Ophelia Tulum Hotel by Gekkot Travel — Hotel in Quintana Roo

Just come back from Orphelia Tulum and thought i'd leave a long review to help anyone nervous about booking make a decision. We read some bad reviews here and almost cancelled but very glad we didnt. We loved it so much we stayed an extra night

The TLDR: It's a taste off 5 star luxury but with a few negatives. But the price we paid (ave £100 per night) it was outstanding value.

THE AREA

An Important one to some, but let me clarify something that other reviewers have said. The hotel is on the edge of some have called a slum. Its just an area where poor people survive. You see workers come here in high viz jackets after work. Some properties are wood huts, some are brick. And yes the road is in terrible condition. But we discovered on our last day that THERE IS A BRAND NEW ROAD TO THE SOUTH. Big, wide, well-lit road going through a modern housing estate that connects with the main road to Tulum beach. Look at google maps to the south of the hotel.

We walked through the 'slum' day and night and never felt worried. In 5 years time the slum will all be developed. You can see buildings going up everywhere, and quite honestly i'm glad i saw Tulum like this before it becomes wall to wall luxury buildings

But generally, the location was excellent. walking to town centre and easy to get to the beach. I would happily stay here again

THE HOTEL

I cant quite understand that they have another hotel down the road but the design suggests they dont understand hotel design.

The pool area is beautiful, palm and banana trees around and feels like a private oasis. What is annoying is that the sun deck doesnt get sun until around 1pm. yet behind the bar area is a massive area that gets sun all day that is planted with trees and is just a walkway. Its like its designed for vampires. And there aren't enough loungers even when the hotel is about 20% full.

They serve a decent breakfast cooked at the bar in the morning, prices arent terrible. Anythign after that is delievered from the Copal Tulum 5 mins walk away. Quality is pretty good for western bar food

THE ROOM

We had a 2 bed appt and loved it.The most OTT air con ever with 5 units in the place. it was too cold, we just had one on low.

Full kitchen with fridge/freezer. We filled with £1 beers from a shop on the high street.

Beautiful balcony overlooking the pool. High quality fixtures inc metal sliding doors. Sat TV, netflix etc.

What might be the dealbreaker currently is the water coming from the taps and showers. It's not quite fresh water. It has a very slight saline and chlorine taste to it. We brushed our teeth with bottled water. The shower didnt bother me at all, but i can imagine girls with specific hair care requirements might not be fine with it

Bed and pillows were top quality and the rooms were cleaned every day, despite us telling them not to bother one day

OVERALL

All the negatives for me were little niggles and i kept reminding myself that it was the price of a travelodge for all this luxury. Remind yourself you're in Mexico and stop complaining

They have obviosuly built on cheap land with an eye on the future. The area will be very different in a few years. But for now, if you get a room at the back your balcony will be looking out over some serious poverty

The hotel isnt finished as some have said. The lifts arent working yet and you can see they have some problems with units on the ground floor. But I would advise you take advantage of this now as it will be quiet and the price is too good to turn your nose up at

I genuinely loved staying here and I'm very keen to come back

Oh and if you booked through expedia and are expecting $50 drink credit on arrival they will play dumb and then offer $50 off a $200 massage at their sister hotel. I'm going to...

I very rarely give reviews to the accommodation we utilize but this time I feel like this deservers a review. We travelled to Tulum as a family (2+4 kids 8yo to 10yo) we booked this hotel well in advance, then 1 month prior to travel I took the time to read the reviews on google. to say I was horrified after reading all the reviews was an underestimated statement. Based on what I read I made a decision not to come despite of not having a cancellation included in our reservation, my partner convinced me to give it a chance and we framed it with "we can always leave if we don't like it" so we gave it a chance, our arrival to cancun was in the middle of the night, based on the reviews this hotel has, we decided to spend the night in cancun and headed to Tulum the next morning. This was really an unnecessary precautionary measure we took, based on the reviews we read.

