Na Balam Beach Hotel — Hotel in Isla Mujeres

The location for Na Balam can't be beat. I was literally 140 steps from my room to the soft sands of the best part of Isla. We did a package for about $270 a night that gave us a daily breakfast, a welcome drink, one 3 course dinner per stay and one massage per room. That was a bit weird - let's rock paper scissors for who get it honey! I ended up buying a second so that we could both use it. Guess that's the trick! As we are perusing the menu, the waiter says if you are with Na Balam you get to choose from egg dishes or omelets - that's it. Okay that's fine - as it appeared most of the guests in the Ocean Club restaurant were all there. It also came with what tasted like fresh squeezed OJ, fruit and bread and coffee. The first day at breakfast - it took an entire hour waiting on our food. There were maybe 8 tables filled. How can it take that long? The rest of the week went well. We went over for the dinner one night and we were the only ones in the restaurant. We sat there awhile with not one staff member paying attention. One finally came over and didn't know what we were to get being with Na Balam. Another came over and said order one salad, one entre and one dessert. We don't eat salads in Mexico so we asked if we could do an appetizer instead (which was less money actually) and we got Guacamole and fries - both excellent. I think that couldn't have been right to order off the menu freely as they had everything on there - even lobster (especially when we were limited at breakfast). We all ordered, and the food took a while to come out. My fish was okay (I ended up giving it to Balam the hotel cat - bring cat treats for him!) and my sister's shrimp was so mushy it was gross. My husband ordered steak and it was fine. The waiter never came back to offer us the dessert portion of the meal. All that to be said, the food was just okay there...much better elsewhere on the street. ||The hotel itself - The room were VERY basic but that's okay as long as clean- and it was. The Lighting is TERRIBLE. It's dim yellow lights. Because the property is so shaded with the trees there is little to no natural light coming in there. The beds are very hard with large stuffed pillows which I didn't care for. Shower was great when it ran and when it got hot so plan your showers off hours lol. First thing in the morning it's a dribble and warm at best. I shower at night usually and it's great. Unfortunately, it took like 5-8 minutes to warm up and that kills me wasting water like that. The room does come with a mini fridge which I didn't see that on their list of amenities, so I hauled an ice chest down to use in the room (doesn't have a freezer compartment though to keep ice so my ice chest came in handy as the hotel does not have ice). The pool is always shaded and in the hot of summer is probably nice but I'm more of a beach girl so spent the time there. The hot tub was a luke warm tub so didn't get into it. Cleaning came every day and did a good job. The crew was outside every morning cleaning the pool area and picking up dropped leaves and debris. You do get beach beds on the side between Oceans and Guru. All shaded and very nice location. First come first serve. Think there were 8 beds. No bar service there but that's okay. There's a place at the end of the block to rent a golf cart if you want to do that. This street is very busy during the day with everyone coming to that area. Even though the beach clubs are closed at night there was still a lot of noise and loud music - we never did figure out where it was coming from. ||We usually do Cancun/Playa and all inclusive so this was the first time doing everything a la cart. I think for the price we paid along with the package we got it was very doable. The location can't be beat being close to everything. It's simple, easy and clean. Can't ask for much...

I'd prefer a 2.5 star option here but 3 will suffice. Overall a mediocre experience with some sharp low spikes along the way. When we arrived at our room we notices it looked quite a bit different than the pictures. The amenities were sparce (no phone, no fridge, small and inadequate led lamps) but whatever. We weren't expecting the Ritz. Then my daughter noticed - a little too late - that there was no toilet paper. I ran down to the front desk to fetch some (no phone) and was told some would be sent up. At some point. She made due with Kleenex.

The bathroom was a mess. The shower had no curtain, by design, which is great if the water tends to stay in said shower. It did not and we had to use the bathmat to soak up the flood that resulted after each shower. The tile in the bathroom was literally falling apart with pieces of it laying on the floor when we arrived. A section of the floor near the toilet was cut out, exposing the waste drain from the sink. If you're sitting on the toilet you can watch the water drain as someone else uses the sink outside thre door (neat). The sink itself had a bad leak which required that we sacrifice our one hand towel to keep it from flooding the counter. The double hook for hanging bath towels on was not firmly attached to the wall. If you hung two towels simultaneously and removed them in the same manner it was fine. If you put just one on, or removed just one, your towel ended up on the floor.

