Puerta Del Mar — Hotel in San Miguel de Cozumel

NOT WHAT YOU MAY EXPECT: We had a an awful time here. I think the biggest part of it was that this is a "hotel" but really more of just a person's house you stay. There's no front desk you check in. It's poorly lit at night and there's tons of racoons at night plus we encountered a few spiders and ants in our room and the common area. We were coming from the US and getting through customs and getting our car rental took longer than expected. Checking in was a living nightmare and it was our first impression of Mexico. The house owner was rather upset with us and not very courteous. The whole thing made my wife cry. In the end he was moved to send someone he knew to come and open the house for us by then we were quite frazzled.

The general feel is that the operation is trying to do the minimum to get by. The owner wants to run a business but still wants to live his own life so you just have to fit into it however it's most convenient to him. The toiletries are the cheapest quality as well as the towels, not to mention the low quality of the breakfast where you could totally tell the disposable cutlery was being reused. All around just a bad bad experience. Yeah the house is big and it's nice that's right on the beach but it could be done so much better.

Also, perhaps it's good to have a little background as to how this hotel came about. It's basically the home of a man that doesn't want to downsize from his large house and is running this operation so it can be...

Wow! We were treated like family, from the time we arrived, until we sadly left. Just an incredible place to stay. So peaceful. Located basically at the end of the beach. If you want privacy and zero crowds, this is it. We were in a large unit. It was very spacious, with a full kitchen. Our housekeeper was Gina. I cannot say enough about how pleasant and thoughtful a person she is. The owner, Raul was especially considerate and took care of us, during our stay. We would not hesitate to come back at all. It was about $15 (us) for a taxi into town. If you don’t want to cook, there are a couple of restaurants at a 20 minute walk. You can also purchase a ticket at the front desk of Melia resort, to eat there. I think other resorts will also do that. One day we actually walked all the way to downtown. It took about an hour, but it was pleasant and relaxing. The entire area felt safe and the locals were friendly and...

We had the room upstairs to the right, ocean view. Long flight of stairs to carry luggage up. Very spacious. Building could use a face-lift. Breakfast included was very minimum. To use the shower you have to run the bathroom tap for 5 min for it to warm up. Only gets warm. Never hot. Little water pressure. Bed was good. Fridge and small microwave in rm. Hot tub on grounds didn't get hot and only 1 or 2 jets worked. Beach felt secluded. Only a little walking traffic. Soft white sand. Quite a bit of kelp and churned up water so no visibility. Did swim there once but preferred to walk down the beach and swim off one of the resorts. We had a relaxing week but...