Hotel Cabañas María del Mar — Hotel in Isla Mujeres

The good: location, the cats that live on the grounds. Many excellent restaurants within minutes of walking and right on the beach.

The bad: pretty much everything else Not professional or service oriented We have been to Mexico about a dozen times and this is the only time staff is not friendly, uninterested, lazy. One of about ten people who we saw working there spoke English. I wish we could post pictures to show you how unclean most things are. I can’t prove they had bed bugs because I didn’t find any on the beds, but we have bites all over our arms. The doors have over an inch of gap at the bottom so mosquitos can come and go as they please, so if could easily be them who eat you alive while you sleep. The mattress are rocks, the pillows are easily the worst we have ever had anywhere anytime. They bad mouthed and argued with us in Spanish for debating what was and was not a blanket when we took extras from the linen closet. Linen closet is an outdoor room where the door is open almost all the time. Bugs, sand, in the linens and not well cleaned (they had an odor). Pool has three hammocks, two of which are broken/ripped up. Sand under our beds from day one, like they sleep everything under the bed or something…We were there 5 nights and saw the same garbage over piled in the trash bins from day one all the way to the end of the stay. There was a water bottle with gum on it next to the pool and we joked about it because it was also left there and not thrown away during the entirely of the stay. Rusted out fans with exposed wires, dust rings around your fan and ceilings that haven’t been painted on over 20 years. Should I keep going? Not clean, terrible service, rude to guests, language barrier, noise issues caused by the staff themselves while they seem to live at the place and talk to people right outside your room in the middle of the night loudly. We left the place feeling dirty and worn down from 5 nights of rough sleep, sore necks, and with all sorts of bumps on our bodies from bites. We will miss the cats but couldn’t wait to get the heck out of there. If the island wasn’t so booked we likely would have fled. We made it work but everyday we hated it more and the WiFi was awful in the rooms so we had limited ability to scope out where we could move to on the island. Place needs better hospitality training, entirely new pillows and “blankets”, a cosmetic remodel and it would make a huge difference.

Do your family a favor and note that when a place has a room rating below 3, it’s for a...

Worst hotel I have ever been to in my life.

My experience at Hotel Maria del Mar was utterly appalling. Rooms are basic, ugly, and very expensive. I booked for 3 adults and was given a tiny room with 2 double beds crammed in. We were charged $139USD plus $18 for an “extra person”.

We requested to be moved to a larger room, which we were by the only kind member of staff we dealt with, Fernando. He told us it would be $65 extra a night, but this was not written down anywhere.

I was then robbed on the 2nd day of our stay - $2,000MXN (just under $110 USD) were taken from a secret compartment of my backpack, which was packed away into my suitcase. I reported this to reception, and asked who had access to the room - just the mad they told me. I received no apology, and was told they would ‘investigate’. 10 minutes later the maid knocked on our door, clearly very upset, and told me she had not stolen the money. It was extremely awkward and I couldn’t believe they had sent her to confront me in this way.

Upon check-out, the additional amount we were being charged didn’t make sense at all. There was no reference to the higher room rate on the rate card, and the price was extortionate. We were also being charged the difference for the bigger room, plus an “extra person” even though the room was clearly meant for 3-6 people.

In light of the robbery you might expect them to give us a discount on our room - instead, I spent 20 minutes arguing with Chely and Clara, who were extremely rude and disrespectful, suggesting I was an idiot for not understanding why we had to pay this large additional sum, even though they could not produce any formal paperwork to justify it. When it became clear I wasn’t going to back down, the original bill conveniently disappeared and a new one was produced, with the expected figures on.

We were also charged $15 USD for handing the keys of our golf buggy back FOUR minutes late, despite there being an abundance of available buggies and no-one waiting.

I give strong warning to anyone who considers staying here - I have visited Isla Mujeres on many times over the last 13 years and always had a good experience, whether staying in a basic posada or nicer hotel. The people managing this hotel clearly don’t know the first thing about hospitality. I left feeling violated and taken advantage of, a truly...

I just returned from my 5th stay at this hotel and it was definitely NOT a good experience. I have always booked in the Castle section of the hotel, knowing that these rooms are the newest. There is nothing fancy about the rooms but they are clean and minimalist with a king size bed, ocean views from the balcony and steps to the beach. When I checked in this time I was given keys to a room in the oldest section of the hotel. I told them that I booked in the Castle section. I was told that there were no rooms available in that building because of an issue with the water. I don't think this was true, as I saw that there was painting going on on that building throughout my stay. I went to the room that they gave me and it was horrible. It smelled of fried food/grease from the building next door and was incredibly small, outdated, and in very poor shape. There was one double bed and a twin bed practically touching one another. My partner is 6' 4" and 230 lbs. We would not be able to share a double bed and I was not going to sleep in a twin bed. I went back to check-in and asked for a different room, explaining that my partner is a large man and we wouldn't be comfortable in that room. (One of the reasons I booked in the Castle section-- large rooms and a king bed) I was eventually given a room in the section around the pool. The room was much larger with two double beds. I was unable to share a bed with my partner during our vacation.. not what I was looking for. This section of rooms is also very tired. The a/c was loud and blew down directly on the head of the beds. The back "patio" area had no furniture and a few broken and abandoned flower pots. We never went out there. The box spring on one of the beds had black mold on it and on both beds the mattresses and box springs were different sizes. There was a very musty smell. No hair conditioner. No hand towels or wash cloths. No hair dryer. The pool area is very pretty with lush gardens though. If I had known I was not going to be able to stay in a room in the building that I booked, I would never have booked at this hotel, knowing that the other two sections of rooms are extremely tired. All in all a very disappointing stay and I won't take a chance on...