This property is very beautiful and very lush. I don't know anything about the horseback riding previous posters are comment about - this was never mentioned and we never saw horses.

We loved the setting and the pool and the rooms are gorgeous.

But the service is understaffed. The pool area never gets any service to even bring some water (let alone a snack or a sandwich), soiled towels are never replaced, and the only time we saw anyone out there was when it started to rain and they scurried to bring the cushions to cover. We spent our last day at the pool and we where there for over six hours and NO ONE came out once.

The menu is very boring and we were especially disappointed at breakfast. They were out of many items. The toast was burnt (which was weird, why put black toast in the basket?), the pancakes (hot cakes) were burnt, the waiter forget many items we ordered. It was very frenzied, if there were more than three tables occupied.

We stayed in a Mayan villa for 1 night in march 2008. The hotel is quite hard to find because it's kind in the middle of nowere, but it's really worth it.

This hacienda was really our favorite (we stayed in Hacienda Puerta Campeche and Hacienda Temozon). The hotel has less than 20 rooms and it's really calm and relaxing. Their Mayan villas are luxurius and make you feel you are alone in the middle of the jungle. We had an outside bathtub that is really intimate, you can take a bath at night under the stars...

The parc, the pool, the restaurant and the little church are also lovely.

The staff is really nice, welcoming and speaks very good english. I would love to go back there for 2 or 3 nights but I think I'd get bored if I'd stay longer. It's a good spot to stay before/after visiting Chichen Itza, but you really need a car and a good driving map!

the Hacienda San Jose Cholul was definitely worth visiting. The hotel has only about 16 rooms, so it can never be crowded, but at the time we were there, we could only see one other couple at dinner and no other guests for the rest of the time.

The best was the service, the staff went out of their way to make our stay enjoyable. When we arrived to check in rather late after a terrible delay at the airport, they were waiting for us and had kept the restaurant open and the staff on duty past their closing time to be able to serve us dinner. Considering there weren't many guests at the hotel we felt truly touched that they made this effort solely for us.

The room we stayed in was great. Very nicely decorated and with a huge bathroom. Outside in the back of the room, a lovely outdoor hottub had been filled for us before we arrived. Of course we needed to run some hot water to make it warm again, but just filling it up would probably take an hour, so we were again impressed by this nice touch. There were candles in the room to place around the tub making it a really romantic experience.

Breakfast was delicious, the pool is large enough for the number of rooms they have, but in November the water was still a bit chilly so I didn't swim.

From memory it took about 30-45 mins to drive from Merida and we were advised to drive back to the highway on our way to Chichen Itza, rather than taking the more direct but lesser road that would probably take longer. Although this hotel is a bit out of the way, I would recommend it wholeheartedly, there are vast grounds to explore (we did not have time as were only spending one night there) and many interesting visits are within easy reach by car for a day-trip. I wish we had stayed there at least one more night.

nycadventure pretty much said exactly what I was going to say. My husband and I stayed at Hancienda San Jose for three nights in mid-March. We booked our stay using Starwood points as well.

The property was unbelievably peaceful and beautiful. Since there are only 15 units we had plenty of privacy. The entire staff was very kind and attentive. Our room was very quiet and charming--just perfect! The best thing about the room (for me) was the hammock...it's no comparison to those bulky rope things we're used to.

I can't find anything bad to say about our stay there, but my husband agrees with nycadventure that his horse was crazy and that the menu might get tiring if you stay there a long time. I rode the smaller horse, who was a sweetie. I had no complaints about their menu either...I could eat their Cochinita Pibil and Tikin Xic every day for the rest of my life.

We drove to the property from Merida airport. We thought the place was a little bit hard to find. It wasn't that the directions were bad--it's just that it would have been more reassuring if there were more signs along the way to let us know we were going in the right direction.

My husband and I had a wonderful time there. We wished we had booked our stay for longer! It was really the perfect place to wind down, and we will definitely be going back on our next trip to Mexico!