I had a great and fascinating experience at Kempinski Cancun, a hotel I wouldn’t normally have chosen. And I realized that somehow I’d never stayed at a Kempinski outside of Germany before. All of a sudden the brand is much more on my radar.

I never go to Cancun, which in some ways is strange considering it’s just a two and a half hour non-stop flight from Austin on a route served by both American Airlines and Southwest. Just after Memorial Day my family caught American Airlines’ midday flight down. A late inbound meant we were delayed just a few minutes but otherwise the trip was perfectly fine.

The flight itself wasn’t super interesting. But the hotel choice was, at least to me, and worked out even better than I’d hoped.

Booking Kempinski Cancun

Looking for a quick trip and some R&R at a beach, we decided to spend a few days after Memorial Day down there. My first inclination was to book the Andaz Mayakoba. It had confirmed suites available, though not rooms on points.

I could pay for a room and guarantee a suite at time of booking using one of my Hyatt benefits. But I’ve always had a mixed impression of the property and I wanted to try something a bit different.

I don’t usually like leaving upgrades to chance with my family stays, and I could have confirmed a suite at the Andaz with Hyatt, but this property just seemed more interesting to me and I figured that we’d arrive right after everyone had left from the long Memorial Day weekend so we probably had a good shot.

I’ve been staying at different chains on my personal business travel lately, and I expected to have some GHA Discovery Dollars to spend. They have a sort of brilliant program where you earn a rebate on your spending to use on upcoming stays, and those rebates expire if you don’t use them, so you want to stay again to get value out of your points – which earns you more expiring points and encourages you to keep staying.

I decided to book the Kempinski Hotel Cancún, which is the former Ritz-Carlton. I booked for $318 per night through American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts, figuring this would be offset by redeeming Discovery Dollars and I would receive,

• Early 12 p.m. check-in if available and guaranteed 4 p.m. check-out (I booked flights that wouldn’t take advantage of either)
  
• Room upgrade on arrival if available
  
• Daily Breakfast for Two (in fact they comped it for all three, including tax and tip and it was excellent)
  
• $100 property credit

And this would be stackable with GHA Discovery status benefits (E.g. Titaniums get double upgrade and welcome amenity, and early check-in would actually be 11 a.m. Breakfast isn’t yet a Kempinski benefit but that was covered by Amex FHR).

Kempinski Cancun Check-in

Once I was identified coming out of the vehicle on arrival, we were escorted up to the club lounge for check-in. That’s strange, I thought, I hadn’t booked a club room and club access isn’t a published benefit either of Fine Hotels & Resorts or GHA Discovery status. Still, I assumed at this point that we must have been upgraded to club level.

That was going to be significant, and I’ll get to discussing the club shortly, because it was very much like a Ritz-Carlton club with free-flowing food and alcohol throughout the day.

Up in the 8th floor club lounge, though, I learned that we wouldn’t be staying on the club level. We’d have club access, but our room was an ocean front suite on the 6th floor. So once checked in, we went downstairs to six.

Suite Entry Dining Area

We walked into the room and there was an entryway with a round dining table. This area had a window looking out at the hotel courtyard. On the table was an amenity, a white chocolate red shoe with chocolate covered strawberries.

Kempinski’s signature is the “Lady In Red” brand ambassador and concierge. Cancun is one of the only Kempinskis that I’ve read to have a Gentleman in Red. My daughter kept wanting pieces of the shoe, and was disappointed when housekeeping removed it the next day!

Suite Bathrooms

Since the property is quite old school Ritz-Carlton, even with refreshed furnishings, the bathrooms are draped in marble covering.

There was a small bathroom between the entryway dining area and the living room:

And there was a main bath off of the master bedroom. It had dual sinks nears the closet, not closed off at all from the bedroom.

And then there was a more traditional bathroom with a toilet room inside, a tub and a separate shower.

Toiletries were branded Salvatore Ferragamo which certainly projects a premium image. Individual-sized bottles were refreshed by housekeeping generously, with always a backup pair provided in addition to whatever was already in the shower.

Suite Living Room

The living room had a couch as well as three chairs. Housekeeping had set up a rollaway bed for our daughter. (The couch did not fold out and she prefers rollaways in any case.) I had read that the hotel charges $10 per day for a rollaway but we were not charged.

The living room had a refrigerator and a coffee maker, as well as a television that we never watched except to pull up the QR code for room service and restaurant menus.

Suite Bedroom

The bedroom was large with two nightstands. On one of the nightstands was a power station with a couple of outlets. This should have been available on both sides of the bed. If there is a complaint I had about the room it’s that there weren’t enough outlets – not uncommon for a 30 year old property that hasn’t been completely redone.

The room had a closet beside the bathroom sinks, and it had a dresser with television which we never used.

Balconies & View

There were four seats of windows in the room – one in the entryway, and one also in the bedroom that looked over the hotel courtyard.

Two, though – one each in the bedroom and living room – led out to a small balcony. These both brought significant light into the room, and gave a beautiful view over the beach.

