Going back to my 80s roots and the Go Go’s with that title a little bit there…

I am going to admit I didn’t have high hopes for Haven Riviera Cancun. The price point through my amazing travel agent, Rachel Burk , seemed too good to be true, but she always comes through. I gave her my price range and told her what I was willing to pay per person. She got back with me and told me she thought she found me a unicorn. I put the deposit down immediately, and then, I started researching more about the resort on Fans of Haven Riviera Cancun. I contacted Rachel again, and I said… “Okay, so once I started looking, I think maybe I want to upgrade to a Serenity club swimup.” She responded, “You don’t think I KNOW you? That IS a club level swim-up.” Again, the price point made me think that maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high… In the end, my three days at Haven were MORE than worth the cost.

I flew from Austin to Houston to meet up with Heather. From there, it was a simple trip to the Cancun airport. We FLEW through immigration, no one so much as even glanced our way in customs, we stopped at the restroom, and as we came out our bags were coming off the conveyor belt. No joke. We spent just about 10 minutes max in baggage claim before heading outside to meet our Kalido transfer. I book them EVERY time. They are always professional, courteous, and quick.

Quick is one of the many good things about Haven. It is about 15 minutes away from the airport. The drive up the driveway is almost as long as the whole trip itself. Once there, we were taken to the Serenity lounge for check in. This place is LOVELY. There is a check-in area with a manned bar, and then when you continue to walk through, there are steps down to a glass-walled lounge area that is surrounded by lush vegetation. This is a self-service area for snacks, books, wine, and cocktails. We didn’t really notice the lounge until we were leaving, but it was quite impressive!

We got there at about 1, so I knew our room wouldn’t be ready, yet… I had requested a butler based on suggestions from the Facebook fan group, and Edith was amazing. She texted me through What’s App, and let me know she’d meet us somewhere on the resort at 3. We chose our half-bottles of liquor for the room (Serenity guests get one each), and got our bracelet for our stay. I actually didn’t mind the bracelet. It’s pretty cute, and it’s also your room key. It’s a gold-colored band for Serenity guests and black for all others with a little wood logo. I even thought about keeping it. It would be $10 if I wanted to purchase. After checkin, we went to floor -1 to the Flavors buffet for lunch.

I hate buffets. I always end up with some hodgepodge of weirdness because I can’t decide. Still, this buffet was fine. It had all of the regular things you might expect and also a made to order grill where you could get burgers and hotdogs and salmon and such. The other options were outdoor, and since we were sill in travel clothes, not resort bathing suits and cover ups, we opted for the inside. I had read things about the food temperatures maybe not being great, but I thought all the hot stuff was hot and the cold stuff was cold. What more could you ask for? The buffet is available for all three meals, with nights often following a theme, but this lunch was our only time there. I can see how a buffet for dinner would be a good option for people coming in late or just those who don’t want to make reservations for dinner.

After lunch, we opted to wander around. WAY around. There is a path that is VERY long that leads around the front of the resort near the road– OR– as we discovered later, a much EASIER path that follows the ocean side of the resort. Don’t be like we are. Go along the ocean side. Still, we found EVERYTHING: The big circle pool far to one side of the resort, with the Serenity club only Vistas restaurant that is open for breakfast and lunch with an outdoor view above it, most of the main restaurants, Limes bar, and the corner specialty bar on floor 1 above the main pool. Check in, the soon-to-be-open-but-currently-covered-by-drywall lobby bar, and the theater on floor 0, and Docks bar where there is nighttime entertainment prior to the show on floor -1. We were in building VII on the far opposite end of the resort, and by the time Edith found us and showed us to the room, we were good and warm for sure!

We got a two queen bed, partial ocean view, Serenity club swim-up, and it was SPECTACULAR. The room was COLD… I mean like seriously 64 degrees cold ALL. THE. TIME. That’s what we asked for. I specifically mentioned it in my requests, and we got it! I had read quite a bit about very slippery floors, and I am terrified of falling. I’m in my 50s, and I don’t bounce as well as I used to. I did put down a little non-slip path for us with shelving liner. Still, the surface of the swim-out itself wasn’t slippery at all, nor was the shower which had a rainfall shower head and a separate wand.

The storage in the room was EXCELLENT. There were six drawers in the closet, and a few in the room. We requested extra hangers and got plenty. There were plenty of outlets and room to store things in the bathroom. The bathroom had FAR more privacy than most Mexican resort restrooms and even had a solid door from the outside. The room was simple but well appointed. The in-room fridge was nice and cold and had beer and soda. There were a few snacks that were replenished daily, and a “secret box” for room service to bring and retrieve food items.

That was all well and good, but this swim out was truly spectacular. It had stairs directly in, and then a bench to sit on once in the pool. It was warmed to a reasonable amount, but still refreshing. We could definitely feel some heat coming out of the jets. We were right in front of Tahani restaurant with a view past the two Serenity pools of the ocean on our right. There are also rooms that are swim up with full ocean front in building eight. Just gorgeous! This was my favorite swim up pool ever. Drink service was good once it started, but some days it started later than others. Cobos was a WONDERFUL server who checked on us all the time. He would walk over from Tahani restaurant and stand just on the other side of the infinity ledge. Some of the drinks were definitely NOT what I was expecting. (Since when is a Paloma lemonade and vodka?) but when I specified my requests I got exactly what I was asking for. The pools are open 24 hours, so if you like, you can swim at night as well.

