Other peoples reviews made me think twice before I went but the hotel was just fine. Room was clean, bathroom was cool. Bartender was nice.
It wasnt spectacular but wasnt bad either. Only a few blocks from the bus station so that was nice.

basically, that's the message we received from the female and male working the front desk at the time. We booked through Expedia and were supposed to be in a large deluxe suite and receive free standard rate meals. the female receptionist just shook her head while looking over the itinery and then commenced writing up what she was going to give us instead, which was not the deluxe room and there would be no free meals....not while she was on watch, anyway. we requested her to phone expedia for clarification and again she shook her head and basically tried to hand over the key to an inferior room and while doing so informed us that meals would cost us 100 pesos each if we wanted to include meals. at that point we decided to try staying somewhere where the service and rooms were great which was el rey del caribe. note: we had pre-booked these places and had no idea what they were going to be like in advance except by what others had said on trip advisor, etc. el rey did indeed have a room for us and it just happened to be the room we stayed in before and it was all very inviting and comfortable. summary: there are lots of great places in mexico to stay at and wonderful mexican people to meet, however, once in awhile one can be unlucky but we just have to make the best of it. afterall, we're on vacation....right :)

I admitted that I chose Xbalamque because I wanted to save some money. However, please take my advice that do not book with this hotel regardless what discount rate you get.

1. The hotel staff was rude and very unfriendly. With other hotels, the rule is "service first, then get tips". With Xbalamque, tip has to come first, and you might not even get the service you request.

2. The hallway was so dark as someone has posted in one of the previous comments. The hotel tried to save some electric, so the light was only turned on at the area where you're at. There were mosquitos everywhere.

3. I stayed in room 209, and everything was so terrible. There was dark, brown water [or who knows what it really is] all over the floor next to the toilets. There was a standing shower right next to the toilet, and again, there was brown water all over the floor in the shower. Please see my pictures

4. There was no remote control for the television. Even though there were quite many tv channels, I could not sit in front of the television to change them. Thus, having a tivi in the room was quite useless.

5. The table was so dirty with scratches.

6. No small refrigerator, iron, nor hair dryer in the room at all.


I understand that "you get what you paid for". However, paying $50/night to get a room with services like this is not worth the saving. Last but not least, how the hotel was ranked "4 star" is still a mystery to many others. In this case, it's probably the ranking according to the local residents or its own staff, NOT the hotel standard ranking for tourism.

I would like to warn anyone considering staying at this terrible hotel! first of all the staff is very unhelpful and NO ONE speaks English!moreover we were while relaxing by the pool, someone broke into our room and stole our digital camera - the last thing you want to happen when you are on holidays, isn't it? when we went to report it the hotel staff didn`t even seem to be surprised - they nearly ignored us and after 1,5 hrs wait they just told us that the hotel is not responsible for the belongings you leave in your room!! so, to sum up never, ever stay at this place!!