The Waves Tulum — Hotel in Quintana Roo

My partner and I selected this hotel on the basis of its affordability and amenities, and just about the only thing I can say regarding the honesty of the pictures is that this is a massive property, far bigger than it needs to be. Reviews that I read elsewhere suggested that this hotel is on the young side, which I wouldn't consider to be an advantage in this case: the property has all the feeling of a once-grand resort that is now in serious decline. ||We had a studio suite with a kitchenette and balcony that overlooks one of the pools, and the room itself is certainly comfortable enough, although in spite of leaving a "please clean" tag on the door, we returned at 5 PM to find nothing done. Our bathroom also had a few issues around 8PM, and we notified the receptionist and he said he would get someone, we wait a few hours and he never fixed it. We ended up just dealing with it, but it was very disappointing to have this kind of service when we were only there for such a short time. ||The rest of the property feels, in a word, unfinished: the occupancy rate couldn't have been any more than 1/3 of the available rooms, and everything we looked at showed some sign of disrepair, lack of maintenance, or just being unfinished. There are three pools in attractive locations and exactly zero of them are being cleaned/maintained; one of the pools has a poolside bar with no one operating it and no drinks available; the gym has some basic equipment but no towels and a disconnected TV; the spa appeared to have no employees and we couldn't get into the sauna; the wifi coverage is a confusing mess of overlapping networks that result in dodgy connections; there is no signage whatsoever; and wouldn't you know it? There is a cenote on the property, though it's exceedingly difficult to find and I wouldn't even go there if I were you (if you want a challenge, try and find it for yourself without looking it up, in case you think it's impossible to hide a cenote). The "included" breakfast is a decidedly average affair that we regretted participating in - not because the breakfast was bad, but because it only opened at 8 AM, far too late if one's goal is to beat other tourists to the well-known archeological zone nearby. We ended up getting to the Tulum Ruins at 9:30 and we ended up waiting an hour to get in and it was very crowded (I would recommend skipping the breakfast and going the ruins early instead).||Which brings us to the second unfortunate reality of this property, which is that it is also rather inconveniently located. From the ADO bus terminal, there are essentially two routes one can take: a longer, sketchy way along a busy road without much by way of pedestrian footpath, or an even sketchier way that takes on through dirt roads and private houses (where, incidentally, dogs have a tendency to bark all night long, as unsupervised packs of dogs are wont to do - so get ahead of the game by listening to dog-barking sounds at home to get used to it on your own). Perhaps this problem could be mitigated if transportation were cheap and easily-available, but it is sadly not, and you are invited to check for yourself what the history of ride-sharing apps in Tulum is like. This weakness in location could be made up for if the property had shuttles or fantastic amenities, but, as detailed above in the latter case, it does not. ||The only pros I could say is that the one receptionist was very kind and helpful and the room was nice, despite them not cleaning it. They also gave us free average-tasting alcoholic beverages to make up for the fact that they made us wait a little during check-in, which was nice. ||If you wish to spend a night or two in the beautiful town of Tulum and don't want to splurge by being in the Hotel Zone, please do yourself a favor and pick a property along Chetumal (Rt. 307) instead of this one. I will not be staying here again until they fix...

This is a thorough review of The Waves Tulum: The overall experience was amazing and I really loved this place! We even booked one extra night here.

Lets start with pros:

The hotel was very quiet. The insulation of the rooms was OK, but not very great. Remember that most buildings in tropical Mexico are built with thin walls in order to minimize building costs etc.

The room was very clean. Nothing to complain about

They had their own Cenote!! It's nothing compared to the wonderful cenotes around the area, but still really cool. Make sure to wash yourself before entering the cenote. Don't use sunscreen.

They have safe, big parking garage if you have a rental car or bike

The pools, hot tubs, spa, steam sauna and regular sauna were amazing (and open 24h). They were everywhere, even in the balconies of some rooms. As a nordic person I really loved the sauna. It's a shame they don't understand you need to throw water to the sauna stove in order to enjoy the hot steam. Sauna is not just ment to be a hot room. You need the moist atmosphere.

