Best Acapulco Hotels

This is the pink hotel with the pink jeeps, an iconic Acapulco property that has been flying the luxury flag for decades. Las Brisas Acapulco has a history of being the best place to stay in Acapulco, with its 251 bungalow-style casitas perched on a hill overlooking the bay—kind of on the edge of the Diamond Zone. These guys have been doing it right for years. Even if you’re not staying at this upscale resort, take the time to drive up for an early al fresco dinner at the Bellavista Restaurant. Enjoy the top-notch service, food and drinks and killer views as the sun goes down and Acapulco lights up for the night. 

Acapulco has been waiting a long time for this baby to open. Banyan Tree Cabo Marques is Acapulco’s future, only 7 miles from the city center, but seemingly worlds away from the high-rise hotels lining the beaches of the Golden Zone. From a distance, the resort looks like a line of palapa huts dotting the hillside of the peninsula of Puerto Marques Bay. Up close, its high style is Thai-style—serene and elegant, with spare lines and lots of polished wood. As one of the best Acapulco hotels or places to stay in Acapulco, the property consists of 47 villas on stilt—all with Pacific Ocean views and private pools. Fusion Latin/Asian cuisine and modern Thai cooking, as well as a knockout spa, have made the resort a hit with romance-minded couples. It remains to be seen if Banyan Tree Cabo Marques catches on with the international crowd—right now its clientele are mainly well-heeled citizens from the capital. 

If minimalism makes your heart sing, Hotel Encanto is the place for you. This new build in Acapulco overlooks both the cityscape and Puerto Barques Bay (in fact, part of your view is the Banyan Tree villas in the distance). The hotel has 44 rooms and suites, each with its own terrace and ocean view. The design theme is white and spare, but it’s enlivened by color touches of purple bougainvillea. The rooms almost feel like gallery installations, with white custom-designed furniture and customized lighting. The design of the pool is a huge success, since it has elegantly incorporated existing trees, instead of clearing them away. The restaurant is called Flor de Mar 360°. Think seasonal ingredients with Asian/Mexican notes. The one color touch in the restaurant is the purple water glasses, whose color echoes the blooms you’ll see from the corner of your eye. If you’re the kind of person who unconsciously lines up the stapler with the edge of a desk, you’re going to be in heaven at Hotel Encanto. 

Are you looking for a country club atmosphere? A place where you’ll only get hints that you’re in Mexico, mainly because of the supremely friendly service and the 15-story Aztec pyramid-shaped design of the hotel? If so, the Fairmont Acapulco Princess is for you. You’ll be 20 minutes from downtown Acapulco but only a few minutes away from the airport. The beachfront hotel is expansive, occupying 480 acres and having 1,011 rooms. Golf? Check. Spa? Check. Meeting space? Check.  

Instead of running away into the Diamond Zone with all the other big players, Mexican hotelier Grupo Habita decided to renovate a boutique property in the heart of traditional Acapulco. Grupo Habita’s hotels in Mexico City and Playa del Carmen have set a standard for hipness. Their new hotel in Acapulco has that up-to-the-minute feel of their other properties, but Mexican artist Claudia Fernandez oversaw the interior design and kept the hotel’s links to its retro-'50s past, especially in the choice of room and pool furniture. Hotel Boca Chica has a restaurant, sushi bar, a full-service spa, and in-house bar and disco—impressive for a boutique hotel with only 36 rooms. 

There are lots of budget Acapulco hotels that will make you feel like you’re looking at a rate card from 1972. Hotel Alba Suites is one of the best of these. This 250-room hotel has an off-the-beaten path location west of the Zocalo and Fort of San Diego, on a hill overlooking the bay. Since it doesn’t have a beach, it strives to make up for this with a lot of kid-cool features, including five pools and a 360-foot water slide. The al fresco main restaurant is basic; you’ll be sitting on those ugly stackable white plastic chairs and dining on Mexican and international fare. The hotel has a rather odd sea pool cordoned off with buoys, within a stone’s throw of yachts at anchor. Diving in, you might feel like an Acapulco urchin making the best of things.