Easter Sunday 2027 falls on Sunday 28 March. Semana Santa runs from Palm Sunday on 21 March through to Easter Sunday, and Mexican schools close for two full weeks either side of it. For a family trip, Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita is the strongest all-round choice in the country: two genuinely swimmable beaches on the Pacific, villa inventory big enough for three generations, and a coast that sits outside the Atlantic seaweed belt entirely. For a couple who wants the same fortnight without anybody's children in it, its adults-only neighbor Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort takes fifteen tented bungalows and a maximum of thirty guests.

Easter is a harder booking than Christmas, and not because of the resorts. Christmas demand is international and spreads across the whole country, while Semana Santa demand is overwhelmingly Mexican, concentrated into a two-week school holiday, and lands hardest on exactly the Pacific coast the luxury properties occupy. In 2025 the federal tourism ministry recorded Nuevo Nayarit at 88.3% hotel occupancy over the holiday, the highest of any destination in Mexico, ahead of the Riviera Maya at 87.1% and Los Cabos at 83.2%.

Quick Answer

• Best all-round for a family Semana Santa: Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita

• Best for a couple avoiding the school holiday: Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort

• Best Easter programming: Grand Velas Riviera Nayarit

• Best design, and the treehouses: One&Only Mandarina

• Best dining inside an all-inclusive rate: Grand Velas Los Cabos

• Best for a grown-up week in the Los Cabos corridor: Las Ventanas al Paraíso

• Best swimmable beach in Baja, and the newest opening: Amanvari

• Best on the Caribbean, with a caveat: Maroma, A Belmond Hotel

The Semana Santa 2027 calendar, and what it does to availability

The dates are fixed. What matters commercially is the school holiday, which is longer than most visitors expect and straddles Easter instead of ending on it.

Two details catch people out. First, Good Friday is not a public holiday in Mexico. Article 74 of the Ley Federal del Trabajo lists the statutory rest days and Holy Week is not among them, because Mexican labour law is secular. Schools, banks and most offices close anyway, so the practical effect is the same.

Second, US spring break and Semana Santa don't collide in 2027, they run back to back. American university breaks cluster in the middle of March and are largely finished by the 21st: UT Dallas and the University of Kansas both break 15 to 21 March, and UCLA's spring quarter starts on 24 March. The student wave recedes about a week before the Mexican family wave arrives.

Two things to check before you book late March

• Swimmable water. Much of the Los Cabos tourist corridor isn't swimmable, and for a family that settles which coast to book. Grand Velas Los Cabos calls swimming in front of the resort forbidden in its own FAQ, citing a strong undercurrent and unpredictable waves, and points guests to Playa Chileno a mile away. Las Ventanas al Paraíso is the same without saying so, and the Los Cabos tourism board leaves it off its list of swimmable beaches. The exceptions are Costa Palmas on the East Cape and Four Seasons Punta Mita, which has two. Cabo also has the warmest air of the Pacific options and the coldest sea: March highs near 82°F against water averaging 71°F, versus 76°F on Banderas Bay and 80°F in the Caribbean.

• Sargassum. Late March is a coin flip on the Caribbean side, and the odds have been getting worse. Four years of beach surveys at Puerto Morelos, published in Aquatic Botany, put the peak in July and August and December and January close to zero, so late March sits at the start of the ramp. What varies is when the ramp begins: the last week of March was effectively clear in 2024, but crews cleared more than 2,000 tonnes from Playa del Carmen in the same week of 2022, and a state count on 25 March 2026 put 28 of 140 monitored beaches at excessive. The north of the state has held up better than Tulum and the Costa Maya in both recent years. The geography, though, is fixed: the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt doesn't reach Riviera Nayarit, Punta Mita, Puerto Vallarta or Los Cabos.

Methodology in brief

We ranked for Semana Santa specifically, which is a different question from ranking Mexican resorts generally. Every claim below is checkable against the property or a named third party, and where a resort publishes no Easter programs we say so.

1. Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita: Best all-round for a family Semana Santa

Two swimmable beaches on a coast the seaweed never reaches, and enough villas to hold a family reunion.

• Location: Punta Mita, Nayarit, roughly 45 km and 45 to 60 minutes north of the Puerto Vallarta airport. The drive crosses from Jalisco into Nayarit.