They hade safes in the rooms.

Kitchen facilities were fantastic. It is rare to see a hotel with such well equipped kitchen. I mean you always lack something very essential in the kitchen, but not here. Except spices (but it is your responsibility to buy them)

The location was fine for us since we had a car. The area around the hotel looks a bit sketchy but is not dangreous and very peaceful. We visited the surrounding neighbourhood and talked to people. They are the regular working people and greeted us so kindly. Please make sure to respect the locals. They make up your experience and work hard to achieve a better life. Many of them are poor, but honest. It would be against the communitys interest to rob people. Succesfull tourism helps them more.

Bed was super comfy. The atmosphere of the room was lovely.

The breakfast was super good and healthy!!

The gym was great and the swimming pool next to it long enough for swim training

We always got warm and cold water. Not something to take for granted in Mexico.

The staff was super lovely. Everyone greeted us with a warm smile, helped us, acted respectful and listened to us. BUT REMEMBER... if you do not treat these people also with respect and kindness, they are not necessarily going to smile and do their best to please you. Respect and kindness works both ways. Do not be an a**hole, ever.

Then the cons (just some minor things):

-There were no rubbish bins in the public areas.

-The aircon in the room did not went off by itself after longer period of time. We always turned it off in order to avoid wasting electricity, but some people did not. They cool down the room so fast there is no need to keep them on all the time. Therefore they should have automatic "turn off" -function.

-The road to the hotel was not YET paved and a little bit bumpy. I think it is not necessary to pave it, but they should fix it a little.

-Wifi did not work well at all times. Yet well enough. Also we had a local prepaid sim with 4G so did not really get into trouble when hotel Wifi did not work.

-There was no water bucket in sauna. You need that to use sauna correctly (you need to throw water on top of the sauna stove in order to turn the water into steam).

-They did not have any recycling. In Tulum the recycling infrastructure is sadly totally undeveloped at this stage, but they at least collect plastic bottles. I think this hotel needs bins where you can throw plastic bottles. That way at least something could...

I want to be very clear that I knew this was a budget hotel and I did not expect anything to begin with. First of all, as my mistake, I booked wrong dates and realized 15 minutes later if the reservation can be refunded or changed. They said no. First red flag. They swallowed the entire 2 weeks of booking. I just changed my schedule to fit and made here instead even though I already didn't want to be here. Soon as we came, we knew she should've have just ate the cost and never came because even though we didn't even use the hotel for good 5 days out of our stay due to going to Valladolid and Merida, rest stays (about 6-7 days) were horrendous enough. I don't even know where to stay. Front desk people will try everything to zip every penny out of you. They changed our room 3 times due to various issues from broken door to literally a waterfall wall. Since Google does not let me post videos, I can only post some screenshot from my video. In the process of moving rooms multiple times, several keys were exchanged and we couldn't find the key for the last room we got. I was pretty sure they did not give me because it happened within like 2 days of span but they wanted to charge me 500 pesos for the key. Breakfast is supposed to be included but if you can get the breakfast crew to even talk to you, you are lucky. There's nothing to eat and they only speak back to you if you are white. They ignored me like I didn't even exist while I am talking. They only responded to others who were white and males. This was to a ridiculous level of ignoring that they guy pretended like we didn't exist. It really is a place with potential like others say but working crews here do not work or care and that's why the place is ran down so quickly. If they just change the working crews to have some sort of basic decency, maybe place can have some chance to be better but literally the owner doesn't seem to care if the place is maintained or not. Not my business so I wouldn't say much but I just don't understand why they maintain it this way when the property has so much potential. You will have to deal with hostility from people working here for no reason. For example, they would tell us we can park wherever and it's okay then they would lock the garage and say they changed their mind. Breakfast itself is really bad but the attitude of the kitchen crew is even worst making it not worth trying. I honestly don't know what I did to get treated this way but I would avoid this...