We visited El Rey del Caribe in Cancun during high season but in spite of the hotel being busy we were treated nicely and enjoyed our stay. You can't beat the location of this hotel, right next to a large grocery and a short walk to the central bus station which can take you anywhere in the Yucatan (Mexico for that matter) or just to the beach. Nice gentle surroundings, a garden, fountains, hammocks, clean quiet room, all in a busy neighborhood. We enjoyed the breakfasts that are included in the rate and found this to be a great place to make a soft landing before heading off to travel in the interior of the Yucatan. One really nice thing...our flight was delayed by several hours so we wouldn't get to the hotel until about 2 AM. I called ahead (in English) and there was someone there to meet us and take us to our room when we finally made it.

I saw rave reviews of this place and I dont think it quite lives up to the hype. That said this hotel has some great features and I would definitely consider staying there again.

First the good: The hotel grounds are VERY nice, very green. A very pleasant space to be in. I was travelling alone and my room was huge! I was big for me but it would probably also be more than enough for two people. The room was very nice and clean and maybe most important - VERY quiet. I also got a free breakfast in the morning that was pretty good.

The down sides: I flew into Cancun and decided to try thier airport pickup. They guy arrived like an hour late and I had to deal with the annoying hyenas at the airport while I waited for him. Luckily I brought the hotel number with me so I was able to call and let them know that I was waiting around. In the end they gave me a 10% discount on the price of the transport but this obviously gave me a very bad first impression of the hotel.

I also thought that the staff was a mixed bag. Some of the hotel handymen were very helpful and friendly but the reception was a a bit unsympathetic at times. Overall I would say the management was just OK.

Also the jucuzzi is a joke and is basically out of order and the pool is pretty small and looks the the maintenance is so-so. The hotel location is OK, its a short walk to the bus terminal and other stuff in the center so thats a plus.

Like a lot of people on this forum I am not a big fan of Cancun and I only stayed here one night. That said, I would recommend this place mostly for the low price (by Cancun) standards. If you keep in mind the caveats I mentioned this could be a good place to hang out for a while.

We only stayed here one night, the last night on on 3 week trip through the Yucatan, just so we'd be close to the airport for our flight home. Considering the reviews of this place I was sorely disappointed. This was, by far, the worst place we stayed at for our entire trip.

I believe we were lodged in the worst room in the hotel. It was positioned next door to the owner's apartment, in the back corner over looking an alley and the compost pile. The drone of the TV from their apartment was constant.

When we first checked in the receptionist was a bit miffed that we had arrived early (it was 11am). It was earlier then we originally intended, but all we wanted to do was drop our bags and come back later. She wouldn't call us a cab, instead told us to go out to the street and flag one down, which we did. It wasn't too difficult, but because of this we ended up on the wrong end of a taxi scam that left us marooned. Generally issues like this can be easily avoided by having the hotel call a taxi company/driver that they use regularly and are trustworthy.

When we checked in I was immediately struck by how dark our room was. Due to the poor layout of the room and windows even during the day the room was dark. At night the place was down right depressing. All the lights were energy saving and gave off a week anemic yellow glow that barely lit the room. That night it was so dark that I gave up on trying to read and tried to turn on the TV which is when I found out that there was no remote in the room. We tried to call down to the front desk only to find that the phone didn't work so we walked down. We were informed that we had to put a deposit down to get the remote (In all our stays in the Yucatan we haven't encountered this, but I don't usually stay in Cancun so maybe things are different there). So up we go back to the room to get the money, then back down for the remote, and then back up again. I wouldn't have minded the deposit if they had simply mentioned it when we checked in. Also, they never bothered to mention that breakfast was included. In fact, they never even mentioned that they served breakfast.

The room smelled dank and musty and it didn't go away when the air conditioner was turned on. The bathroom smelled like urine. The windows in the bathroom were so poorly installed that they literally just sat in the hole in the wall. You can actually see daylight around the entire window. The air conditioner can only be turned on and off with a key attached to the room key and attached to a huge wooden block (I'm assuming this is also to make sure we don't steal it). There is no way to regulate the temperature so we spent the entire night getting up turning it on, freezing, then getting up to turn it off, and so on.

The decoration of the room was sad. The curtains were of cheap polyester and were so poorly made that they would slant in one direction on one window and on the next window would be all wavy. It was obvious grandma had made them. The bedspread looked like it had time warped from the 70's. The entire room had 1 decoration, an old warped picture that hung slightly askew.

All in all the place was simply sad. I'm just glad we didn't have to stay there any longer than 1 day. I loved the idea of an eco-friendly hotel, but I think eco-freindly and people-friendly can go hand in hand.

The highlight of the hotel is their garden, which is lush and absolutely gorgeous. If only they could integrate this beauty into the hotel surrounding it.

Personally, I'd say don't stay in Cancun. In my opinion the place is a cesspool, but if you have to stay I wouldn't recommend this place. It's not horrible, but it certainly isn't enjoyable.

We only spent one night here and it was after a long flight from Manchester – but for us it was a very nice pit-stop. We paid for pick-up from the airport and that worked fine. Everyone from the hotel was really nice – smiling and helpful. I think we got one of the least nice rooms in the hotel (No. 25 in case you get a choice) but it was still fine – clean enough and everything in working order. Hot water in the shower but took a little while to come. It’s pretty quiet for within a city – no real problems sleeping. The breakfast was lovely – fresh fruit and toast but there were plenty of other options.

If, for some reason that’s hard to imagine, you wanted to stay in Cancun for a while, this would be quite a good place to hole-up. There’s a kitchenette in the room so you should be able to live fairly cheaply too. And the proximity (100 yards) to the bus station means you could do lots of day trips from here really easily.

Ground were in good order though it does feel a little small – don’t imagine that there’s a huge pool or anything.