• Best for: Extended families who want water the children can actually swim in, and space to spread out over two weeks.

• Easter: Nothing is published for 2027. The one Easter programme announced here was for 2025, an Easter Brunch at Dos Catrinas and a Tropical Easter Egg Hunt on Cuevas Beach, and it was not repeated in 2026. Ask the resort before assuming a calendar exists.

• Acclaim: Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star in the 2026 Star Awards, AAA Five Diamond for 2026, and Two MICHELIN Keys.

• Don't miss: Hole 3B on the Pacífico course, the Tail of the Whale, an optional natural island green playable only at low tide.

Overview

The resort opened in September 1999 as the first Four Seasons in Mexico and holds 177 accommodations alongside 22 villas, seven residences and three beach homes. The villa inventory is why it leads this list: a family of ten in a villa with its own kitchen and pool, still able to use the restaurants and the 13-room Apuane Spa, is a different proposition from four connecting rooms.

The beaches decide it. Cuevas and Manzanillas sit on opposite sides of the point and both are swimmable, which is unusual enough on this coast to be worth stating plainly, and the Pacific side sits outside the Atlantic sargassum belt entirely. Late March is the driest part of the year here, with sea temperatures around 76°F. There are two Jack Nicklaus Signature courses, and Wine Spectator gave its 2026 Award of Excellence to all three signature restaurants: Dos Catrinas, Aramara and Bahía.

Downside: The last published Easter programming was in 2025, where it ran an Easter brunch and a beach egg hunt. Nothing is walkable either, so leaving means a car, and the surrounding area doesn’t have the most attractions.

2. Naviva, A Four Seasons Resort: Best for a couple avoiding the school holiday

Fifteen tented bungalows, thirty guests at capacity, and a published minimum age of 16.

• Location: The same Punta Mita peninsula as its sibling resort, on 48 forested acres of its own, five minutes apart.

• Best for: Couples who want the last two weeks of March off without spending them among other people's children.

• Easter: Nothing published, and no Easter programming appears anywhere in its press releases either. The rate covers everything regardless, so the week takes care of itself.

• What's included: All food and beverages including many premium wines and spirits, one 90-minute spa journey per stay, a personal guide, and the resort's unscripted experiences.

• Don't miss: The House of Heat, the resort's temazcal, built as a circular chamber in stone, bamboo and lime plaster.

Overview

Naviva opened in December 2022 with fifteen tented bungalows across 48 acres and a capacity of thirty guests, which makes it the smallest property here several times over. Luxury Frontiers designed it and EDSA laid out the landscape; the two spa pods take their form from the seed vessels of the ceiba tree. There's no standing menu at Cocina Copal, so meals get built around what you want that day.

For Semana Santa it solves a problem the rest of this list cannot. The two-week Mexican school holiday is when family resorts are fullest and loudest, and a couple with no children and fixed dates is poorly served by a property running egg hunts and kids' clubs. A published minimum age of 16 and a thirty-guest ceiling is the opposite offer. Guests also get full access to Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita next door.

Downside: It's the most expensive entry here per night, and fifteen bungalows sell out for holiday fortnights well before anywhere else.

3. Grand Velas Riviera Nayarit: Best Easter programming

The one resort on this list that reliably runs an actual Easter camp, on the coast that has no seaweed problem.

• Location: Nuevo Nayarit, in the municipality of Bahía de Banderas, about 12 km from the Puerto Vallarta airport.

• Best for: Families who want the two weeks organized, with the children occupied from mid-morning to late afternoon.

• Easter: Genuinely programmed, and repeated year after year. The 2026 edition ran an Easter Camp from 28 March to 11 April, daily from 10am to 4:30pm, with bungee trampolining, water inflatables, foam parties and archery. Easter Sunday added the Easter Bunny and a resort-wide egg hunt.

• Acclaim: AAA Five Diamond, and Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice 2026 rated it the No. 1 hotel in Nuevo Nayarit. SE Spa holds Forbes Travel Guide Five Stars, first awarded in 2022.

• Don't miss: The Water Ceremony, an eight-station hydrotherapy circuit with separate men's and women's sections and a spa butler working the journey.

