Hotel Aqua Luna — Hotel in Oaxaca

Average lodging up the hill from Playa Zicatea.... 5 minutes from the beach. ||The water was hot and the air conditioner worked great....(IF you paid a lot extra and booked a room with hot water and cooler.) If you are here in the winter months you need neither...but in the hotter months probably want the air conditioner.||Daily cleaning services were so-so. The staff themselves were super nice and courteous, but they ended up pushing the dirt around on the floor with water and some smelly cleaning product. The bottoms of my feet immediately built up loads of grime when I got back each afternoon from the beach. I ended up having them stop mopping the floor and going and buying a large rag and cleaning it myself. The floor was so dirty that it took me ages to get it clean the first time. I had them just take out the trash and leave toilet paper when needed.||I also had a room with a small fridge and two-burner cooking plate. Both were sufficient and in good working order.||The restaurant menu is small but ample, and the food is good and the drinks (beer and soda) are cold. Can hang out at the pool and drink beers or have a bite to eat and play a game of pool or sit and work on your laptop or read. Or you can order the food and bring it back to your room. Pricing is average for the area.||(If you want delicious meals and great prices go around the corner to Dan's Café Deluxe. Really good coffee in the morning, as well.)||The owner and staff are friendly and the whole overall vibe pretty good. ||The hotel itself is only a short 1/2 block from the main highway that runs along the coast and so the noise level is high both day and night. The traffic at night was actually disturbing in the beginning as I am live in a very quiet neighborhood. So, make sure you get a room on the ocean-facing side of the building. There will still be no view, but at least you won't get all that traffic noise at night.... and it's pretty much all night.||Next time I go I will be staying the furthest south along Playa Zicatela in the Brisas de Zicatela (Punta Zicatela) neighborhood. It's quiet there and the whole neighborhood more lively and trendy and offers coffeehouses and some of the best restaurants around. Definitely a better place to meet people...

Going back to Puerto, staying in Zicatela and having the luck to made an excellent choice by choosing Aqua Luna is one of the many things that made our second visit amazing. Clay will give you top notch quality of service and he is always accessible and very charm and kind. Ok, thats not all.. Lets talk about the property first:||Gated area, secured, with 24 hrs assistance at the door. 2 blocks from Zicatela beach, one block from amazing healthy restaurants. Room with different sizes and accommodations depending on your needs. We stay second floor at the corner and the breeze coming thu our windows will make you to get up in the morning and close the window :) , depending time of year, we loved our breeze on those November nights, didnt even needed a/c. Had a mini kitchen it, perfect for us two. Mini refrigerator, mini stove and enough silverware and cooking dishes available for us to use. Rooms get clean every single day. Gets a bit noisy over the weekends. Going to the top of the hotel to enjoy the view it was one of my favorites, must peaceful moments i will enjoy, every day. And a hot tub!||Pool is simple and lovely and located by the bar area, in which you could find pool tables as well. ||Now, they have a GREAT happy hour that not everyone can beat in Zicatela, believe it or not! We found out until our 3rd day, jaja. And not just that, the food they serve is soooo yummy and great prices. We couldnt believe food at Hotel was as good as many other places we went out to eat. The lady at the bar/restaurant/pool area is super nice and sweet. I enjoy chatting with her a few times. ||The only reason why we havent stay at Aqua Luna since then, (even thou we went back in January and are going back again in 2 weeks) is because they are booked! :) We are going back in 2 weeks (again!) and even thou we are not staying at Aqua Luna since we couldn't find a room available, we are going for the Happy Hour! Great job, Clay and staff. You have an...

The owner Adriana kicked my friend and me out without any legitimate reason or prior notice (at 1pm and had us pay another half day as she said check out was 11am, when we had a monthly booking – if she does find that time machine, I'd be more than happy to use it and reassess some other things in life, but would also be more than happy to never have booked in here).

While that would have been bad enough, Adriana then started frantically yelling at us during check out – to a point that felt like she was about to slap my friend and kept calling us names and gringas.

That being said, the staff is amazing and I had stayed there for a month prior without issues.

If you do decide to go, steer clear of the owner (tattooed lady, the one with the angry face). I suggest she attend some anger management classes and 100 % stay away from any...