If you’re looking for a place to earn or use Hilton Honors points in Mazatlan, Mexico, or you just want some predictability and service in English, check into the Doubletree by Hilton Mazatlan. You’ll get some glorious sunset views while you’re at it.
Mazatlan is a bit of an outlier when it comes to Mexican beach resort cities. It has an international airport, but doesn’t get nearly as many flights as western Mexico resort areas like Puerto Vallarta or Los Cabos. While it has a fair number of expats and snowbirds, most of the vacationers are Mexican. It is also unusual in that it has very few international chain hotels on beach. The nicest of those is the Doubletree by Hilton Mazatlan on a prime stretch of the northern Golden Zone near the Pueblo Bonito we reviewed before.
Sometimes it’s nice to get a taste of the familiar and here at this beachfront hotel it’s a literal taste. There’s no welcome drink, but you do get a welcome Doubletree signature cookie, loaded with sugar and tasting fabulous. While we gobbled that down, we gave the bellman our room number and headed up one of the three elevators.
Mazatlan Pool With a View
The big draw at this Mazatlan resort on the beach is the great pool complex. It features several pools on multiple levels cascading down a couple of floors connected by stairs. The pools are surrounded by lounge chairs with umbrellas and at the end there are steps leading down the beach. With some of the pools you get an infinity feel while looking out at the sea and the offshore islands.
You get a slightly higher view from the yoga platform, a deck one story up on the fourth floor. Off to the side of that is a modern gym with an array of equipment and dumbbells, a bright place with a great view.
The Mazatlan Doubletree also has a full spa and it’s not just a collection of massage cabins. It has its own indoor pool area with hydromassage plus steam and sauna rooms.
Restaurants and Facilities
The main downside of this Hilton property in Mazatlan is that the food and beverage options are more like what you’d find at a Hampton Inn than a Doubletree. There used to be a lobby bar and it’s still marked as such, but now it just holds a tour desk. There’s supposedly a beach bar by the pool, in a location that could be a cocktail gold mine at sunset, but it only had three lonely bottles of booze on the shelf at any time and closed up well before the sun went down.
There is a Starbucks on site with some sitting areas, but it presents a rather limited version of that chain’s offerings. There’s no brewed coffee, so the cafe del dia is an Americano make with expresso and the food choices seldom go beyond a couple of pastries and one multi-meat sandwich option.
This means there’s really one choice on site for dining: an all-day restaurant looking out at the pool and sea.
It serves a solid breakfast buffet in the morning covering the basics plus an omelet station, with a good array of fruit and some fresh juices joining the hot items. We did order lunch one day after flagging down one of the two roaming pool ones and had it delivered to our lounge chairs: some fajitas and a Mediterranean salad with shrimp. Both came out quite tasty.
Since there are so few dining outlets on site, most guests end up taking a walk one way or the other to find other options for dinner. Thankfully there are plenty of those in this location at the northern end of the Golden Zone. A new shopping plaza across the street has an upscale grocery store and a dozen dining outlets, from a casual salad place to upscale sushi. In the area are Mexican, seafood, Italian, steak, and Asian options within two blocks.
Rooms at Doubletree by Hilton Mazatlan
The prime rooms at this Doubletree facing the Pacific Ocean are those with a water view. Thankfully there are a lot of those. Our room had a balcony with two chairs that looked over the pool to the waves coming in and the three islands off the shore. We were about halfway up, with this view, which would get even better on the high floors.
Otherwise the rooms are fairly standard all around inside, with laminate floors that stay cool, a comfortable queen bed or two doubles, a laminate desk with a basic chair, and two nightstands with plenty of charging outlets and two kinds of reading lights. A foyer hallways has ample closet space, a mini fridge, and single-cup coffee maker. It’s allmostly rather and minimalist except for one framed print and some mirrors.
Blackout curtains work well and we were happy to find robes in the closet. The bathroom isn’t huge but the glass enclosed shower is. Our room had a single sink but fluffy towels and basic toiletries. The TV only shows local channels, mostly in Spanish, unless you have an HDMI cable to connect for screening.
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Wi-Fi is free for all guests, covered parking is $12 per day, and pets are not allowed. This property has taken one big green travel step that we wish more would embrace: there are three purified water refilling stations for your bottle so you don’t have to use wasteful throwaway plastic bottles.
Rates vary greatly depending on the season, but generally start around $140 with taxes for city facing rooms, $200 with taxes for those facing the ocean. See more and book direct at the Hilton site for Doubletree Mazatlan or check prices at Expedia.
Want to see other options? See our rundown of the best hotels in Mazatlan in all areas of the city.
Review and photos by Hotel Scoop editor Tim Leffel, who was hosted at the property for purposes of review. As always, all opinions are his own.