Overview

Grand Velas Riviera Nayarit opened in November 2002 as the first luxury all-inclusive resort in Mexico, and it now holds 267 suites, none smaller than about 1,000 square feet. A US$30 million renovation of the Master, Parlor and Grand Terrace suites finished in December 2025. Six restaurants run à la carte inside the rate, four of them holding AAA Four Diamond awards.

It earns this position on Easter specifically. Every other property here either publishes nothing for the holiday or publishes it inconsistently, and a family committing to a fortnight is choosing between a very good hotel that will simply accommodate them and one that has run the same camp structure for years. The beach is also the right side of the sargassum question.

Downside: the beach is not as gentle as the marketing suggests. The resort describes shallow, warm water suited to small children, while guests in 2026 were writing that the waves are strong and to be careful. Both can be true on different days, but don't book it expecting a lake. High season also fills it: reviewers report crowding, extras charged at some restaurants, and nothing at all within walking distance. Across nearly 5,000 Tripadvisor reviews its lowest subscore is value.

4. One&Only Mandarina: Best design, and the treehouses

One hundred and five standalone villas in coastal rainforest, some of them twelve metres up a tree.

• Location: El Monteón, in the municipality of Compostela, Nayarit, about an hour north of the Puerto Vallarta airport.

• Best for: Travellers who care about architecture, and families with children over 10 who would genuinely rather sleep in a tree.

• Easter: Nothing published. A full review of the resort's site found seasonal pages for the festive period and for summer, and nothing for Semana Santa.

• Acclaim: No. 39 on The World's 50 Best Hotels 2025, and Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star.

• Don't miss: Carao, the cliffside restaurant, where Enrique Olvera consults and the kitchen runs a nine-course taco tasting menu.

Overview

Mandarina opened on 1 November 2020 with 105 free-standing villas and treehouses across 80 acres of coastal rainforest. Studio Rick Joy led the architecture, and the treehouses are literal: twelve metres off the ground, lined in local Cumaru wood, with floor-to-ceiling glazing that retracts completely and a plunge pool out on the terrace. There's a minimum age of 10 to stay in one.

The detail here is unusually good. The 42,000 square foot children's club was designed by Brigitte Broch, who won an Academy Award for the production design of Moulin Rouge!. The spa's six treatment rooms sit inside a volcanic rock garden, with a temazcal and traditional healers on hand.

Downside: the crocodiles are real and they are numerous. The property is home to roughly 80 of them, about 25 tracked, and the beach closes whenever a particular large one is nearby. Of the two beach clubs only Jetty is swimmable, and it's small by the standards of Punta Mita or Los Cabos; Canalan has a strong current and is for surfers. None of the restaurants has air conditioning.

5. Grand Velas Los Cabos: Best dining inside an all-inclusive rate

A MICHELIN-starred tasting menu that is covered by the nightly rate, not charged as a supplement.

• Location: Km 17 on the Transpeninsular highway, on the corridor between San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.

• Best for: Travelers who want serious food without the bill, and families who would rather not think about money for a fortnight.

• Easter: Programmed most years, with an egg hunt, bungee playgrounds, magic shows and Kids' Club camping in recent editions. Sister property to the Riviera Nayarit resort above, which runs the same camp structure.

• Acclaim: Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star in 2026, the only property in Mexico added to that list that year. Cocina de Autor holds one MICHELIN star, awarded in the inaugural 2024 guide to Mexico and retained in 2025.

• Don't miss: The Spa Water Journey, a seven-station hydrotherapy circuit included with any treatment of 50 minutes or more.

Overview

The resort opened in December 2016 on a US$150 million build and holds 307 suites, every one ocean-view and none under about 1,180 square feet. The reason it's here is Cocina de Autor, one of only eighteen restaurants starred in Mexico's first MICHELIN guide, which kept the star in 2025 and serves its tasting menu inside the all-inclusive rate. SE Spa covers 35,000 square feet across 16 treatment rooms.

Downside: you cannot swim in the sea, and the resort says so itself in unusually blunt terms. Its FAQ states that swimming in the ocean in front of the resort is forbidden because of a strong undercurrent and unpredictable waves, and directs guests to Playa Chileno about a mile away. Three heated infinity pools stand in for it. Reviewers separately report two-hour dinner service and very dark rooms.

6. Las Ventanas al Paraíso: Best for a grown-up week in the Los Cabos corridor

Twenty-eight years old, and still the most quietly theatrical hotel in Baja.

