We were greeted nicely at the front desk in the very pleasant and comfortable entry area. We were pleased to find a clean room with a comfortable bed. Every part of our experience after that was dismal.

The "restaurant" was nothing like what we expected, and there were no others within safe walking distance. We skipped both dinner and breakfast because the space was so dreary and they only served cruddy fast food. I got the one and only beer in the whole place and took it back to share with my husband while we watched a movie on my computer; there was only one English-speaking channel on the hotel TV, and we did not want to watch Fox News. In the morning I had a sprinkle cookie wrapped in plastic washed down with my nearly undrinkable coffee with powder creamer, in my room, rather than sit in that depressing space and risk eating what looked so unpalatable.

There was a private party that evening in one of the hotel's big spaces, upstairs from the lobby, away from the hotel rooms. Unfortunately, many of the guests decided to party on and off in large groups in their rooms (on either side of ours and down the hallway), including on the balcony walkway in front of our door. We finally called the front desk at 2:30 a.m. to complain, and Security got them to settle down by 3.

In every other hotel I've stayed in in Mexico, there is a part of the contract, signed at check-in, agreeing to specific rules of conduct. It's unfortunate that these people felt as though they owned the place, and downright maddening that the hotel did not monitor the situation at all. There were huge areas of the hotel with no guests at all, or with families traveling with children, where we would have been better placed from the beginning.

I thought about showering again in the morning, but the water from the previous night had still not drained.

This was the last night of our 2-month vacation in Mexico. It should have been a pleasant one. It was not.