yes, i read the all the reviews after i had booked casa magna.
my husband and his mother and i were coming for a week after a busy tour on a little island in the carribbean. i need to add that my mother in law has been to probably every 5 star hotel on the planet. my husband and i have also done the 5 star track and frankly i feel most of them take advantage of the local culture and are overpriced homogenous ripoffs. you never really experience anything real. sure the service may be perfect and the food and drinks arrive on time but why not get off the clock for once.
there happened to be a cleanse program during our stay and we decided what the heck.
the moment we arrived melissa made sure we were taken care of. our rooms were beyond gorgeous. a beach front oasis.
tulum is exquisite. the four elements embrace you when you arrive. the sun, the spectular blue of the ocean, the sand like flour and the wind to keep you cool and the mozzies away. i don't think we ever have been awake for more sunrises and sunsets ever......what a way to experience a holiday.
the food was perfect. fresh, delicious and healthy. if we ever needed anything the staff was happy to oblige.
another highlight were the massage therapists and amy the yoga instructor. amy has a gift. and she made all of us students feel good about ourselves.
the therapists come from all over the world and having had way too many overpriced 5 star hotel dissapointments we attatched ourselves to our favorites. james from england gave us all the most elevating indian head massage.
i think that those who have bad experiences are meant to. casa magna would be become too busy and we'd never be able to book our return holiday.

I co-led a yoga and creativity retreat to Casa Magna in 2007 and again in 2008. We took 29 women for 6 days. I am writing to let people know how much improved the service and overall experience was. Melissa, the owner, was available and responsive throughout the week for helping us to deliver the kind of experience we envisioned for our guests. She has hired very skilled and courteous staff as well. With a large group, someone is always needing something and the staff was quick and generous in taking care of our needs. The food was delicious. The place is magnificently elegant and simple. The weather was perfect. Nothing about the experience could have been better. Melissa and Casa Magna had a learning curve to travel, as some of these reviews point out, and our first experience there as well. However, they are learning fast and I can't say how happy we were with the overall experience of bringing a group to Casa Magna. It was great! Thanks to Melissa and staff.

The trip was fantastic. The food was great and the side trips of kayaking, biking and beach walking were quite relaxing. Most of all the food was excellent.

I have never been motivated enough to write a review, but the service at Casa Magna galled me so much, I felt obliged. We booked three rooms in Casa Magna, House 1 for the week before Christmas four months in advance. The good thing is you can go on their website, see the floorplans and pick which room you would like. Before I paid in full in advance (obligatory) I confirmed twice with Melissa the owner, about the specific rooms we wanted. We were booking the three most expensive and all had sea view balconies. These three rooms were confirmed as available and booked. When we turned up, my husband and I were shown to a room with no balcony, and no explanation. This room was inter-connecting with our parents-in law´s suite by a flimsy bamboo door and you could hear everything that went on in each others rooms. When we questioned the receptionist (who turned out to be the Yoga instructor), she said she noticed a mix up in our bookings that day, as another couple has been put in our balcony room. She didn´t want to move them because they were staying longer than us, even though our reservation was made before theirs. When I asked what she was going to do about it, she offered a smaller room in house 2, without an offer to refund the difference in price. We said no to this, at which point she offered us a massage?!?!? We finally agreed on breakfast to be included for all our party. This was after her only excuse was that "she was exhausted as she had been up since 6am doing yoga classes, and was not the main front of house person". As if that was our problem. The Yoga instructor never told Melissa about this, as when I asked her what went wrong, she just looked at me as if I was mad and said "oh yeah I heard there was a problem with your booking". No apology....

So we went back to our room without a sea view balcony to find the bath didn´t work and there were no curtains. "oh yeah, they were taken to the dry cleaners". We had to ask 3 times for replacement curtains. Finally they put up net curtains which offer no protection against the dawn sun at 5.30am. It was two days before we got curtains. Roll on the next morning, and our breakfast. Well, their ice delivery only comes at 11am (if it turns up at all) so don´t expect cold juice for breakfast. Also their choice all week was banana or papaya - a bit random when all you wanted was orange or apple. They ran out of regular tea-bags after day 1. We asked twice every day could they buy tea on their next supermarket run. It never appeared.

If the said ice runs out during the day, don´t expect anybody to be rushing out getting more, you just have to put up with warm drinks in the hot sun. One night, i came down to the bar to get some cold drinks, only to be told that there was a private dinner in House 2 that night and the one box of ice and all the kitchen staff had gone to House 2, leaving no-one to serve guests in house 1.

Our toiletries were never replaced all week, even though they ran out on day 2. The housekeeping staff took some one of our party´s personal towels to be laundered (even though it looked nothing like theirs) and despite repeated requests, it was never returned.

We never had dinner there as they staff never looked interested enough to cook for you. Roll on check-out. We were billed for all the breakfasts, the Yoga Instructor said she would waive. She then denied it was for the week only for the first day which was a blatant lie. I told her about all the problems we experienced and bad service and asked her to discuss with Melissa the owner. I said to then come and find me on the beach to let me know the outcome. 8 hours passed and I heard nothing. I bumped into Melissa in the bar and asked if the yoga instructor has spoken to her, she said no!! I told her we wanted breakfast included all week, and she was fine with that. So the Yoga Instructor was trying to pull a fast one on us.

The final straw was that seeing as Melissa actually seemed quite nice, we assumed she just must be unware of all the BASIC service issues. So we sent her a nice email saying we enjoyed her beautiful house (which it is) but was she aware of the following etc. SHE NEVER REPLIED! and that is what prompted me to write this. She and her staff just don´t care about guests. They have a lovely property on a beautiful stretch of beach, but make you feel like you are lucky to be there.

Casa Magna is not worth the money when you are treated badly, even though the stretch of beach is beautiful and its one of the more upmarket boutique places to stay in Tulum. Book it at your peril!!

Still-waiting-to-be-replied-to. Mexico City.