Generally speaking the service was subpar. You have to collect your beach towel from the front desk each day. They were frequently out of towels and we were simply told to come back later. Inconvenient when you want to go swimming. At the beach the hotel is named after. And you can't call from the room.

The breakfast was nice and the service in the restaurant was good. When we took advantage of the beach beds the service quality plummeted. I'm pretty sure we went to them asking for things more frequently than they ever came to us (and we are pretty patient folk). Other people seemed to be having better luck, so maybe it was just us. The little place next to the hotel had much better service and we opted to pay for a bed there a couple of times rather than stay at the ones we could use for free.

At one point we decided that we wanted to take a day trip to Tulum. We asked the front desk for recommendations for a tour provider. They pointed to the pamphlet on the desk for a theme park next to Tulum. Not what we wanted. We asked again for a tour operator and were met with blank stares. This cannot be a rare request, we are in Quintana Roo after all and asking about one of the largest attractions within hundreds of miles.

The final straw for me was when we returned from Punta Sur via taxi. I had enough in loose pesos for the fare but nothing left for a tip. He was a great driver and not tipping wasn't an option. I asked him to wait, ran to the front desk and asked if they would break a 500 peso note for me. They flat out said no! I was livid. I don't expect a hotel to be a bank but I certainly expect the simple courtesy of making change upon occasion. I gave the driver the 500 and expressed my displeasure to the staff.

So yeah. I won't be back and can't really recommend the hotel to anyone in good faith. That said, Isla is awesome and we will most...

My wife and I came with her sister and mother to Na Balam and I don't imagine we will return. First, their pictures of Caribbean peace and solitude are misleading as the area is significantly more developed. We had a smaller room one night and a suite three more nights. The first room had a stale smell that never went away because the room was dark and the toilet needed to be flushed 4 times with each use. There was no view of the pool either. Just of our porch. My wife's family had a soaking tub with used Styrofoam containers and onions in the pool. They had significantly worse problems which they will detail in another review.

The second night we moved to our Groupon ocean view room. The room was nice but the outdoor jacuzzi had a slow leak, so we let the water run for an hour, went for lunch downtown and came back to a half empty tub. Maintenance acted as if I didn't know how to use a drain plug, and it happened again with the little test water we put in - we didn't feel like dealing with it anymore so we dropped the issue. The room is right by a loud bar blaring Mariachi music all afternoon so forget napping. The music lasted until 11pm one night. The walls were thick enough but the windows were cheap. All said, the room was OK, but compounded with service issues they leave a bad taste.

While the staff was all friendly, it seemed as if the owners had some ridiculously strict rules, and some bait and switch-ish sales tactics had me annoyed. One morning I went to get our free continental breakfast with my sister in law and we were going to go on a snorkeling tour. Since the tour was full, I ended up staying behind and joining my wife for her breakfast. The breakfast comes with unlimited coffee but they couldn't pour me a cup since I already ate. They knew I was staying there, and I wasn't expecting additional food, and I could have had 10 cups earlier, but the staff wouldn't pour me a second cup as I awkwardly watched my wife eat. This tells me the owner is a nickel and dimer, plus the wait staff was probably under strict rules with threat of losing their jobs. Also, they told us about a 60 dollar per night all you can eat deal 2 or 3 tines, and just when I was about to get it for one night, the manager slips in a "two night minimum". Funny he never mentioned that the first 2 or 3 times describing it. Every meal, beer, and mixed drink the next two nights was purchased elsewhere, so I hope the greedy owner is happy that a cup of coffee and poor marketing probably cost him 200 USD.

Water was blue, the beach was clean, and the staff was friendly and responsive, but I'm guessing the owners aren't pleasant and the experience showed that. My sister in law had further experiences that showed the owners only wanted to react to major complaints and problems and not proactively create a pleasant experience. Until this changes,...