Viaggio Resort Mazatlán

The rooms were clean and the staff friendly, but the place was extremely noisy and far too crowded for me. The buffet line stretched almost to the lobby. The pool was dirty and packed, and getting a lounge chair meant waking up at 7am to claim one with a towel, even though the pool doesn’t open until 9am. By then there were no tables left. It’s also very expensive without the all-inclusive option. A basic ham sandwich was about $12 USD. If you want peace and quiet, stay somewhere else.

The location is great, the building was clean, and the view looks out over the ocean. The pool stays open until 9, though poolside food and drinks shut at 8 with no last call notice. We could hear nearby construction, and the live band downstairs woke us even with our own white noise machine. Check activity prices against other websites before committing, since the front desk rates are substantially higher. The pool deck is cramped and poorly laid out, with few seats. A kids’ water bucket dumps across the main walking path between the seating areas, but the beach is only a few steps away and has plenty of space. There are three pools: one adults only, one for mixed ages, and a small one with tiny slides for young kids and water about a foot deep. My 9 yr old didn’t love it. Bigger slides, a diving board, swim up bar, tables in the pool, or something for adults to do would make it more interesting. The outside bar setup is a hassle. First you queue to order, show your bracelet and give your room number, get a ticket, then join another line to have the drink made. Food means another line, and anything off the menu or a la cart costs extra. The queue area is small and runs between occupied tables, so it’s awkward for people waiting and dining. At the inside cafe you can get coffee and drinks, but anything not on the menu is charged separately. The drinks I tried there were delicious. The room had no mini fridge, outside food wasn’t allowed, and they supplied two bottles of water and coffee. Drinks came in cups, so you couldn’t take a canned one back to your room for later. For every food or drink order, you had to give your room number and show your wristband, and the name on file had to match the people at the table. Seven of us were traveling together in two rooms. When I took three kids to eat, we got in trouble because two were registered to a different room than mine. That made an already difficult meal situation worse. The single buffet in the building closes three times a day, often leaving a line to get in. Breakfast was terrible and looked like leftovers from dinner the night before, see pics. My three kids, ages 5, 7, and 9, complained about the food, including the scrambled eggs and pan cakes. Our pop order was wrong several times, my coffee never came, and the ketchup packets were the best part of the meal according to the kids. We went to a nearby cafe for decent food, snacked at the beach, and hardly ate at the resort, so the food money felt wasted. The spinach salad, tuna mixed with potatoes, and Pico de gallo were all delicious. There were very few English speaking staff. The kids club is advertised as 10-6, but my kids usually only went for scheduled activities at 11am, 1pm, 4pm, and sometimes 6pm. They were the only ones there outside activity times, and the toys were for infants: mega block, foam blocks, and manipulatives. There were no craft supplies, board games, or Lego. The scheduled activities were great and the kids loved them, though each lasted less than an hour. Instructions were in Spanish, but visuals helped my English only kids understand what was going on, and they happily joined in.

The only people who gave us outstanding service were the house keeper and Manuel the waiter. My fiancé and I stayed for 10 days without all inclusive, since that isn’t our preference. Whenever we tried to eat at the restaurant, both hosts, on the am and pm shifts, were extremely rude, whether we came for breakfast or dinner. They always had an excuse to keep us from sitting on the patio. We only got to use the pool one day because seating was limited. That day, the security guard rudely told me I couldn’t drink while standing in the water. The server had set a table right outside the pool for us and never said we couldn’t have our drinks in the water. On other days we saw lots of people drinking in the pool. We won’t return or recommend it. DO NOT STAY HERE IF YOU ARE AMERICAN, you will be treated differently than everyone else.

Food and drinks by the pool meant standing in a very long line, with barely any waitresses helping. Staff were rude, and they wouldn’t let families sit together for no reason. We politely asked if we could push tables together so our family of 15 could sit as a group. They refused in a really disrespectful way. Staff seemed not to like their jobs and would complain about people, like saying “another sandwich” or “another drink for them,” even when it was their mistake. Save your money and don’t waste time or energy coming somewhere you’ll be treated badly. These were our worst vacations to Mazatlán. Again, RIU in Mazatlán is the BEST, worth every penny!