AVA Cancun

Here now day 4 and the best holiday ever GiGi and team at the pool are out of this world love their energy and fun making our holiday the BEST to all the staff working at Ava you are all amazing you can’t want for anything they are so attentive kind and funny drink is never empty, rooms are beautiful, bed feels like a cloud, food amazing, entertainment 10/10, location perfect hotel is outstanding love Bob andy, T and lex xxx x Read less

My niece and I went to Ava Resort for a friend's destination wedding. Our stay was Friday-Monday. This experience, for the most part, was quite bad. I will likely never do another destination wedding thanks to the poor treatment. Upon arrival, check-in was smooth but everything went down from there. Upon arrival to the room, I inspected it for cleanliness, as I always do. I oticed there was bird poop on the balcony floor, glass and ledge, as well as a dirty soaker tub. I called to request housekeeping come up. Never happened. The poop was still there when we checked out. I had to request housekeeping daily I order to receive service. We never had a sign stating not to come, a d we also saw them our floor daily. When they did come, after I repeatedly called, our room was not serviced until 5:30pm on Saturday and 3pm on Su day. This is so not acceptable! Let's talk about the food. Most of the food was tasteless and very disappointing, if you could get a reservation. First night, we tried to get reservations at Black Iron steak house. We were told reservations were booked out 1 1/2 weeks....Really!!! We therefore went to Veranda, the Italian restaurant. The food was beyond disappointing. I had the bolognese with beef. It was spaghetti with tasteless sauce and chunks of low quality beef. My niece had a chicken dish with pasta and a white sauce. She said it reminded her of the frozen TV dinners she use to make for her children. Our other table guest couldn't/wouldn't finish their dishes. I want to definitely mention tasteless Upon arrival, I was asked to have a card on file so the hotel to hold $100 for incidentals. First, what incidentals in an all inclusive. I'm sure it was not for the stale snacks in the room. I did put the card on file. When I checked my account, there was a $300 hold. I immediately went to the desk to ask about the $300. The same person, Alana, who checked me in and said $100, stated she said $100/day. No ma'am! You did not. I locked my card. If you wat decent food, go to the buffet or taco stand. The pastry and coffee shops were good. The bar drinks were ok if you got a bartender who knew how to make a proper drink. I can't speak to any of the food and beverages poolside, as I did not try them. The room service was fast and accurate but the food was only fair, at least the wings. The pizza was horrible. I can say the wedding and the food at the wedding reception was delicious. Not sure why it does not happen throughout the resort. I was glad to leave the Ava. For the price I paid to be there, the quality did not match. I can say with certainty I would not give them a second chance. Read less

I came back home 3 days ago. Still in shock. Never ever in my entire life I had such a horrible experience. When we walked into our room and opened balcony door - smell of sewage hit us pretty bad. There is no beach. I believe they may have a sewage break into ocean. Unbelievable! I will try to leave video I made from the beach area. You can’t even approach close to it, smell kills you. They try to use deodorants inside, but it masks the smell and makes it worse. Read less

