BALAM Playa - 15 Th. Ave

The location was good, and the staff helped hold our luggage before check-in. The housekeeping lady was really pleasant and helpful too. But the room was like a dark dungeon. On the main floor, its only window faced the hallway, and the bulb barely gave more light than a candle. It was quiet at night, though I could hear and smell people smoking at what I assume was the neighboring hotel. The WiFi was slow when it worked at all. Breakfast was a piece of bread, and the orange juice was made from orange crystals, with no real fruit. Nice staff couldn’t make up for that room.

The convenient location near the beach was about the only thing that worked for us. There were lots of food carts and restaurants close by, and it was a cheap hotel, but I wish it had at least been clean. Our bathroom was dirty, with the previous guests’ hair on the wall, and the rooftop pool area was dirty too. The mini fridge leaked and didn’t work. We weren’t given a room-cleaning sign, so we had to ask each day, while other rooms had signs on their doors. The “continental breakfast” was one piece of bread with coffee or orange juice. The room had other problems: a see-through bathroom screen meant you could see into another guest’s room when they showered, and the bed was hard. We got no blankets beyond a thin sheet and a light brown blanket. Birds gathered outside in the morning and evening and were extremely noisy, and the walls did little to block sound. Also, there is no private beach, despite the advertised picture.

The Internet was really good, the bathroom had enough water, and there’s a small second-floor pool overlooking the park. Reception stays open around the clock, and they let us into the room before 15.00, which was nice. The room was clean and the bed was a good size, though on the firm side. It didn’t look much like the pictures and had only a bed, TV, fridge, and very little storage. There’s no safe or anything like that. The bathroom had some mold, and the toilet took several flushes. This isn’t a five-star hotel, more like having your own room in a hostel.

The location was excellent, but the staff weren’t very friendly. After checkout they charged us 300 pesos for cleaning, which I feel should have been included in the stay price. The internet was pretty much unusable in our room. They gave us four different networks to connect to, but we had to go near reception to get any signal, and even there it worked poorly. The toilet seat was bad too, you sank right through when you sat on it.