• Location: Km 19.5 on the Transpeninsular highway, Cabo Real, about 20 minutes from San José del Cabo airport.

• Best for: Couples and small groups who want service and theatre over a children's programme.

• Easter: Nothing published. Its seasonal calendar covers Día de Muertos, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, and stops there.

• Acclaim: Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star in 2026, Two MICHELIN Keys, and No. 44 on The World's 50 Best Hotels 2025. Condé Nast Traveler readers placed it 13th among West Coast Mexico resorts in 2025.

• Don't miss: The Las Ventanas Collection, a 210-minute spa ritual built on Baja botanicals.

Overview

Las Ventanas opened in July 1997 on a 12-acre site, with HKS as architect and SWA Group on the landscape, which took a national ASLA merit award in 1999. Depending which Rosewood document you read it holds 83 or 84 suites and villas. What justifies the entry is the operational detail more than the key count: it was built with underground service tunnels so staff and housekeeping carts move around invisibly, and it opened with a telescope in every suite and no front desk at all.

The scale-setter is the Ty Warner Mansion, a 28,000 square foot residence inside the resort conceived by the Beanie Babies founder, with interiors by Robert Couturier, which debuted on 4 July 2016 with its own infinity pool and private spa.

Downside: the beach in front is not swimmable, and unlike Grand Velas the hotel does not tell you so. Named reviewers and every response in a TripAdvisor thread on the question agree, and the Los Cabos tourism board does not list the property among those with swimmable beaches. Reviewers also flag dining and wine pricing as steep even by Cabo standards, corkage at US$125 a bottle, and no air-conditioned public spaces.

7. Amanvari: Best swimmable beach in Baja, and the newest opening

Eighteen casitas on an estuary, and miles of Sea of Cortés you can actually get into.

• Location: The East Cape, inside the Costa Palmas estate near La Ribera, 45 to 60 minutes from San José del Cabo airport, or 15 by helicopter.

• Best for: Travelers who want swimmable water without the corridor, and who are comfortable being early to something.

• Easter: Nothing published. The resort publishes no seasonal programming at all yet.

• Acclaim: None, which is a statement of fact about its age. It opened on 1 August 2026 and no award cycle has run since.

• Don't miss: The spa's contemporary temazcal, reported as the first in Aman's global portfolio.

Overview

Amanvari opened on 1 August 2026, roughly six years behind its original schedule, with eighteen casitas of about 883 square feet each, every one with a private heated pool and an outdoor shower. Heah and Co. conceived the design and Elastic Architects executed it, and the name joins the Sanskrit aman, peace, with vari, water. Dining runs across Luma for open-fire cooking, Arva for Italian and Sesui for Japanese.

Its value on this list is specific. Costa Palmas has miles of swimmable Sea of Cortés frontage, which Aman and the estate both state directly and the Los Cabos tourism board confirms by naming that beach as one of only two it lists for swimming. In a region where most of the corridor is closed to swimmers, that is the differentiator.

Downside: it is very new, and that showed in its first weeks. The resort acknowledged it was still completing work during its opening days, and it drew critical coverage in early August over a cancelled booking and a guest refused entry at the gate. The East Cape is genuinely remote, so guests eat on property, and rates start high even by the standards of this list.

8. Maroma, A Belmond Hotel: Best on the Caribbean, with a caveat

Seventy-two rooms on 200 acres, built to Mayan geometry without blueprints.

• Location: Punta Maroma, between Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen, about 30 minutes from Cancún airport.

• Best for: Travelers who want the warmest water of any option here and will accept the seaweed risk that comes with it.

• Easter: Nothing published. All nine of its current offers are year-round.

• Acclaim: No. 18 on The World's 50 Best Hotels in 2024 and No. 33 in 2025, plus Two MICHELIN Keys in 2024.

• Don't miss: The Bee Healing Ritual at the Guerlain spa, a 120-minute honey-based treatment built on the Melipona bee.

Overview

Maroma reopened on 3 August 2023 after a renovation by Tara Bernerd and Partners, with 72 rooms, suites and villas across 200 acres of jungle. Its origin is unusually specific: the Mexico City architect José Luis Moreno found the site in the 1970s and built it without blueprints, working to sacred Mayan geometry from designs drawn in the sand. The craft is local, with roughly 700,000 hand-painted terracotta tiles by José Noé Suro and about 80% of the furnishings made in Mexico.

