We have just returned from a fabulous 2 weeks and have to say that on the whole the Hotel proved to be much better than some of the previous reviews had led us to believe it would be, with only a couple of minor drawbacks down to some of the clientel rather than the hotel itself.

Positives:
1: Staff: Really friendly and could not do enough to make the stay pleasurable, all of the staff in all of the restaurants were pleasant, efficient and made you feel welcome. Beach butlers were there for your every need from preparing beds, providing towels, water, snacks and other light refreshments and also the beach waiters who provided the "bar" service. A special mention to Heidi, Mario & Omar for the service on the beach. The guys in the bars were really good too, always on hand to provide light entertainment and got to know what our "tipple" was very quickly. Eloy and Eddie were like a double act behind the bar!

2: Food: All 3 restaurants Blue, Chil & Tainan served excellent food. Blue offered a wide variety of dishes with Chil and Tainan being more specialised, portions in all 3 were definiteley adequate. Chil has an excellent lunch time menu too.
Snacks at La Mancha near the main bar Aquanox were also good.
Room service when we ordered was excellent and very efficient we barely waited more than 20 minutes for food to arrive.

3: Hotel: Clean, well presented with adequate rooms, well spread out so you could choose a range of pools as well as the beach if so required.

Negatives:
Only 1 really, as this is a popular destination for weddings you can get the feeling of being invaded by large groups, the downside being that it sometime proves difficult to get into the 2 smaller restaurants when the groupd decide to eat there.
Some members of the American groups were downright noisy, bad mannered,demanding and rude. The use of foul language in areas populated by other guests was particularly annoying as was the lack of use of the words Please and Thank you when speaking to staff.

That said the Hotel is big enough to avoid these people should you need to, however on holiday I feel you should be free to go where you want when you want.

My fiance and I just returned from a week of resort "site inspections" in hopes of finding a location for our wedding next year. We spent 3 days and two nights at the Azul.

The pros: The check in was very pleasant and quick. The resort was clean and well maintained. Both the buffet and restaurants had good food and excellent service. We had a couples massage on the beach and it was awesome! My fiance sprained his ankle and one of the massage therapists made sure he had ice for it not only during the massage bought later when he saw us laying by the pool

The cons: there wasn't much of a beach and there was alot of seawood. We were never once asked if we wanted a drink or anything when we spent two days at the pool and beach. The wait staff or beach butlers? were rarely seen or simply ignored us as they walked by.

In summary, I think it is a nice and tranquil resort. It is an older resort. It does become overwhelming when there is a drunk, rowdy group in the pool as none of three pools are very big. 90% of the staff we encountered were very pleasant and visibly committed to their jobs.

My husband and I just got back from a desintation wedding for our close friends. From the moment we arrived at the Azul Beach Resort, we were welcomed by the most friendliest and caring staff that we have ever encountered. They handed us lavendar scented towels for our face and hands along with a glass of champagne upon arrival. Over the course of our stay, we were never left with an empty glass and the staff was very accomodating to all of our needs. We went down with a party at 86 and the staff (especially Alejendro) remembered all of our names, our drinks of choice, and greeted us by name everywhere we went. I felt like we were right at home. The pools were beautiful and the beach was never crowded. The evening entertainment was fabulous, my favorite night was casino night! Our favorite part of the trip was our nightly outtings to the Tequilla Lounge. This was a swanky little bar where tequilla shots flowed all night long. We ordered room service atleast once a day, sometimes at 3 in the morning, and it was very delicious. The asain restaurant was by far my favorite, we had so much sushi we didnt know what to do with ourselves! Overall, Azul Beach Resort provided us with a once in a lifetime opportunity to gather with our friends and family from all over the country and relax and enjoy ourselves on the beach, in the pool, or at the bar. THANK YOU TO AZUL FOR SUCH A MEMORABLE WEEK!

We stayed at Azul the week of May 12-19, and had an unbelievable time.

I cannot say enough about the staff at this hotel. From the moment you check in, to the moment you leave, they are so helpful, caring, and friendly - you truly feel like you are on vacation. Big ups to Tomas, Eloy, and the many other amazing staff.

Also to be noted is how beautiful the grounds are. The food was also excellent, and I did not have any stomach problems the entire week, nor did any of the 24 people in our group.

We were married at Azul, and our wedding was beautiful. The only thing we would not recommend is the photographer through the wedding company...the photographer did not do a particularly good job, luckily we had a friend of ours who had a better camera and better photography skills than our "photographer". The weather was great, the ceremony beautiful, and we had an amazing time getting married while at the same time having a family vacation, which we had never really done before. We even had 3 grandparents on the trip and they had an amazing time!

I had read reviews about wedding groups taking over the resort - this is somewhat true (depending on the group)
We had 22 people with us, mostly family and a couple friends, and we were a very low key group and I don't believe we inconvenienced any of the other guests on the resort. No one in our group was drunk the entire trip, and I would imagine that other than our wedding day, none of the other guests probably even knew we existed. There were a few other groups like us in the week we were there - nice people, who didnt make any scenes, and were low key. You wouldnt have known they were a wedding group except when you saw the wedding.

HOWEVER, there was one wedding group at the resort who showed up for the last few days of our trip, and they were extremely loud, rude, and drunk to the point that everyone in our group, along with other resort guests, would avoid the area of the resort that these people were in. (unfortunately their area of choice was the main pool par, Aquanox)
They would hoot and holler during other weddings and catcall the bride. They made a rude comment to my wife after our wedding. They would sit at the swim up bar, cursing in front of children and no doubt peeing in the pool (they never left the water). Our last night the 11 of our group who stayed until the 19th went to the fancier Asian restaurant for our last meal together but it was tainted by these loudmouths who were drunk and yelling loudly inside the restaurant.

This is NOT a spring break type resort, unfortunately these were spring break type people.

I think in the future this problem will be solved as Azul is opening a sister resort that will be bigger, and geared towards weddings, so that Azul Beach can remain a quiet destination for young families, and romantic couples.

It truly was paradise, and we will most definitely be going back. Hopefully there isnt another rude wedding group there when we return! Azul Beach was an amazing family experience which we will never forget!