Maya Vacanze Playa Natural — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

I'm taking time to write these so other travellers can be alert if you finally decide to book with them. Here is what happened:||I booked 2 nights (25th and 26th Oct.) through hotels.com. This place doesn't have a reception, so the company always sends a man called Isidro who will come and receive you for check-in. After the first night, I liked this place and decided to stay another 3 nights, so I texted Isidro and asked him if the room would be available, and what would be the price. He said it would be available and the price would be the same as the two nights that I booked through hotels.com. So I paid the balance in cash to him, stayed 5 nights in total. Everything went good. I even wrote a good review for them in Hotels.com.||||I was about to leave for Cuba for 1 week and come back to playa del carmen, so before I left, I asked Isidro if I would like to stay another week in Playa Natural (after coming back from Cuba), would they offer me a special price. He talked to the company, and came back saying that when I returned from Cuba (which would be November), it would be already in high season, so instead of charging me higher, they would keep it at the same price for me. Not a bad deal, so I paid the deposit they required (100USD), and left for Cuba.||I didn't hear from them after that. When I got back to Mexico and texted Isidro regarding the exact time of arriving for him to be there and receive me, he also didn't mention anything.||But, when I arrived, Isidro opened the door, after I had everything settled, he told me to pay the balance since previously I paid only the deposit. And he showed me a different nightly price, of course, higher than the previously agreed one. I was really surprised and told him this wasn't what we agreed 1 week ago. He said basically it's high season, and the price for other customers now were even higher, they already gave me a low price. But still, it's not the price we agreed. ||I told him this is hardly acceptable, the thing is that we agreed on a deal 1 week ago, the price was given by the company, I paid the deposit, so there shouldn't be any change. If the market price really changed, the company should be the one who's responsible for that, not me. If there is any change, at the very least, you should let me know in advance, not after I arrive and push the new deal to me. ||Since it's already pretty late at night, he said he'll go to the company tomorrow and talk to them about this to see how to solve the problem. ||The next morning, I texted Isidro and told him if the company finally decided that they still want to change the deal, which I would consider it to be really irresponsible, then get me the deposit back, I'll pay the first night at the new price, but I wouldn't want to stay there anymore.||10 mins later, Isidro showed up, he told he talked to the company and they won't even give me the deposit back! ||Now this really sounds ridiculous to me. So basically they set up a deal with you and take the deposit, but afterwards they can still change the deal, and you don't even have the right to not accept their change?? ||So I sat down with Isidro, we called their office together, Lisa and Cristian are the ones that are in charge in the office. After some similar conversations, reasons, at the end Lisa said: we won't be able to return the deposit to you. Basically now you have 2 choices, either you pay the balance according to the new price to stay 1 week, or you can stay just 2 more nights with which your deposit can be good for. ||I told Lisa: I'm not accepting any of these choices, because it's just not right. I'm not staying any more days. It's doesn't matter if there was miscommunication between Isidro and the office, or there was miscalculation of the market fluctuation, you're changing the deal to push all your mistakes and risks to the customer, and you are forcing me to accept your new deal. If that's the way you do business, then I really can't agree with you. If you decide not to give back the deposit, that really says something about the company. I'm not staying anyway. ||So I left right away, and I haven't heard from them since then.||||This place itself is actually fine, that's also why I had a positive review for them after my first stay (picture attached, Hotels.com is in the process of deleting and updating a new review). But I'm really not a fan of the way they do business. In the hospitality industry, sometimes you don't really feel the difference until issue happens, then their reaction really tells the difference. ||I share with you what happened to me, not in order to cut off their business, but imagine if you are in a family trip, or you want your trip to be smooth and avoid unpredictable issues, you probably don't want to take the risk with a company like this one. Remember they don't have a reception, in case anything happen, I can imagine that they really can't care less about the customer. Just...

Had previously reviewed this on booking where I captured my misfortune by choosing to stay here for a vacation. Just got to see their response on there which were so full of lies that it clearly shows how Maya Vacanze Playa Natural is not just an incompetently run establishment but very shady and unscrupulous to go along with it. So makes sense to have that review on here (+ other places soon) and to spread the word about this establishment so that this misfortune doesn’t befall others too.

