This is a tough, tough review for me to write. I wanted to love it, I tried. I had issues and emailed management after our trip and have not heard back from them so...now I write.
We booked this on a Groupon. Four nights in a 2-bedroom that supposedly sleeps 5. You pay a certain amount for the Groupon (I think it was $399) then when you call to reserve, you pay an additional $50 non-refundable deposit, THEN when you check in, you pay your MX taxes (about $75). So about $525 for four nights for five people. Still seemed like a great deal.
Okay, so we booked in February for a trip in November. I asked for ocean front and she said "no problem. There's plenty of room." Sweet! I knew from reading other reviews that there is no A/C and our fans would probably not be working etc etc. We made all sorts of plans for ocean front.
We arrived on a HOT day (89 degrees) to check in to find we are NOT ocean front and were told that they were "all full" and could not move us around (side note: there were several units that were dark the entire time we were there). I wanted to understand why our request was not communicated but instead she acted like I was getting upset and she basically shut me down. I just wanted to know how to book so that if we decided to come back, we could have ocean front. What's the secret? I still never figured that out. Anyway, before we left the office I asked if everything was in the room (towels) because I saw a spot where I had to sign that said "checking out towels." She said that yes, everything was there.
So we checked out our place. One bedroom had a double bed and another had a king bed...that's it. Where does the 5th person sleep? If you think it's the couch, you would be wrong because a) it was so worn down we couldn't even sit on it without sinking so much and b) there were ZERO other linens to speak of. I'm talking no extra blankets, towels, sheets, pillows or anything. Every single drawer, cabinet, chest, armoire etc was empty. We ended up with my son sharing a bed with his grandfather and my daughter sharing a bed with us. So much for a romantic vacation, not that we could have seen the ocean anyway.
By now, it's dark but the kids want to swim...no towels. We checked every crevice of the place. Back I went to the hostess who hates me and asked for towels. She kept asking "are you sure there are no towels?" Yeah, I'm pretty sure. She gave us 5 striped/pool towels and said she would bring us 5 bath towels later. Gee, thanks. 2 of the 5 striped towels were unraveling and had holes in them...whatever (they were NEVER replaced during our stay). We swam, had dinner and the worst night of sleep ever. We were only given 4 pillows so I shared one with my daughter. Not the type of mother-daughter bonding time I had in mind.
Also, the bath towels did arrive. Two of them had holes and two of the days we were there, the housekeeper only replaced 4 of the 5 towels. I had to go see my favorite person several more times to get an extra towel.
In the morning we woke up early to head to our excursion in La Paz and surprise...no water. The office doesn't open until 7 so there was nothing we could do because we left at 6am. We only hoped the water would be back on when we got back (it was). I went to the office to ask for extra pillows (at least one) and was promptly told that there are none. I re-iterated that we were in a place that sleep 5, we had 5 people sleeping there and only 4 pillows. She managed to scrounge up an extra pillow for us.
Other frustrating things: no lighter to light the stove/oven, no microwave, no coffee maker, only a small handful of forks, knives etc (we bought plastic anyway), no hand towels, no washcloths, nowhere to hang clothes, no extra toilet paper anywhere. Miscommunication - was told we could swim at Hacienda and we get there only to be laughed at, no more sharing amenities.
Now, you may think it was all bad but there was a lot of good. All of our ceiling fans worked, we could hear the ocean in our room and you cannot beat the proximity to the beach. The pool is beautiful and the beach was even better. We had zero issues with bugs until the very last morning and only had very small issues with ants here and there.
There are a ton of amazing places to eat just 7-ish minutes from the colony so you don't need to eat at their overpriced pool bar. We ate dinner there the first night, no menus, were told "we only have tacos and quesadillas, chicken or steak, nothing else right now."
On our way from the airport we stopped at the store and picked up plates, forks, bowls, spoons, cereal, water, beer, chips, yogurt and a few other snacky items. This helped our mornings tremendously because my daughter and I could have cereal when we woke up at 4am (no joke) and then have breakfast with the family at a restaurant later.
Now that I am back in the real world, I tried to contact management to see if there was anything they would do to help us out with the oceanfront issue but nobody has responded to me (it's been over a week). We want to go back and have checked out other (less expensive) places along the beach but nothing beats the location of Cerritos. Unfortunately, I just don't know if we can go back because of the very poor service and miscommunication we continually received throughout our entire visit.