Grand Oasis Viva: Tony - January 2014
Facilities
The hotel itself is very clean and well maintained. The rooms are nice
with all having an ocean view (very nice touch). The beach is beautiful!
Nice, very clean sand (no rocks or shells, actually wondering if it’s
man-made). There were plenty of beach chairs and beds and we never had
any issue finding a place to sit or lay. If you want to get a beach bed
you need to get up early and claim your spot. We only did this twice but
it was well worth it. Oasis is a well maintained facility that has a lot
of potential but seems to lack the real leadership to make it great.
Concept (“The Hip Hotel”)
We read and where led to believe that Oasis Viva “The Hip Hotel” (their
words) was going to be a fun, lively, adult party atmosphere along the
lines of Temptations or Grand Lido, not a wild or crazy as Hedo II or as
sensually luxurious as Desire. We could live with that. They advertised
a concept changeover on December 23 2013 so we thought they would have
been at least beginning to implement it by the time we got there on
January 18 2014. No such luck!!! Not only where they not a Hip, fun,
adult party type of hotel, I’d have to call them downright boring. I
have no problem laying on the beach all day but I thought there would be
some effort to excite the crowd and maybe have some way of getting the
guest to interact with each other and the staff, none of this was done.
Only once during the week did we see any EC’s (Entertainment
Coordinators) on the beach interacting with guests and that was only for
about 45 minutes then they were gone. The beach is topless but don’t
expect to see it. My wife went topless every day but for the most part
she was alone or maybe one or two others on a good day. Not a big just
not what we expected. There were a couple of theme nights (Lingerie,
Black and White, Fetish) that were put on by the hotel but no one
participated because there was no effort by the hotel staff to promote
them (other than the TV’s around the hotel) or get people excited about
participating. We participated in all of them but we were usually the
only one’s or party of a very small contingency. If the EC’s or the
hotel staff would promote the themes during the day I’m sure they would
be better attended. SUGGESTION: One the little TV screens around the
hotel instead of just showing a quick one page ad for the theme night
show some pictures of what’s appropriate for guests to wear, get them
excited about doing it, maybe have the EC’s wander the hotel or the
beach in the theme costume to get people interested. Also on nights like
Fetish and Lingerie DO NOT ALLOW photography in the bar, know one want’s
to end up on Youtube!!!
Housekeeping
Housekeeping kept our room clean but is kind of inconsistent. At least
our housekeepers where; forgetting to leave wash clothes several time,
not replacing glasses, etc. I actually left a dirty plastic bar glass on
my table (with a napkin in so they would know it was trash) on my night
stand for two days and it was never taken, I finally threw it in the
trash myself!
Concierge
I have traveled to many places and can unquestionably say that Oasis
Viva has they worse concierge staff I have ever seen! They don’t seem to
know how anything works or where anything is in their own hotel or
chain. I definitely got the feeling that they could care less if you got
what you needed or not. Since you can, conceptually, use all of the
Oasis hotels while you are there you would think they would know what
was going on at their sister facilities or at least happily make a phone
call to find out. This actually happened, “US: We’d like seafood
tonight, do any of your hotels have a seafood restaurant? Concierge: I
don’t know. US: Can you check? Concierge: I can’t call around to all of
them to find out sir!”. This is just totally unacceptable. By the way,
the day passes between Oasis properties are only good from 8 am to 6 pm
so you’ll never see what the night life is like at the other properties!
One of the other issues we had was that if you’re going to have someone
be a concierge at least make sure they are fairly proficient in several
languages. Being one of those stupid Americans that only speaks English
it’s difficult to communicate my wishes to a concierge that only speaks
Spanish. Yes I understand I’m in Mexico and Spanish is the native
language but it’s not really helpful if none of the 4 concierge staff
members standing around can understand what I’m asking for.
Wait Staff
The wait staff was one of the highlights of our trip. For the most part
they were very pleasant and helpful with a few exceptions. When you
could finally get into a restaurant they were really good, hard working
folks.
Bars
The bars where so-so, with usually one bartender at each. The beach bar
could really use a second bartender to cut down on the standing in line
for drinks, however, that’s where we met most of the people we talked to
so maybe that’s a good thing. I had read a review that they poured
strong drinks at Oasis Viva, I didn’t find this to be true at all and
I’m hardly a heavy drinker. When you can have ten drinks and not really
feel the slightest buzz those are NOT strong drinks.
Another pet peeve I had with the bars was the up charges. I’m not use to
going to an all inclusive where there are items at the bar I had to pay
extra for (Jack Daniels, Hennesey, Stoli, etc). If it’s on the bar it
should be part of the AI concept. Now if I wanted a glass of Dom or
Arran 12 scotch then yup, hit me with an up charge.
