many, many times for this resort without any sort of issue. So, about two weeks out from arrival I tried to make these reservations on the app and it wouldn't let me without a room number. So, I called and emailed their vacation makers team and asked. Response was that I could only make dinner reservations upon arrival and with room number and Spa reservations could only be booked in person. I thought this sounded odd but I talked with my sales rep and he said it sounded fine because of COVID restrictions and that the resort is only at 40% capacity so there should be plenty of availability. Fast forward to arrival our local host is asking about dinner reservations and if we had any and I of course, say no, because I didn't have a room number. He looked puzzled and said it was going to be difficult to get dinner reservations for us. Now, we were a group of 6, so I understand that this is harder to accommodate, but I was told previously it wouldn't be a problem. Luckily our host was amazing and he worked it all out, we had to eat a little later but we were on vacation with no kids, so eating at 8 or 9 was fine with us.
For the spa, we went to make appointments and by the time I waited in line and finally talked with someone there were NO appointments available during our stay. NONE. Not even just one massage. They put me on a wait list. Thankfully, our friends were able to snag appointments, I would much rather my friends/clients have them over me. I was able to get in later because there was a cancellation but I was really disappointed at how they wouldn't try to even work something out. They just were like, sorry, no appointments. Of all of my trips to Mexico and Caribbean all-inclusive resorts I've never had an issue like that. They were just very cold about it all. The Spa was ok I was a little underwhelmed. The hydrotherapy circuit was ok. The massage rooms were like I was in a medical clinic. There was no charm or peacefulness to it. Massage was good but I think I was already turned off by the whole circumstance that I couldn't really enjoy it.
Later on, after talking with our host we were informed that they are highly understaffed right now. From what he said, they are overbooked and understaffed. Our host said they are probably closer to 60% capacity instead of 40% and they are working with half of the staff they normally are. They have employees basically waiting in the wings in case someone is sick and has to be out they can just replace them instead of going without. So, this was the case at the spa too; understaffed and overbooked. I also found out there was a large wedding party that had arrived the same day and the bride/groom had booked massages for the entire wedding party (14 people) like right before I went in the make my appointment. I completely understood after hearing that but why couldn't the spa come up with an explanation rather than just saying there was nothing they could do?
In conclusion, I think the minor issues are only COVID restriction related issues. Everyone I've sent to UNICO and other agents in my group who have stayed said they had no issues with service or reservations. In this time of travel ramping back up I think there are going to be kinks that need to be worked out and precautions/new rules to get used to across the board.
I'd be happy to help anyone book a trip to Mexico!
Lauren K '07
www.breezecustomtravel.com
@breezecustomtravel
