Would you like to eat dinner in a building that dates back to the early 1500s, after spending the day exploring the grounds of a luxury hotel in the Mexican countryside? Make a trip north from Mexico City or south from Santiago de Queretaro and check in at Fiesta American Grand Hacienda Galindo.
This Mexican hacienda hotel is a grand affair that’s a destination in itself. It’s a calming and relaxed place well removed from the urban bustle and noise, a place families and couples come to vacation and get away from it all for a while. There’s a huge swimming pool, extensive gardens, a petting farm with horses the kids can ride, and a tennis court.
That’s just the start of it though. This Fiesta Americana Grand hotel is a full-service, full-facilities place. So you can also play tennis, work out at the gym, and play billiards in the adult bar or the family play room. Then you can enjoy a massage or facial in the full spa with a whirlpool and temezcal.
There are two full restaurants and a Starbucks coffee shop on site, though that’s not the full story. There’s a huge buffet brunch each weekend that’s popular with guests and day visitors alike, plus you can order food while at the swimming pool and naturally there’s room service.
You can read a full review of Hacienda Galindo on the Luxury Latin America website, but if you’d rather take a video tour, you can check out what we put together for our YouTube channel:
You’ll see three types of room categories in that video: the Deluxe Double with a balcony that I was in, a spacious room with a nice view of the lawns and trees outside. Then you’ll see a master suite and the presidential suite. The latter is a real showpiece, a great option for a family upgrade or for two couples to share. It has its own pool, own bar, own gardens, and a large living room and dining area.
You’ve got an extra incentive to upgrade to a suite beyond the additional space (all of the suites are at least 1,000 square feet).
The huge heated swimming pool here is the centerpiece of the outdoor areas, popular with the many families choosing Fiesta Americana Grand Hacienda Galindo for their getaway from Mexico’s big cities. If you book one of the suites here, you won’t have to worry about where you’re going to lay out your towels: the daybeds at the far end of the pool are each reserved for a specific suite.
One truly unique aspect of this hacienda hotel is that it has its own vineyard and its own line of wines. The grapes grow here and then are processed at a Queretaro winery, bottled and offered to guests here in the restaurants and bars. You can also do a formal wine tasting to try their red blend, sparkling white wine, and rosé. I really liked all three of them and it’s important to note that Queretaro has become one of Mexico’s top wine regions outside of Baja, along with Guanajuato and Aguascalientes.
I got to go through the tasting, with a charcuterie board of pairing items, in the inviting tasting room lined by barrels that you can see above. This is next to the Italian restaurant where I enjoyed the red blend with a tasting serving of lasagna.
Despite a location that some would consider the middle of nowhere and a staff that is mostly pulled from the nearby village of Galindo, the service at this hacienda hotel is excellent and the facilities are top-notch. Only a few people speak English since the majority of the guests are domestic not foreign, but there are a few people around who are fluent, including at the front desk.
This destination hotel is part of the Travelty Collection, which also includes the Live Aqua San Miguel de Allende and the fun beach option Live Aqua Cancun. It is part of Mexico’s largest hotel chain, so they’ve got a deep pool of management talent to pull from and good systems in place for training.
Check out our full review of Fiesta Americana Grand Hacienda Galindo.
Book direct with Travelty or check rates online here at Expedia.
Article by Timothy
Timothy Scott is the founder and editor of Luxury Latin America and has been covering the region as a travel journalist since the mid-2000s. He has visited each country we cover multiple times and is based in a UNESCO World Heritage city in central Mexico, where he owns a home. See contact information here.
