SEA GARDEN
We stayed at Mayan Sea Garden from Dec. 22- Dec. 29, 2007 as an RCI exchange and really enjoyed our stay in Acapulco. We had contacted Sebastian Hernandez before our trip & were picked up at the airport by him. The check in was quick & easy, we were even allowed to check in before 5:00 PM. We had a two bedroom unit with a kitchenette. The unit is very basic, the couches are a little old & worn out, however the bedrooms & bathrooms are very clean. The daily maid service is excellent & the unit is always clean with plenty of clean towels. The entire staff at Sea Garden is very friendly & helpful. The pool at Sea Garden was nice & clean & my kids (8 & 5) thoroughly enjoyed it. The beach is a short walk across the street.
We bought all the groceries fron OXXO which is walking distance from the resort.
Sea Garden seems perfect untill you have a chance to step into the Grand Mayan & Mayan Palace properties, which are absolutely gorgeous & luxurious. At this point we were a little disappointed with Sea Garden & wished we were staying at Grand Mayan/Mayan Palace. Many reviewers have already mentioned this, we can use the restaurants & the beach at Mayan Palace but not the World famous pool & the water park. The idea is to force you to sit through the timeshare presentation, which we eventually did and wasted 4 hours of our vacation to get three day passes to the pool & the water park.
ACAPULCO
After reading several recommendations on trip advisor, we used Sebastian's services to take us around Acapulco & we did not regret it a bit. He is very friendlynand speaks very good English. He took us on a city tour (on a day when the Cruise ships were not around) to the Chapel of Peace with magnificient views of the bay & and Sebastian described its history and architecture , to the Hotel Flamingo where the Hollywood Gang hung out back in the '40's for a special drink overlooking the sea, went to the Mexican Flea Market and then to the cliff divers. We also saw the beautiful mosaic created by Diego Rivera to try to capture the heart of the woman he loved. After that we went for dinner to mexican restaurant La Tortuga where the staff, food & drinks were all great. Don't leave without having coconut icecream. Another afternoon we went on a jungle tour of the Tres Palos lagoon where we saw Flamingoes, many other migratory birds & tropical vegetation. The highlight of this evening was the sunset & dinner at the Italian restaurant Su Casa.
We also took the glass bottom boat tour from Caleta beach which goes around the Isla La Roqueta, did some shopping in the Costera & went to 100% Natural for Dinner. Sebastian also took us to the Mexican walmart in downtown.
If you are visiting Acapulco for the first time & do not speak Spanish, I would recommend that you use the servives of a tour guide like Sebastian & I am sure you would not be dissapointed.Sebastian can be contacted at [--]

I am an owner of Club Intrawest, and traded one week into the Mayan Sea Garden in Acapulco.
The service was great and the accomidations were what I expected.
The time of year was perfect not to many people and the staf were freindly.
Our taxi cab driver Joquin was great I will recommond him to anyone.

We stayed here on an RCI exchange. I spent some time trying to figure out what this property really was since some of the reviews did not at all sound like what I was seeing on the Maya Sea Garden Website. OK - here's the deal. Mayan Sea Garden is one of three hotels on the Mayan Groups Property in Acapulco. Almost all of the photos you will see on their website are of the Mayan Palace. I was told by RCI that we could use all the facilities of the various properties, but that was not true. (i think this was a recent change). When we checked in, we were made to wear a colored wrist band (think hospital tag) to identify us (actually brand us as second class citizens) and restrict us from using the pool at the Palace. (we used it anyway and no one really seemed to care) The Palace is happy to let you use anything that costs money!

The Sea Garden was actually pretty nice, once we got over the notion that we were branded (banded). The time share rep called the next day to offer us the normal sales tour and added that if we did the tour we would be able to use the Palace pool (This is why I think they restricted it so they could use it as leverage) By the way, this was a pretty lame incentive since we had just come from Cabo San Lucas where we were offered $200 in food and beverage to do one of those sales things.

