Hotel AZZ Mérida Medea

We stayed Sunday night and got a great rate for such a well-presented hotel. The rooms were spacious, with good en suite facilities, and breakfast was very good. There's secure underground parking for motorcycles, too. Sara at reception was especially helpful, and the rest of the staff we met were just as good. There are local restaurants nearby for dinner if you don't want to eat at the hotel. Worth staying if you're travelling near Merida.

The pool can be hard to enjoy. On warm days the water gets hot, and hosts leave towels on empty chairs as if they're reserved, so you have to hunt for a spot. It's also not in the city center, which means driving or taking a taxi to get across the river. Keep in mind how hot summer gets here. The hotel itself is amazing.

We paid €134 per night for the room, though online rates were around €80-90. With breakfast for three, our one-night bill came to an appalling €176. The groom had booked directly with the hotel a couple of months before we arrived, not through a third party. The breakfast cost €14 per person, with no child discount, so my son had a bowl of cereal for €14. The buffet was poor: tired eggs, questionable bacon, little cheese or ham, and juice that wasn't fresh. If you came down late, there might not even be a coffee cup left, and we had to use a cereal bowl. We were there for a family wedding over the weekend, and it didn't feel like a four-star stay. The triple room was extremely hot, and the air conditioning barely worked. When I told reception, they said to set the thermostat to maximum cooling. We did, but no cool air came out; they also suggested the room might face south. The air conditioning around the hotel seemed questionable, and the wedding venue felt like it had none at all, despite outside temperatures reaching 36 Celsius degrees. In the morning, the drain smell was unbearable. After we reported it, someone sprayed the room and plugged the sinks and bath. The smell returned the next morning, with no apology or further action, including any reduction to the bill, which we thought would have been fair. The bathroom hairdryer was sticky and dusty, but I was too tired of not being listened to to report that as well. A very disappointing stay, with unhelpful staff and nothing like a four-star experience.

The pool is a nice spot, but there's nowhere to get a drink or snack there. You have to go back to the main hotel and hope someone is around to serve you. The place is perfectly fine and has plenty of potential, though it needs a general overhaul and more attention to service. The beds really aren't four-star quality, as other reviews have said. Breakfast was pretty poor, which I'd expected from those reviews. Maybe paying the staff more would help.