Club Lounge

A key card is required to get to each guest floor and to the 8th floor club lounge. There’s no door to open into the club lounge, since access is already controlled, though you do walk past concierges who quickly learn to recognize you throughout your stay.

The club lounge was fantastic with five services daily – a modest breakfast buffet, light lunch, afternoon tea, evening hors d’oeuvres and desserts, and finally cordials and treats in the late evening.

The lounge was a gem, not just for the food presentations but also for the service. There are concierges who were never busy seated at desks near one side of the lounge (there were banks of elevators on both sides so you could enter in either direction). And there are staff to help you with drinks or other assistance while you’re there, from bringing juice and making coffee to mixing cocktails.

Kempinski Cancun Breakfast

While we had the option of breakfast in the club lounge, it was much more extensive in the restaurant and Fine Hotels & Resorts bookings include breakfast for two. We were three, but were never charged. At the end of each meal we were brought a check to sign that said that breakfast was covered – and that gratuity was included.

Yet if there were ever staff that I’d have been fine adding a tip for – had there even still been room on the bill! – it would have been for the folks in the restaurant. Not only was everyone exceptionally friendly, they offered to carry your plates to your table and opened doors entering and leaving the restaurant (we sat outside each morning).

The buffet included not just the standard omelet station but also a taco and enchilada station featuring chicken, pork and lamb and a variety of authentic ingredients. There’s the usual eggs, smoked salmon and bacon but also chilaquiles. There’s Mexican coffee and chocolate as well as espresso drinks that were included with breakfast too.

Property

The hotel has good pools that, since the hotel was never busy, were never busy. They have a nice beachfront on Cancun’s beautifully textured blue waters.

Hotel grounds are quite lovely.

Inside there are high ceilings and a lot of chandeliers.

The entire hotel is designed so that each guest room has a view of the ocean, but that design also leads to a lot of underutilized space. In a way that’s nice, because the number of guests relative to the space is low.

The interior of the fourth floor through seventh floors is an atrium. There’s seating down on the fourth floor though I never saw anyone using it. There are vines that come down from the top all the way extending across four floors.

There are also places inside the hotel on various floors that just have seating areas, also pretty much never used while we were there. Our floor had a mini lounge in the center, too, with seating and a coffee machine, but it was locked throughout our stay.

The hotel’s gym was perfectly serviceable, with complimentary water bottles. Of course the hotel will provide those to you in unlimited quantity in your room as well, beyond what’s automatically delivered by housekeeping (and there are two housekeeping services daily).

Pool

The hotel has both an adults pool and a kids pool. Neither one was ever busy. They’re heated, so the water temperature was similar to the ambient air. Service at the pools was good, with plenty of towels available and servers checking in whether you needed anything.

Beach

The closest to busy the hotel became was around 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon down at the beach. Nonetheless, there was no problem getting beach chairs. This isn’t a place where I needed to reserve them in advance with a book in the morning, and there wasn’t a need to pay extra for a cabana.

You’d go down to the beach and let the staffer know how many chairs and they’d set them up with towels. Another employee would come around checking on guests for food and drink orders.

We even organized a private beach dinner and that was $100 in addition to regular restaurant pricing, which seemed oddly modest for what’s essentially a Ritz-Carlton.

Kids Club

My daughter loved visiting the kids club, though not quite as much as at Park Hyatt St. Kitts. But that was because, while the first day there were a couple of other kids, she was otherwise generally alone with the staff member whom she adored but it’s not the same thing.

Kempinski Cancun Overall

The Kempinski Cancun has received a refresh in the rooms since being taken over by Kempinski but overall still feels like the Ritz-Carlton which was the first luxury property in the Hotel Zone three decades ago. There are staff here that have been around for decades as well. And they provided the best service I’ve experienced in Mexico, the Caribbean, or Latin America period – including at much pricier hotels.

Everyone of staff was incredibly friendly. Everyone we interacted with remembered us the next time we saw them. They remembered our preferences. Housekeeping was twice daily, with treats at turndown, and when I called for housekeeping having been in the room when they first came by they were incredibly prompt.

We received outstanding treatment at Kempinski Cancun. The hotel seemed mostly empty while we were there and we were upgraded to an ocean suite and were given club lounge access. I suspect that the combination of American Express and GHA Discovery benefits, combined with low occupancy, really paid off and we lucked into what couldn’t have been a better stay. It’s not something I’d count on even in low periods.

Lufthansa’s Discover Airlines and Condor both fly three times a week from Germany to Cancun, but it still seems an odd choice for the property to affiliate with Kempinski which is a brand not well known outside of Europe. I suspect that Americans don’t really know what it is or what to expect when planning a Cancun visit, so they’re more likely to pick the overcrowded J.W. Marriott than this hotel – which is just a mistake.

As a result, I think this hotel is really underappreciated. It’s not modern by any stretch but for a pool and beach vacation where every room on property has a view of the water, where there’s great service, and great value overall I think it’s a real winner. I’d also say that surely my stay was the second best value I’ve ever gotten from Kempinski ever since back in the old days when Lufthansa first class came with free day rooms at Hotel Frankfurt Gravenbruch.