Coyote Bar
Night Club (Wow, where do I begin here? I’ll start by saying I use to be
a DJ in college and some years afterwards as a side business. I know how
to get a crowd engaged and keep them engaged. There DJ might be one of
the worst I’ve seen. It is apparent that he just learned how to scratch
(where as he been since the 80’s) and isn’t afraid to do it whether it
is appropriate for the song, the crowd or the vibe. Just a hint my man,
you can’t ask the crowd to “MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!” when you have just
driven them from the dance floor with too many mixes and cut-over and
way to much scratching! J
The facility itself isn’t bad just not designed well for what it’s being
used for. If your going to do stage shows you have to put the stage
where more than 25% of the crown can actually see it. The two stripper
poles are a nice touch and can help get the crowd going when you have
the right people (crazy’s like us and our friends) to use them.
Food
Like I said I’m not a Foodie but I do like to eat. We ate off property
quite a few nights out of necessity. The food at Oasis Viva (maybe with
the exception of the Moroccan restaurant and the Italian on occasion) is
just plain bad! Oasis Viva is trying to make their restaurant menu’s
foo-foo upscale type food, unfortunately they have no idea how to cook,
serve or present it. SUGGESTION: Dumb down the limited menu to things
that you can make well and stick with those! If you don’t know how to
make it, or present it don’t do it! Also, please get some real managers;
there is no reason to run out of a menu item one hour after the
restaurant opens, that’s just poor planning.
The food handlers need to be totally retrained!!! Again, I know this
isn’t the US and the standards are different but food safety is food
safety! My wife worked in food management for years and she was
appalled. You do not pick food up with your hands when you’re cooking it
(chicken then beef then chicken again), you don’t put your fingers
inside a glass when you’re making a drink and you wash your blenders
well between making different drinks!
If you eat at the buffet restaurant do so at your own risk! The food is
re-served over and over again until it’s gone. If you walk up to any of
the other restaurants get use to this phrase, “There a 45 minute to 1.5
hour wait.”, even though you can see lots of open tables. They need to
either hire more wait staff or cut down on the number of tables you see.
It is very annoying.
We gave up on trying to eat at the White Box, even though we did wrangle
a reservation once. When I’m on vacation I don’t want to have to get in
line early in the morning and wait in line for an hour plus to MAYBE get
a reservation, that’s just plain stupid. They only give out reservations
for that day so if you’re not one of the twenty (I think) couples who
get a reservation for that night your out of luck (come back and wait in
line again tomorrow). My wife stood in line and was fourth from the
front when they ran out of reservations for that night, the concierge
(out of the goodness of her heart) gave reservations for the following
night to the next three people in line so my wife got one (we ended up
going to Temptations that night so we gave it away). Needless to say the
folks behind her, who stood in line and didn’t get any reservation at
all where pissed!!! I made this suggestion to their Concept Manager and
hope that they’ll implement it; SUGGESTION: Allow guest to make a
reservation at the White Box when they check in, that way everyone gets
a shot to eat their, not just they hardy few who want to stand in line
early in the morning. Any left-over open spaces can be given to people
who stand in line and wait. Seems fair to me, let’s see if the implement
that policy.
Issues (how things work, where to go, who to see)
The staff really, really needs to make an effort to tell people how
things work in this hotel. Simple things like:
· *how to get the water to flow to the tub instead of the shower head
(never did figure out how that worked)
*how to turn on the lights in the bathroom (you need to place your room
key in a slot to turn them off),
*are the covered beds reserved or accessible to everyone (we heard both
from different staff members),
*which Jacuzzi tubs you have to rent (the one’s by the spa) and which
are free (the bathtub types near the Coyote Bar).
Another annoyance was our room key. We got locked out of our room six
times while at GOV (4 times in one day). We had to go back to the front
desk to get it reset, go back to our room and it still didn't work, back
to the front desk, finally follow maintenance to our room to get them to
remove the lock and let us in. Know one every knew why it happened or
seemed to care. We didn't carry it next to credit cards or our pocket
electromagnet. We actually carried them in our hands after they were
reset and they still didn't work.
Conclusion
Would I go to Oasis Viva again? Probably not! If they really implemented
the concept and the management and ownership got behind it I could see
it happening but right now they are to wishy washy on what it is they
want to be. If you’re going to implement a fun, hip theme than do it and
accept the consequences! You can’t straddle the fence trying not to lose
any old clients while attempting to draw in new clients, doing that just
pisses off everyone (old and new) in some way.