In late March the Caribbean gives you the warmest sea of any option here, averaging around 80°F against 76°F on the Pacific mainland and 71°F in Los Cabos. Woodend, the live-fire restaurant, carries Curtis Stone's name and holds a recommended listing in the 2024 MICHELIN guide to Mexico. The restaurant has no star; Stone's star belongs to his Los Angeles restaurant.

Downside: sargassum, which is why this entry carries a caveat instead of a higher rank. The hotel concedes the exposure by publishing a 7am daily monitoring routine and a machinery-based removal protocol. Punta Maroma sits in the northern stretch, which has held up better than Tulum and the Costa Maya in recent late Marches. Even so, if your dates cannot move and a clean beach is non-negotiable, the Pacific options are the safer booking.

What to book, and when

Book Semana Santa earlier than you would book Christmas. Domestic demand is concentrated into a fortnight and lands on a small number of properties, and the Pacific coast is where it lands hardest, with Nuevo Nayarit topping national occupancy over the 2025 holiday at 88.3%.

Choose the coast before the hotel. If children will be swimming, that decision is effectively made for you: the Pacific mainland and the East Cape have swimmable water and no Atlantic seaweed, while much of the Los Cabos corridor is closed to swimmers and the Caribbean carries a real if unpredictable sargassum risk. If you want the holiday actually programmed, the two Grand Velas properties have the track record, and the Riviera Nayarit resort combines that with the better beach.

Two practical notes. Expect minimum stays and set menus from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday even where nothing is advertised. And if the second week suits you better, 29 March to 2 April is still school holiday but sits after the liturgical peak, which usually reads better on both rate and availability.

Frequently asked questions

When is Easter 2027 in Mexico?

Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March. Semana Santa runs from Palm Sunday on 21 March to Easter Sunday, with Good Friday on 26 March. Mexican schools close for two full weeks, 22 March to 2 April, and classes resume on Monday 5 April.

Is Good Friday a public holiday in Mexico?

No. Article 74 of the Ley Federal del Trabajo sets out the statutory rest days and Holy Week is not among them, because Mexican labour law is secular. Schools, banks and most offices close anyway, so the effect on travel is the same.

Can you go whale watching at Easter in Puerto Vallarta or Punta Mita?

Almost certainly not. The season is set annually by SEMARNAT under NOM-131-SEMARNAT-2010, and it closed on 23 March in both the 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026 seasons, five days before Easter Sunday 2027. Confirm the 2027 notice before booking a trip around whales. Gray whale season in Baja California Sur runs later, to 30 April.

Will there be sargassum in the Riviera Maya at Easter 2027?

It varies sharply year to year and cannot be predicted for a specific beach. Published beach surveys put the peak in July and August, with December and January close to zero, so late March is the start of the ramp. The end of March was effectively clear in 2024 but already heavy in 2022 and 2026. The northern coast has fared better than Tulum and the Costa Maya. Mexico's Pacific coast sits outside the Atlantic sargassum belt altogether.

Which Mexican resorts have genuinely swimmable beaches?

On this list, Four Seasons Punta Mita has two, Cuevas and Manzanillas, and Amanvari sits on Costa Palmas' swimmable Sea of Cortés frontage. One&Only Mandarina has one swimmable beach of two, and it's small. Grand Velas Los Cabos states in its own FAQ that swimming in front of the resort is forbidden, and Las Ventanas' beach is not swimmable either. Naviva's own beach is rocky, though its guests can use Four Seasons Punta Mita's beaches next door.

Is Easter more expensive than Christmas in Mexico?

Not usually on rate, but it is harder on availability at the top end, because Mexican domestic demand concentrates into a two-week school holiday and lands disproportionately on Pacific coast resorts. Christmas demand is more international and spreads across more of the country.

Related reading

• Best luxury resorts in Mexico for the holidays

• Best resorts in Riviera Nayarit

• Whale watching in Mexico, season by season and resort by resort

• The Best Luxury Resorts on Mexico's Pacific Coast 

• Best luxury resorts in Mexico for spring break trip (2027) : r/MexicoTravel