Apartment We had a roof top apartment with a view to the rural area behind the hotel. Apartment was perfectly cleaned, stylish and smelled nice. moderately equipped kitchen, but included coffee, water sugar, salt - much appreciated. Pool was a huge attraction for the kids however I was stressed about them falling over the edge of the pool ( 3rd floor) and did not allow them to use it much. Apartments have different owners but are managed by 1 company. Our concierge was Itzel - very responsive , kept in touch with us all the time making sure we were ok

Location Yes, the property is neighboring the rural area where locals live and people in the reviews call it a slum and dangerous. There was not one moment when I felt endangered at all. Having all balconies facing this area we got to see a lot of their lives and found it very interesting. it's a neighborhood where locals live in poverty. There was no sign of any violance, all we saw was them gathering with families, laughing and enjoying their lives, living ordinary lives, they turned on mexican music in the afternoons and evenings which added to the authentic experience we have had. We all found it amazing to watch.... If you are sensitive to dogs barking at night and roosters crowing in the morning, bring earplugs or avoid this place. We enjoyed a glass of wine in the evening and all of us peacefully slept the night.

3.Access to the hotel We rented a car and so we drived, never walked through the area but lots of tourists did. The access to the hotel is in a horrible state, road is full of holes, it's not even a road, you have to drive slowly. we had a large toyota van, adjusted the driving to the condition of the road and never had a flat tire nor any issues. The condition of the road didn't bother us, it takes 2-3 minutes to drive through this road and get to the hotel. There is a new road leading to the hotel and lots of people don't know about it, google will not lead you there. we found the access by pure coincidence, but never managed to find it once again :) After a while we gave up on this and just took the road that was most convenient.

4.Safety - last comment I'd like to make is that the whole area is being monitored by police, if you arrive at night, there is large light reflector that will turn on police type of alert lights plus it will light the road as well. I'm adding a picture of "police tower" that's how the kids named it :-) I've never seen anything like this before so not even sure what the name of it is. The hotel's entrance is guided 24/7 by 2 people, the complex is surrounded by large concrete fence.

Service We never utilized any of the services this hotel offers, but from what I saw, this is more an apartment complex rather than a "hotel" The pool was nice, lots of young people hanging out.

We had lots of fun in Tulum and staying in this hotel was a...

Staying at this hotel I learned a very good lesson: don’t just rely on the looks !! It is true that this hotel looks very good, but I never had such a poor experience! I have booked 3 stars hotels in my stay that really were 10 times more enjoyable than this one. Let me walk you through the (long) list of everything that went wrong: The safe not working in the room, when you ask the procedure to reset the code, they answer that you’re not allowed to change the code (well then it’s not a safe anymore if everybody that has been in this room knows the code!). Then no blanket on the bed, only a very thin sheet, when I ask for a blanket they answer me that they don’t have any, I had to insist to finally be able to have one. No soap in the bathroom, the window in the bathroom not working (so you can imagine all the humidity in the room). No hot water in the shower one time out of 2… we regularly had power shortages (no electricity in the room, not even the lights)… the fridge was leaking in the room… no cleaning in the room, you have to request it otherwise no one will suggest it to you… there is a restaurant area but no actual restaurant (you have to order from another restaurant and then be delivered at the hotel… It was a mess… ah and I forgot, I asked if my friends could come and visit us at the hotel, just to know if it was allowed, and rather than a simple yes or no answer, I received a very sassy text message from the reception threatening to make me pay a 500 pesos fine if I am seen with someone else !!! And the worst part is that when you need something or have a problem and go to the reception, they answer you that you need to do all your claims through WhatsApp or the booking messaging platform (only to get sassy answers) So all in all the only thing that this hotel has close to a 5 stars is the looks, the experience was TERRIBLE! I haven’t felt like at home, not even once… and I would advice going on google maps and have a look around the hotel to see what the location looks like before booking, because you might be surprised by the surroundings… I think by then you understood that I really do not recommend, you will have a way better round for your...