Holiday Inn Express & Suites Playa del Carmen by IHG — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

We arrived around 12 but check in isn’t until 3pm. We were greeted enthusiastically, asked about our journey, made to feel welcome and offered either to use the pool facilities or we could leave our luggage securely and wander out.

The weather was abysmal due to hurricane Eta so we decided to go out for a beer. We came back around 2.30pm and our room was available.

We booked for 7 nights in the king suite with balcony. Superb room, spacious, bright, clean and a marvellous bed. Very well designed with charging points, microwave, fridge, sofa, desk, large safe, coat hooks and luggage rack space for 2 cases. Great bathroom. Fantastic value.

Breakfast was included which was excellent, served by Elena and Antonio (a lovely family atmosphere). They were super efficient, tables and queue all socially distanced and cleaned regularly. (Including spraying) Coffee available throughout the day. One day Antonio told me that the hotel was “our second home” and he wanted us to have a great stay.

We were on the first floor overlooking the busy road - which made for interesting people watching from the balcony but there was some road noise. The top floor rooms would have a slightly better view.

The pool is small but has a sea view and good quality pool furniture. The water was rather murky for the first four days (probably due to the hurricane and rains) The pool area did get quite busy at times. I enjoyed my swim immensely every day.

There are hand sanitizer stations at strategic locations and plenty of signs to remind you where to stand / masks etc - just need some people to observe these !

Super bonus :There is a room with a complimentary washing machine and dryer. The first day we used it a cleaner on the floor came and showed us how everything worked - very kind and thoughtful.

Ivan the Deputy Manager was excellent during our stay- checking about our stay and answering our questions. (Even speaking to us when we saw him out of the hotel !) He definitely loves the hotel and his team.

David our cleaner was superb. The room was immaculate. He always asked if we needed anything.

We met Marilla, from housekeeping (in the socially distanced lift) - she asked us how we were and how our room was. I’ve been in 5 star hotels where housekeeping wouldn’t be bothered !

Mega supermarket is an easy stroll turning left when you exit the hotel. Sabrina’s, next door, serves very tasty Italian food and great prices.

Outside on 5th avenue there is a lot of building work and it was often flooded due to the rains. It is also full of the usual touts harassing you.

The hotel is an oasis to get back to and we were impressed with the price v quality. The friendly team made for a very enjoyable stay.

Amazing send off from Ivan,...

I'm in no means a hotel pro. Here are my thoughts.

PROS:

-The staff were always smiling and helpful, one word. Amazing.

-The breakfast staff, so polite, and always happy.

-Cuba and Osiris, the two that plan tours for the guests. Two of the nicest honest people I have met. Very easy to talk to, they explain everything before, so you're prepared for the tour. A must to talk to for sure, when planning and tours.

-The rooftop pool area, wow what a view, at night the lights of the city lite up night sky. The day time, a view of the ocean is visible, while soaking up the sun.

-Did I mention the staff

-Location, it's walking distance from everything, 5th Ave, shopping mall, Beach, Cozumel port, Walmart, plenty of restaurants, night life.

-Very think concrete walls and heavy doors(see cons) to keep any noise to a minimum.

CONS:

-The big heavy doors, when they close, they close, I mean they slam. The weight of these doors are incredibly heavy (see pros) which help to keep noise out. It took hearing it twice from guests down the hall, that I need to close my door slowly, to ensure it does not slam. Other people caught on pretty quickly as I did, some just didn't and it could be annoying. I'm assuming a simple fix of tweaking the doors or adding a slower closer.

-Now these are just nitpicky things I found, or stood out because everything else in the hotel was perfect.

-No smart tv, so streaming Netflix or any other app on the tv is a no-go.

-Tvs are on the bit of the smaller size

Caulking around windows and fixtures, are messy(better than I could do though, who am I to judge)

-Paint splatter, various locations. Window, floor, mirror. This may have only been for my room, and only...

This is the worst holiday inn I have ever stayed at!!! We arrived at the hotel and was told that the room had not been paid for, even though my Dad had talked to someone earlier in the day and was told that they would use his credit card to pay for the room. They charged us $600 CAD for the 2 nights, and then when I talked to my Dad, found out they had also charged his credit card $300 CAD for the damage deposit. When he called to try and find out what happened, they told him that they couldn’t use his credit card for the room because he wasn’t here in person. They also cancelled our original reservation, even though we had booked our reservation over a month prior to arriving. When we got to our room (on the main floor - #26) it was hot and had not been cleaned properly. There was still food from the previous guest. We also realized we had no AC, and no fan so the room progressively got hotter throughout our 2 night stay. We were rudely awoken at 5am the next morning when the staff started setting up for the buffet, which didn’t open until 7am. When we went to breakfast, we realized that our room backed right into the breakfast area. The breakfast was disgusting, and not at all appetizing, they also ran out of coffee. My fiancé also wanted me to warn everyone that the toilet did not work, so it would be helpful if you knew how to fix a toilet before staying here. Ours would not flush properly and just continued to run endlessly. We will NOT be staying here again. The location is good because you’re close to the touristy part of PDC but it is not worth what we had to pay...