The Fives Oceanfront

My wife and I just returned from The Fives Oceanfront after 17 days in paradise using our Epic Travelers Membership. Great experience all around and thanks to Phil W. for assisting us with our membership and trip. Beautiful, sandy beaches along with first class service and amenities all around. I'll start with the outstanding concierge service from our ambassador Eli. This guy goes above and beyond normal expectations. He assisted us with virtually anything we needed. The senior ambassador Roxanna was also phenomenal, specifically with business needs and oversight of everything - truly service friendly. Diego was also very helpful. Spa - We did a couples massage that was fantastic and very reasonable. It started with a genuine,professional greeting by Alfredo and the massages provided by Noe and Mar were amazing. Thank you! Restaurants/Bar - Of course, the food was great at all 3 restaurants (RoMarley, Al Mare, and the Rooftop). Thank you to all the kitchen staff for all their hard work. I also want to recognize a few folks who provided exceptional friendly service at the restaurants. Starting with Francisco who gave us a friendly greeting every evening at Al Mare. Although all the staff were great, we worked primarily with Advel, Javier, Alexis, Giovanni. Thank you for the professional and friendly service. At the rooftop restaurant, Miguel and Fernando did a phenomenal job as they work their tail off 6 days a week making our lives better. Thank you! Fidel needs to be recognized for his finesse at the rooftop bar. He made exceptional specialty drinks along with all the others you can imagine. The GM Kenya has a very professional and service-friendly presence virtually everywhere on the resort. Thank you Kenya! I'm sure there are others I failed to mention, but in summary, thank you for the wonderful experience. We are already looking at dates to come back to this peaceful, quaint, beautiful resort.

Best all inclusive ever! Luxury rooms, world class food, and extremely excellent service. Erika, Mario, and Eli were the best.

We had a relaxing time. Staff is great. It always smelled so good. You pick your aromatherapy for the room, but the whole resort just smells like heaven. The beach was nice and they were constantly cleaning up the seaweed. Bed was comfortable and the balcony was large with a great view. We did not eat at the resort restaurants as we travelled to Puerto Morales specifically for the local food and restaurants, but they seemed nice, just not as many choices as we would be looking for and no Mexican restaurant on site. We would recommend the accommodations for sure!

The Fives Oceanfront is a small resort without all the bells and whistles so I was concerned upon entry but I found that because they’re small, they excel at everything. We ended up loving every meal at all 3 restaurants. I loved the ceviche and my boyfriends loved the sous-vide and breakfast yogurt and fixings. Any little issues we had was quickly resolved and all the employees made us feel acknowledged and cared for/about. Everyone welcomed us and said hello every day and all made a point to say their goodbyes. We also enjoyed the facial at the spa, a cabana by the beach and walking along the beach several days. Great resort! We’d love to go back.

There are things we really loved about the hotel. But we won’t likely be back, particularly because of the lack of beach chairs (we travel to Mexico about 3-4 times per year and have never had to set our alarm in order to have a place to sit) - three times we saw uncomfortable arguments between guests over chairs. The other main challenge is very limited options for meals, and long wait times. Lastly, the mattress was extremely hard and uncomfortable and exacerbated my husband’s back problems. If these things were addressed, we would come back. Good things: Very comfortable lounge chairs (just need enough for all the guests!) Great beach drink service Excellent margaritas and bartenders Beautiful spot on the beach Beach cleaning crew do an amazing job Really friendly staff Some healthy options for food - I really enjoyed the yogurt and fruit at breakfast. Beautiful room Talented evening entertainment in lobby We enjoyed the reggae influence/ beach vibe Shout out to great staff: 2 beach servers were excellent - Ian and Lorenzo Francisco at Al Mare was lovely Missael up on the rooftop restaurant for dinner, and lunch in Romarley was great Javier is excellent Joey was very sweet and went out of her way to get my husband an ice back for his back. And many more Erika was very friendly. The big challenges I mentioned above. In addition, the food was often cold, and we frequently had to wait a long time. Different courses would arrive at the same time, often long wait for coffee at breakfast (this morning our breakfast arrived before we had coffee or water). The staff are really good, they just need some improvement in processes and better training. It appeared that management was trying to improve service during our stay, but instead of training and showing the staff better ways, they seemed to be cracking down on them a bit harshly. Other little things that could improve include consistency with bathroom towels - about half the time we didn’t receive facecloths, sometimes no hand towels as well. We were really disappointed with the “partial ocean view” room - I feel it was deceptive to call it that, when the room/ balcony face exactly away from the ocean. I would expect a room that is on the side of the building / perpendicular to the ocean to have this description; whereas our room faced the street/ jungle. We were on the corner and at the end of the balcony if you angle your head around you could glimpse the ocean. It was still a nice balcony and view, just not what we were expecting or thought we had paid for. Another little thing that could really enhance the stay would be a snack station- where any time of day you could get a cookie or pastry or an ice cream. With the limited meal times and food options, this would be really good, and is common at other hotels.