The Sea Garden - when not compared to the Palace - is a pretty nice place. They have a reasonable pool, and the condos are good size, a decent view of the pool and grounds, and average interior amenities, you have to cross the street and walk 100 yards to the beach club and the beach, but we never minded. The beach is fine, the water shallow with lots of breakers, and nice little pool and beach club and of course the ubiquitous beach sellers. The problem is that is is so far out of Acapulco that it costs a small fortune and an hour of time to get into Acapulco to do or see anything. It might as well have been Orlando with a beach. The staff were pleasant and helpful and for a few pesos will go out of their way to help with anything you need. The one good thing is that there are a couple of huge grocery stores nearby (taxi ride). Try the MEGA instead of WalMart.

If you are going to bother visiting Acapulco, then either stay in the in Gold Coast or the old town... not in this new "Diamond Coast" area. It has nothing to do with Mexico!

My husband and I were lucky enough to be gifted a week at this resort for our honeymoon. Our flight arrived in Acapulco at 11:00 am, but check in at the resort is not until 5. They allowed us to check in and store our luggage and use the pool facilities until our room was ready at 3:00. The main pool area was sparkly clean. We counted someone skimming the surface about every 30 minutes. We really liked the fact that the whole Mayan resort recycled. The staff was very friendly and everyone spoke at least enough english and us enough spanish to be able to get by. We did do the timeshare presentation (husband said yes before I had an oppurtunity to say no). But we were able to have a delicious breakfast at Cafe del Lago at the Grand Mayan. The timeshare talk was about 2 hours long and they really put pressure on you but in the end it was worth it because we then got passes to use the Grand Mayan pool for the week. This beautiful pool (which is in the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest pool) is definetly worth it. We loved being able to sit at the pool and here the ocean. This is also possible at the Sea Garden's beach pool, but because this pool is only about 3 feet deep, it was filled with children! Although this pool offered more shade to my pale Irish husband than the main Sea Garden pool. We ate at Rumm-ba three times, twice for dinner and once for lunch. The crispy chicken tacos were yummy as well as their lemonade. The service was excellent. We ate at the Grand Mayan's Bakal twice for dinner, again the service was impressive, although the food was nothing exceptional. We swam with dolphins, which was a lifelong dream of my husband's. It was really nice, but not quite worth the $120 per person for an hour. We contacted taxi driver Sebastian Hernedez, as many people recomended. He pciked us up promptly at the airport and took us to Mega, a grocery store, before we went to the Sea Garden. We also contracted him to take us on a city tour ($85 for both of us, Sea Garden charges $95 per person). He took us to the Chapel of Peace, what a beuatiful view, Diego Rivera's mural, to the cliff divers, Los Flamingo's hotel and to a mexican market. While at first I was excited about the market area, it became quickly apparent that, Sebastain was friendly with the sellers and they were all quite persistant about trying to make us buy things. I did find two silver bracelets that I liked a lot and I did end up buying them, but I still feel like I was ripped off. He did take us to an absolutely amazing mexican restaraunt, La Tortuga. There was even a strolling guitar player. The pina colada's had real pieces of coconut in them and the food was incredible. But back tot he Sea Garden. The room was very clean and we had a very sweet housekeeper. They provide turndown service every night and even leave two hershey kisses on your pillow. The bed was comfortable and the sheets were soft. The AC worked well and the water was safe to drink from the tap, although they do provide one free bottle of water (subsequent bottles will be charged to the room). The entire resort was spotless, very impressive for a resort this size. Oxxo convience store is just down from the Sea Garden (less than a five minute walk), while this store is less expensive than the Sun Market across the street from the Sea Garden, they only take pesos, no credit cards and their selection is pretty limited. The Sun Market had a large selection of items, from alcohol, to toiletries, to reading material (in english) to snack foods and things like macaroni and cheese. We felt like it was worth the price for the better selection. My husband and I had a wonderful time and we would love to be able to visit the Sea Garden again in the future.