Hacienda San Jose Cholul

We had a great time at San Jose Cholul. Mario, the administrator, set up a cooking class for my wife who learned how to make Cochinita Pibil. He arranged for a special meal for us with the pathway leading to our table in a wooded area near the restaurant lit up by candles. He set us up to go bike riding. He set up a birdwatching walk early in the morning and a tour of the hacienda. He really made our stay great. And the room we had was large and quiet and air conditioned. The grounds were very attractive as was the pool. This is not a massive hacienda on a majestic scale. There is no “big house” and the owners probably stayed here infrequently. It was a working hennequin plantation. On a certain level, this made it more intimate and charming.

We had a couple of fantastic days and wished we had stayed for longer. The location is fantastic, in the middle of the jungle - it is so peaceful, and it is a great base for exploring Yucatan. The rooms are wonderful, the food at the restaurant brilliant and service exceptional. Highly recommended. You appreciate how good a place is when they have a problem: there was a huge rain storm that took out the electricity for an hour on our first evening. The staff were superb, bringing candles to our table and LED lights for the room - the Manager finding us later to apologise and check we were okay, which was brilliant. But it was great to play cards and talk to the kids without them wanting to be on their phones via the WiFi. Well done staff of Hacienda San Jose.

Simple. Magical. Historical. A gem. Beautiful hacienda and grounds. Very rustic, incredibly peaceful. Staff are incredible - friendly, helpful. My daughter and I stayed here for the last night of our recent stop in Merida. Wish we had stayed longer. From the moment you arrive, the staff makes you feel so welcome. The mint lemonade and cool towel on arrival was perfect. Highly recommend the hacienda tour, the spa (Mayan massage was incredible) and the pool (its huge and so peaceful). The bar - so relaxing and a great place to watch the birds with cocktail in hand - and the restaurant - fabulous food and top notch service (loved the chef sharing her special for the evening). It was recently bought by IHG and will become a high end six senses branded resort. Expect it will then be packed but just wow, this is a hotel and location not to be missed!! Oh we also stayed in the fabulous room 9 with a ceiba tree in the bathroom. Very cool. Beds super comfortable and bathroom/room is stocked with everything you need. Thank you to the team at San José, we will be back.

This is a stunning place to stay for a couple of nights. We stayed here for a couple of nights as part of our honeymoon and had a fantastic time. The Hacienda is small, intimate, and peaceful. There were only a few guests when we stayed which meant we received fantastic service throughout our stay. The best part of our stay was the staff. Rodrigo, one of the waiting staff, went above and beyond to make us comfortable and make our stay extra special. The reception team were great, organised taxis for us, and talked us through the history of the resort. We also received excellent service from Aitor, another member of the waiting team. Not all of the waiting staff speak English, but all of them try their best. The on-site restaurant is excellent, we were able to walk over anytime for both breakfast and dinner, and found the food to be fantastic with good portions, with plenty of traditional Yucatan dishes on the menu. The cocktails were also surprisingly good, including the complimentary drink on arrival. We paid extra for the Banyan tree dinner. The location was magical, and was one of the highlights of the trip. There isn't much information on it on the IHG site, but it was a 4-course meal where you get to choose from a selection of options, with a bottle of wine and a private waiter. We had to ring up to organise it, as we couldn't work out how to email the Hacienda directly. We stayed in Room 3, a large and spacious king suite within the old owners building. A complimentary coffee service is provided to your room every morning, and bottled drinking water was topped up every day by housekeeping. A plug-in mosquito repellent was provided, but recommend bringing plenty of repellent yourself given the location of the Hacienda. The IHG site isn't great for listing the activities on offer - when we were there bikes were available to use, bird watching classes were on offer, and the reception staff talked us through the history of the Hacienda. As some other reviews have pointed out, the grounds are a bit tired in places. In a way, it adds to the charm of the Hacienda - tree roots are growing into the landscaping walls, iguanas burrowing under the steps - but it does mean the paving is uneven in places and there are cracks in a lot of the landscaping. I hope they get some additional investment to properly fix this up, it is a truly magical place which deserves to be restored to its full potential.

The Hacienda is absolutely beautiful, the rooms are very clean and very cozy, the landscape is just amazing…. There are so many nice thing that I could say about the Hacienda but what makes it just perfect or even more than perfect is their employees; they really go out of their way to make sure that your stay is just as good as it can posible be, they are all very helpful and willing to make sure that every single thing in your stay exceeds your expectations. Bravo to to all of them. I was expecting a very good service as this is a luxury Hacienda but they easily exceeded my expectations!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

When reserving with Marriott Bonvoy points, be very carful as there is going to be a room charge that in my case was not disclosed at the point of the reservation and in the email confirmation. Hopefully they will fix this inconvenience that results in unknown charges that should have been informed when reserving. Not sure how it works in Mexico but stating a price and charging a different one would be illegal in some countries.