This was a tough resort to review. There were a lot of pluses and my family really enjoyed their stay, but we probably would not go back. What stood out- 🌮The food! I really enjoyed that a lot of the food options were prepared fresh! I often noticed fresh pasta being made, and they made fresh pita bread in the Mediterranean restaurant for an appetizer. I also was told that all of the baked goods for breakfast were made fresh that day. The food always tasted good and clean, not like it had been Reheated like you can sometimes taste at other resorts. We really enjoyed Levo the Mediterranean restaurant we thought the flavors were delicious and the atmosphere is absolutely stunning! We enjoyed our meals at the other restaurants, but levo really stood out to us. We really enjoyed how beautiful all of the restaurants were. The decor is stunning and the service is top-notch. We often had two servers for our family of four. I also really appreciated the kids menus at every restaurant. My kids always had something to eat (they are picky). This is something that we didn’t get at other resorts. The food by the pool was hit or miss there would be days they would have options that my kids liked and days when they didn’t have those options so I’m a little confused as to why chicken nuggets and french fries weren’t always on the menu at lunchtime. Room service was really good and always came hot. The wait time wasn’t bad at all! Overall, I would rate the food, an 8 out of 10. 🌅Room- The rooms were large and very clean. We never had an issue with housekeeping. There were a couple of times we needed maintenance to come out and that did take a few phone calls, but overall things got taken care of. I will say the walls are very thin we often were woken up in the middle of the night with parties in the hallway or When the staff came around to pick up the plates from room service. We got the friends and family room with the Jacuzzi on the deck and we used it pretty much every single day. We really enjoyed getting away from the big pools and having some room service and spending some time outside on our covered patio, just relaxing and hanging out together as a family. Hit or miss- 👨‍🍳The service- we had amazing service at the buffet, there were a couple of waiters that went out of their way to make my birthday celebration special and always made sure our mimosas were full and that our kids were happy. One server stood out in particular, Pueblo!! He greeted us with a smile every single morning, and even brought us a happy birthday candle and little sparkler dessert. Absolutely one of the sweetest men we have met! As for the service at the pool. This was extremely hit or miss. I feel like we went at a pretty quiet time, and there would be server standing around and not even acknowledging your existence and that was a little disappointing. To that same point we would also have servers that were really friendly and really nice and pretty attentive, but I wouldn’t even be able to mention them in this post because they didn’t stand out enough to make an impression on our family. Like I said the service at the bars and in the restaurants were really good as well. You would often get two servers to your table, even if it was a smaller table and they worked very hard to make sure that you had everything you wanted. We were just a little disappointed with the pool service just because we tip very well. We know how hard they work and how hot it was outside and we just didn’t feel like they went the extra effort, but with that said we saw several people very happy, having a great time, getting excellent service, so I think we just didn’t find our People when it came to the pool area 🍺🍹The drinks- sometimes we had yummy drinks but most of the time we didn’t. They didn’t have as many good options as other resorts. One day we wanted to get a dirty monkey and they didn’t have bananas 🙈. No tamarind, and I searched for Pacifico light (I had seen it in other photos) and no one knew where to get it. I did appreciate that they had other options for beer, not just Dos Equis. I also appreciated that they had water bottles all over the resort for you to grab and go at any time!!!! They often brought buckets of water on ice when you got to your pool chair. They advertise mixology but we tried specifically drinks at the bras and restaurants and were disappointed, maybe we didn’t try the right ones 🤷🏼‍♀️ 🐚💦Pool/beach- There is no shortage of pools and vibes at this resort. If you want to be in a more party vibe, you go to the family pool or the adults only pool if you want to have a more chill vibe, you go to the lagoon part of the pool that doesn’t have activities . I really feel like there is something for everyone. The beach is hard for me to write about because we didn’t let the seaweed stop us from visiting the beach. The sand is really soft. There’s lots of animals. We actually saw deer on the beach one morning. It was so clear on morning that we were able to look for Seashells Which ended up being our families‘s favorite part of the trip. I will say, though, the smell is really bad- you can smell the water in your room. You cannot smell the water in the hallways because they have air perfume vents but where they don’t have these, you can smell the rotting seaweed. That was a little gross but not the fault of the resort. 📳 Communication- this resort is so large and there are a lot of moving parts… with that said, communication is lacking! We went to celebrate my 40th birthday and we took ALL THE STEPS to communicate why we were there… they didn’t really do anything special. We got a card wishing my daughter a happy birthday, we got a plate that said happy anniversary… and that was about it….. we were promised many things without receiving. The most special celebration was made by PUEBLO in the buffet, which I’m pretty sure he planned on his own time. Thank you again Pueblo!!! Why we won’t visit again- We didn’t like that there were little to no seating options for dinner outside… once the sun starts to set and the pool is closed the resort is pretty much only an indoor resort. They modeled the resort after a cruise ship so there is one main hall that has everything on it… like a Main Street. We like more tropical and being able to explore the resorts and go to different (ocean front) restaurants. We sat outside at the steak restaurant one night and it was so pleasant, we watched the sun set and drank wine. We wish there was more of that at the resort. They have beautiful outdoor furniture that no one uses, it’s a shame. We also didn’t like that there were no “themed” nights. The Mexican nights that other resorts have are fun and a good way to support the locals. Again, nothing going on outside at night time. The resort is relatively new (opened for about a year) but there are still “issues” with it. Leaks, damage to the walls, our room had a sliding door that was damaged, and just little things like that. I almost feel like they made the resort too BIG and they aren’t sure how to keep up with it…. I couldn’t imagine the resort being up to par if/when it’s at capacity. We got a really good deal on this resort so we thought we would try it but there’s no way we would pay full price for it. Again, I understand everyone has their own “standards” and what I May like someone else may hate… so take what you want from this review. I hope it helps if you’re considering traveling to this resort 😍 Read less

The resort is approx 10 min to the airport. Our room was ready when we arrived and check in took about 20 min. All rooms are new, modern and have a great full ocean view. We were in N428 and really liked the location. The resort is big- but not Hard Rock Punta Cana big and much easier to navigate. Drinks and bartenders at the Cocktail Bar were excellent- shout it to Edgar and all of the mixologists wearing the aprons. Our favorite restaurant was Black Iron- mashed potatoes, short ribs, grilled salad were amazing. We also really enjoyed Copal- the Mexican restaurant, which had a Mariachi band playing during dinner. The breakfast buffet with made-to-order omelettes and lunch by the pool-chicken tinga tacos and Caesar salads- were also quite good. Juan and Erick kept the drinks flowing by the pool and provided excellent service. We loved the salt water pools, especially the Legendary pool. Overall, the staff were extremely nice and accommodating. Most spoke English- some are still learning. I highly recommend the massages and hydrotherapy at the spa and we spent most mornings at the gorgeous and well-equipped gym. We really enjoyed the 2.5 hr speedboat tour and snorkeling with Jungle Tours. Looking forward to our next visit to Ava! Read less