mitamary
If you don’t want to read this entire review, go to The St Regis Punta Mita for the food, the vistas, the service and the ability to spend your entire vacation without a single feeling of stress. In fact, if you are simultaneously getting a divorce, going through bankruptcy, and learning that your 22 year old son wants to become a professional skateboarder, I suggest you to head to the St. Regis Punta Mita to forget about it all.
The hotel is located about a 45 minutes’ drive from the Puerto Vallarta Airport. The hotel has luxury SUV’s for ground transportation, so once off the plane you are in good hands and the unwinding begins. Punta Mita is a large peninsula about 45 minutes from Puerto Vallarta with the St Regis and Four Seasons sharing the area with a scattering of private homes and a golf course, although the two hotels are probably a half mile apart. The St. Regis comprises 120 rooms (a perfect size resort) strung out along a very long private beach facing due west. Yes, the sunsets are breathtaking. This is not a resort where you will find resort after resort lining the beach. It is truly a pristine and secluded location and you will feel as though you are on a private island. There are 3 very large pool areas (one is adult only) and although the hotel was sold out during my stay I never saw any of the pools having more than 1/3 of the loungers in use. Similarly, we were able to more or less pick our lounge chairs on the beach and you never feel that you are encroaching on anyone. No waking up early to get the best pool chair at this joint. The beach views are of a number of small island rocky formations that generate some amazing surf. The beach near the water is a bit rocky so it is not the best for swimmers but at every point on the beach you were only a few steps from a pool. Our son had beach slippers (which I recommend if you care to frolic in the pacific) and spent a lot of time at the waters edge. The trade off is that if you are a surfer there is some great break and there were a half dozen surfers out each day, a few sail boats and lots of paddle boarders cruising around as well.
The property hosts a decent gym, tennis, and 2 good golf course which we had played about ten years ago during a visit to the Four Seasons. The kids club is basic which is probably good for toddlers. The hotel did organize a number of activities on a grassy area near the beach in the mornings that gained the interest of the sub teen crowd. There was a small soccer field and the pool did have a number of items for kid’s entertainment.
We had only three nights at the St Regis so we did not experience all of the restaurants. On our first night we loved the beach side restaurant called “Mita Mary”. This is a toes in the sand barbeque/ceviche/taco restaurant looking over that great seaside view into the sunset. The food here is killer good, very simple but full of flavor. Combine that with top notch service, good beverages and the view and it’s an experience you can’t replicate anywhere. Our kids hammered back their dinners, politely excused themselves from the table and got back to their play in the sand. There are a few games within sight so you can watch over them but not hear them…how perfect. As the meal ends and night falls, the fire pit is only a few yards away and we settle in for a fire side chat and some complementary s’mores……a very nice touch. We loved Mita Mary’s so much that we skipped the other restaurants and decided to enjoy Mita Mary’s on our last night (we went into town one night for dinner). The restaurants on property are all priced in Peso (which was at 20/$ during our stay) and we found the pricing very affordable for a five star luxury resort. The hotel also had a great kids menu and the kids can easily eat lunches and dinners for under $10US. Breakfasts and lunches wear at Sea Breeze, which is a few steps from the beach. I would rank both the breakfasts and lunches at a 9 out of 10. Again service is excellent, the menu is diverse and the food is fabulous.
I nearly forgot to mention the rooms since we spent virtually no time there. We had two queen beds, ample room, and nice décor with a great bathroom including an outdoor shower. At the front of the room was a nice patio with ample teak furniture. The rooms are very nicely appointed however the property is so spectacular we spent hardly any time in our room.
Just to reiterate, if you love chilling on the beach or pool side overlooking the beach then go to the St Regis Punta Mita. The fact that the food, beverage and service level are on par with the setting makes this place a real gem.