When Heather and I do our trips, most of our days are about the same. I’m the earlier riser of the group, and I love to start on the beach or at least NEAR the beach where I can SEE a beach. I love the beach. I don’t love sand… Heather REALLY likes to float in the ocean. This time, though, she thought it seemed a little too choppy and that she might have to get out a little too far. I really expected the sargassum to be much worse this time of year. I’m not saying it was great, and this isn’t a pristine beach – BUT there were plenty of beds on the beach, you could walk forever, and people were definitely getting in the water. I selected a bed on the Serenity swim up pool, just up the stairs from the beach where I could still SEE and hear the water, but didn’t deal with the sand, and I started my mornings reading books there.

Heather and I partied in our younger days, but these trips are for doing little more than “pool,” “snack” “repeat.” We could have had a half our hydrotherapy included with our Serenity club, and the spa looked terrific. But with such gorgeous weather and so little time (three nights), we didn’t want to take away from that time. The only “extra” we did was a tequila and chocolate pairing at Tahani that was sommelier led and a lot of fun! It included four tequilas, two Mezcals, and a signature drink- all paired with Mexican chocolate for $45 a person. We even got to try a Mezcal infused with insects!

Much like the buffet, to me, all the other food at the resort was “fine.” The restaurants themselves are bright and beautiful, many with gorgeous views of the ocean. I’m thrilled that most of the restaurants are situated where they have a view. So many resorts seem to forget that part. All the meals seemed a little under seasoned, and most of the menus were quite limited. Nothing stood out as being exceptionally bad or exceptionally good to me. Reservations are recommended, but not really required. You can’t make reservations until you’re at the resort. Still, every restaurant we went to had people walking up, and they were usually told to return at a different time for that same evening. I don’t mind reservations, and we had no trouble getting them for 6:30 or 7:00 each night. Our butler made the reservations, but I could do it myself on the app myself.

Heather is not much of a drinker. I’m not much of a drinker unless I’m WITH drinkers. Still, we did make it to Limes bar upstairs just to look around. You can get a view of the front of the resort from there. We went to the corner bar for an excellent espresso martini. Each night at the corner bar has a different theme, and you can grab your drink then sit looking out at the view. We also found we quite enjoyed sitting at Docks bar as it started to get around 8 or 9 at night, and we could watch how well couples who had been drinking all day navigated the stairs down from the restaurants. We’re happy to say we didn’t see anyone fall, but we did see some people who definitely took the stairs with care! If we had stayed up until 9:45, there was a show every night at Moons, and then dancing after, but the theater was small, and dancing isn’t really our thing…

We really did spend most of our time just floating around in our swim up, and were quite glad the towels were plentiful. One afternoon we ventured down to the round pool which has a swim up bar and another little snack bar tucked into the back corner. Being in the water, the pool felt HUGE. The bottom was pretty sandy, but it was otherwise clean and beautiful. We were able to find a seat as soon as we walked up. There some of beds available to rent around the pool if you like, but most are open to everyone. I’m sure my butler could have gotten one from me. I’ve never been sure what to do with a butler before, but she was great! It was nice to have one person to contact for anything I needed. I realized that I forgot one of my medications at home, and she was able to order it for me from the pharmacy and have it delivered. It did seem that most things she did could be done through the app. The app is https://haven.stay-app.com/?id=q8n1 It’s a little unusual. You can’t get it through a play store, and it didn’t work for me until I typed it into my browser OUTSIDE of Facebook. Then, I was able to go to the dots on the upper right hand corner and click “download” and it worked like an app at that point. Some people find it easier to do from the resort. My butler didn’t really tell me about anything on there, but she likely figured I already knew. There are things people can participate in all day long if they like. I THOUGHT about a macramé class, and I THOUGHT about a cocktail class… but I did a whole lot of nothing, and loved it.

Less than three days after our trip started, it came to an end. Our transfer came from Kalido at 10:15 in the morning for our 1:45 flight. Yes, it was likely too early, but you really do never know, and the airport was crazy. Still, an hour later might not have been the WORST thing. Maybe I only say that because although our flight to Houston was uneventful, I had to go on to Austin. One mishap led to another, and ultimately our plane returned from circling Austin for a few hours BACK to the Houston airport at midnight. I had to get a hotel room until I was able to FINALLY leave at 9:30 the next morning. But, that’s one of the things I love my credit card for, my Chase Sapphire Reserve is reimbursing me for all of the Lyft rides and the hotel. The amount of benefits with that card are AMAZING. It pays for itself many times over!

Even with the minor inconvenience in the end, I was still thrilled with the trip. If I had to rate Haven with the other resorts I’ve been to in the past, I’d rate as follows:

1. Secrets Impression Moxche
2. Excellence Playa Mujeres
3. Haven
4. Live Aqua
5. Excellence Rivera Cancun
6. Valentin Imperial Riviera Maya
7. Hyatt Zilara
8. El Dorado Maroma

I actually really like all of the resorts I have listed above (the links are to blogs- some may be outdated)… And it is in no way fair to rate a price point like Impression Moxche (basic room $1218 a night) with one like Haven (price for basic room per night $387)… but all things considered, I would call Haven my #3 favorite Cancun area resort, and I would definitely return.