At the outset, let me say how this place enjoys a passably good rating anywhere will remain one of life's greater mysteries. Truth be told, unless you're the better business bureau, there's no reason to spend time considering this place. This is a place that conveniently uses “boutique” in their descriptions to excuse an infrastructure that predates the Mayan civilization - probably how they named the place. Yes, the infrastructure is indeed prehistoric. If the first night was not bad enough with the oldest refrigerator in the world making sounds and grunting throughout, the next night, the plumbing in the toilet totally gave up and we had toilet water (!!!) fully seeping into the hallway. And if one wants to avoid sleeping with smelly toilet water in the hallway, tough luck since the reception is non-existent and getting any help immediately will be fruitless. On top of all this, we had easily the lousiest/shadiest check in process we've had across a month-long stay in Mexico. First, even when one has to pay extra for the late check-in, the guy will keep complaining about how his sleep was impacted due to the check-in (for which you already have to pay extra!). And on top, the guy doing the check in will try to overcharge you if you're paying in dollars without telling you (luckily the bank notification I had about the pending charge saved me). Undoubtedly, the best bit about our stay was we got to check out and hopefully help other folks not get misled into making a lousy choice for your vacation by staying here.

PS: For some reason, this establishment believes responding to reviews with easily disprovable lies like did on booking is better than actually making improvements. And they forget folks can respond to their lies just as easy on internet so let me just do that here regarding their response on booking dot com (and rest assured, I plan to continue doing that hereafter too):

Firstly, they accuse us of thinking we booked an all-inclusive when we booked here and apparently I had to explain to my “wife” that this was not an all-inclusive. This is honestly hilarious, even ChatGPT couldn’t come up with fiction-writing like this. Previously I thought the folks running the hotel were just incompetent at their job, turns out they are amazing liars and fiction writers to boot. Additionally, it goes to show how their minds are truly trapped in prehistoric times (like the infra there) - where the “wife” has no agency in decision-making.

Then, they make a claim that we came in at 2am and complained about the late fee. Wow, more lies, you do know the 2am bit can be easily proven by internet footprints right? Guessing the Internet might be a novel concept to you seeing the prehistoric infra at the hotel. And then, let me also highlight it was the receptionist complaining about his sleep being disturbed the whole time even though we had told many times in advance about the arrival time . Further, we did not make 1 noise about the 5$ fee. Again, the lies just keep flowing (much like the leaky toilet water here)

Apparently they “feel sorry” for my wife - More hilarity ensues. Plus what a hilariously bad comeback. An 8 year old would come up with something better. I’d say stick to running hotels instead of lousy irrelevant retorts but at this point we know how incompetent the folks here are at running...

When researching places to stay in Playa Del Carmen, we ended up booking Playa Natural for close to 100USD per night because it had great reviews and we thought it would be quiet and have a balcony. Either we had the worst room in this hotel, or all the other reviewers have very low expectations. ||||We ended up checking out three days earlier (with no refund) because we were unable to get a good nights sleep and booked an AirBnB nearby. Owners said they would have changed our room, if it had not been completely full. ||||We were of the impression that the hotel would have a courtyard and a balcony based on the photos. Our room (#1) was on the ground floor right next to the reception and has no balcony and the only window was towards the small area by the entrance of the building. When checking in the owners said that we needed to specify we wanted a balcony when booking a room (not mentioned anywhere when booking). The first photo is of a nice patio with a hammock but we were explained this belongs to one of the rooms (superior room.)||||Positives||- Water Pressure was good||- Owners were sympathetic although they did not agree to a refund for unused nights and were unable to provide us with a better room. ||- Good storage space for suitcases and clothes||- Decent location 10mins walk to main areas of the strip||||Negatives||- Uncomfortable bed: It was a king bed, but it was a very hard mattress and the blanket only covered a small part of the sheet. ||- AC: causing puffy and itchy eyes. Should be checked for mold. ||- Noisy: from the reception and the street. This has been mentioned by some other reviewers too that there are thin doors. We were woken up at 1am and 7.30am with loud talking in the reception. ||- No good curtains: Light at night coming from the street and courtyard as it uses a thin fabric and also is divided into three pieces causing holes with...