Italia Estación Hotel Mérida

The room was tiny, about 1 by 2 meters, with nowhere to put my things, and everything was painted a stark white. The WiFi was usually down or so slow it was unusable. Warm water never came, and the water stream was very weak. Noise was the worst part. There was no barrier between the reception, the street, and the rooms. The outside doors were mostly open, and the room doors blocked almost nothing. The receptionist kept talking loudly nonstop day and night, even at midnight and 5 AM. I asked her to be quiet, but she carried on. Stay away if you want any sleep. This was the noisiest hotel in all Mexico.

The AC worked well, the staff were friendly and moved us to another room without arguing, and the place had a rooftop terrace. It's near the ADO Bus, and the price might be good if it were clean. I suspect many of the five-star ratings are fake because so many appeared at once. Our first room had hair everywhere and dirty beds with unchanged linen. We asked to move. The beds in the second room were acceptable, not super clean but okay, while the floor was still dirty. Most rooms have no windows or daylight, and the place looks like a jail. It was very dirty and loud, with voices from reception and the aisle all night. There were ants in the room and a slight moldy smell. I'd rate it 2.5 stars, but want to counter the fake reviews.

The clear advantage is being directly across the road from the ADO terminal, and the receptionist and her young daughter were both pleasant and helpful. Still, I'd suggest looking elsewhere if you need to be near ADO Centro Historico. Nearby alternatives don't look promising, but from my stays in other parts of Mérida, it may be better to look farther from the station. A little farther out, there are short-term hotels and some sketchy neighborhoods. For the price, the room was very ordinary. Everything was white except the red bed runners. Neither the WiFi for my assigned room nor the backup network given at check-in worked. The air conditioning was hard to set as requested and switched off in the middle of the night. Water pressure at both the shower and basin was extremely poor. The shower head sprayed a fine mist in every direction, and I worried the trickle might stop while I was showering. There was excrement at the bottom of the toilet bowl when I checked in. There was no bedside light. The only light switch was by the door, and that harsh light covered both the bedroom and bathroom. White roll-down blinds covered both windows. The bedroom blind hid a view of construction rubbish on the roof below; the bathroom window faced a narrow terrace seating area on artificial grass that might get noisy, with a view across to the glass-fronted, open-plan ADO terminal.

The staff were kind, and the room had AC, a TV with Netflix, and a comfortable temperature. It was also affordable, right across from the ADO centro histórico, with restaurants nearby and Plaza Central about a 15-minute walk away. The bed was extremely hard, and the sink and shower shared a room. There were hand marks on the wall, and light came through the door window at night. Hot water took a while to come through, and the internet kept cutting out. My room was right by the main hallway, so arriving guests were loud at night. I’d rate the stay 6/10. Thanks for everything!