My wife and I stayed at this hotel for one night booked through Hotwire. I would say Hotel was fine for the money if you know what you are buying, a bad deal through Hotwire.

If you booked through Hotwire as a 3.5 star resort hotel you are in for suprise. Hotel is downtown, not any where near the beach and I would not call it a resort but an OK hotel. I called Hotwire as others had suggested and got no where. I called two times and talked to customer service folks. Both agreed that they would not consider this a resort hotel per their booking info. Both assured me that some would get back to me to get resolved before I left town. Never heard from any one. We stayed one night so it was just fine. If you are spending more time and expect a resort hotel call Hotwire now and see if you get better results than me. It really is a bad misrepresentation. Personally I am sticking with Captain Kirk and Priceline, I have never been burned by them.

On the Hotel it self. A very nice Mexician style downtown Cancun hotel. The rooms were clean and just fine. Staff was very nice, in fact the manager stopped up soon after we checked in to check every thing was OK. They were doing some work on water system but that got up and running just fine. A great place if you want a clean comfortable room downtown, but certainly not a 3.5 star resort. My complaint is with Hotwire NOT the hotel.

Good Luck, hope this is helpful
KJ from Minnesota.

My wife and kids just came back from a short 3 day holiday in Cancun and wanted to share some useful tips for those of you traveling to Cancun on a budget.

Our stay at Xbalamque:
I booked the hotel though Hotwire so we didn´t know which hotel we were going to stay at. Hotwire won´t disclose the hotel name or details until AFTER you make your reservation, so they sent us to Xbalamque hotel in downtown Cancun.

The hotel was clean and the service was friendly. It has a pool, parking, a Internet cafe, a Spa and a Mexican restaurant. IT HAS NO ELEVATOR or bell boy service so we have to carry our bags ourselves to the second floor. The room was ok and I think it was recently renovated (maybe because of hurricane Wilma) The room has all the basics. (TV, Air Cond, Telephone,Cable).

The hotel is located in a busy street with many restaurants and Bars. This is great because you have everything at walking distance, but at the same time it can get noisy at nights.

The rates were pretty cheap ($65 a night for the 4 of us) so if you ask me, I would recommend this hotel if you want to save hundreds of dollars that you can spend somewhere else. I read other reviews about the hotel and I think they are exagerated. We think that the hotel was more than okay for the price we paid.

Where to go and must do's:

1.- The beach of course is the first place my kids wanted to go. We went to playa delfines in the hotel zone wich is a beautiful public beach.

Everything at the beach or the hotel zone is more expensive. I learned that everything is cheaper in downtown Cancun so if you have to buy film for your camera, suntan lotion or whatever, buy it downtown before going to the beach.

2.- Mercado 28 is a crafts market in downtown Cancun. It´s a great place to buy souvenirs like mexican sombreros and Mayan crafts. Also very nice silver jewelry are sold there at low prices. We also had lunch there on our last day in a also unexpensive seafood restaurant.

3.- Use the bus to move around since taxis are expensive ($10 dollars to the beach each way) The bus only charges 60 cents.

4.- Buy the tours downtown. Tour agencies in the hotel zone are more expensive and sell the same tours you buy downtown!

5.-Use the airport bus shuttle. A taxi wanted to charge $45 dollars to take us to our hotel so we took the shuttle instead which costs only $1.5 and leaves you 3 blocks away from our hotel. The bus terminal is located very close of where most downtown hotels are.

I hope this helps.

Same story with us as many others have already stated. This is for those who want the true Mexican, downtown living experience. More like adventure travel. This hotel felt clean and safe enough to stay at, however, I would have preferred a Super 8. The first red flag was when I was handed a key at check in. The doors are not electric locks with deadbolts or chains, simply a key in the doorknob. Rooms are small and virtually all white speckled concrete walls and floors. This actually made the bathroom somewhat cool because it felt like a step back in time. A simple stand-up shower with no tub or curtain, instead a partial concrete wall with a small, open window used for setting your soap and shampoo, separating you from the toilet. Our view was of a number of apartments with the neighbors laundry hanging on the clothesline outside their windows- which was the same view above the pool area. We booked through Hotwire(I have loved this company for bookings in the States), so we could not see which hotel we were staying at. Once I agreed to the purchase and found the hotel, I checked reviews and became a bit nervous. This is a 1.5 star hotel. A few examples in what helps a hotel qualify as a 3.5 star hotel in which they came up short: No baggage service. We were even escorted to a second room(per our request), but he carried our room key, we carried our luggage. Also, the restaurant they list is more of a coffee shop/bar. When I asked the front desk about their dining option, she handed me a coupon for a free margarita with dinner at a restaurant down the street. Their salon/spa was located on the outer corner of the hotel and was a pretty basic room to simply get a haircut. Pool was tiny. Supposedly, there is a business center, but all I could figure, was the desk with an internet connection available to guests in fact was what they considered their business center.

We checked in during the late afternoon and I noticed room service dishes sitting outside one room on our way to our own room. We cut our losses and we left late morning the next day to check out and those same dishes were still in the same spot. Their downtown is very busy, so if you are interested in being a working tourist, it seemed like an area that you could have some fun exploring for a few days. If you are going for sun, sand, and relaxation, this area is completely different from the Hotel/Beach zone of Cancun- which is 10-15 minutes from the Downtown area depending on the hotel.

We moved to a hotel in the Hotel Zone, which was a 3 star hotel. The upgrade was enormous. The move from the first hotel to the second felt like time travel.

I booked this hotel through Hotwire. It was advertised as a 3.5 star Resort hotel. Please be aware, this is much closer to a 1.5 star hotel. Hotwire customers do not get the free breakfast. There is no elevator, there's a fake elevator door where it should be, but there has never been an elevator on this property and they will put you on the 4th floor. There is no Gym - it's "out of order" - just like the elevator. There is no spa. The rooms are very basic and the window ac does not keep the room cool. They give you 2 towels for a room with 2 dbl beds and the shower does not have hot water. Most of these things would be fine if this was advertised as basic Mexican accomodations, but it is not. If you and up with this hotel through Hotwire, call them immediately and demand to be refunded or moved, don't wait to complain until after you get to Cancun like I did.