Hacienda San Jose Cholul

My wife and I travel all around the world and have stayed at many beautiful hotels in scenic locations, but this was by far one of our favorite places we’ve ever visited. The service was impeccable, and the staff paid attention to every detail throughout our entire stay. The food was outstanding, and everyone made my wife and I feel truly welcomed and cared for all day long. We honestly felt like we were in a movie. This is definitely a place we will be coming back to very soon. I highly recommend visiting with friends or a large family. It’s an amazing destination and a very safe place to travel to.

Lovely two night stay, here. Beautiful property with charming hacienda ruins amidst rebuilt structures, plentiful landscaping, lots of birds. Everything here is in-line with the other “hacienda collection” hotels (we’ve been to four of the five), although as of this writing, San Jose is the only one that is open (the others are under renovation and expansion). This is a “four-and-a-half-star hotel”: these hotels are simultaneously luxury and rustic and rural: depending on the season there may be bugs (we didn’t have many), stuff is old, the plumbing isn’t perfect, etc. A nice place to go for a night or two. Food is fine. Pool is large and appealing (we were there during a freakish cold spell, so we didn’t swim). Walkways are stone and very uneven, so not a good place to take fragile people with balance issues. Good location for excursions to Izamal, Motul, Aké, etc.

We had a great time at San Jose Cholul. Mario, the administrator, set up a cooking class for my wife who learned how to make Cochinita Pibil. He arranged for a special meal for us with the pathway leading to our table in a wooded area near the restaurant lit up by candles. He set us up to go bike riding. He set up a birdwatching walk early in the morning and a tour of the hacienda. He really made our stay great. And the room we had was large and quiet and air conditioned. The grounds were very attractive as was the pool. This is not a massive hacienda on a majestic scale. There is no “big house” and the owners probably stayed here infrequently. It was a working hennequin plantation. On a certain level, this made it more intimate and charming.

We had a couple of fantastic days and wished we had stayed for longer. The location is fantastic, in the middle of the jungle - it is so peaceful, and it is a great base for exploring Yucatan. The rooms are wonderful, the food at the restaurant brilliant and service exceptional. Highly recommended. You appreciate how good a place is when they have a problem: there was a huge rain storm that took out the electricity for an hour on our first evening. The staff were superb, bringing candles to our table and LED lights for the room - the Manager finding us later to apologise and check we were okay, which was brilliant. But it was great to play cards and talk to the kids without them wanting to be on their phones via the WiFi. Well done staff of Hacienda San Jose.

This is a really beautiful place and incredibly peaceful. The staff was superb. We were upgraded to one of the casitas and found it wonderful, especially the huge hanging bed! Good morning guided tour of the local birdlife was a wonderful added extra. The small downside is that the menu did not change over the nights we were there. Nonetheless, the food and service was top-notch. Whilst the hotel is in the middle of nowhere, this is arguably ideal because all trips in the local area are also in the middle of nowhere! We particularly enjoyed our day trip to the ruins at Uxmal which was possibly the highlight of our holiday.