Playa de Carmen

December 17, 2007 9:07 AM

Bachelor party in Playa De Carmen Mexico. Where should we stay? We would prefer a hotel that has all the amenities including pool, good food, beach, comfortable beds and nice showers.
posted by kaizen to travel & transportation around Mexico City, Mexico (7 answers total)

I'd go 30 minutes north to Azul Beach Hotel. My brother's wedding was there and it was amazing.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:13 AM on December 17, 2007

Make sure you snorkel at plenty of the cenotes south of there. Best diving I've done in all of Mexico. There's a guy a few km south who can take you out for a day, email me & I'll hook you up.
posted by luriete at 9:15 AM on December 17, 2007

hotels I remember:

Jungla Caribe - super cheap, funky, fun, nice people. stayed here.

Pelicano - also about $35 a night, friends stayed here, wish I had - really nice, right on the beach, very cool. I doubt you'd eat at any hotel restaurant given the 100 good places & stands to eat on on 5th avenue just across from the beach...

Costa del Mar - looked like fun. Neat on the outside, at least, and on the pretty beach just off downtown. About $25 a night I think. I had a beer here and the owners were very nice.

Other than that, there are dozens of similar places, all $25-40 a night - if you're paying more than that, you're being ripped off - and I've stayed at a few but can't remember the names.

Really, anywhere from Playa del Carmen south to Tulum is fantastic, just avoid the Cancun area which is nasty and totally plastic, and the gated white-only resorts along the coast immediately south of PdC. Of course, in Tulum, the rates are about $5 a night for a palapa or a hut on stilts over the water to $35 a night at a very fancy place like Ana y Jose, which has an incredible restaurant and a nice pool and the nicest beaches in the Yucatan - the food is much more authentic and the rooms cheaper than resort areas like PdC, although PdC is still vastly superior to Cancun in terms of quality of food, friendliness of locals, and interesting-factor.
posted by luriete at 10:09 AM on December 17, 2007

We stayed at the Royal Hideway in Playa del Carmen for our honeymoon, and I would love to go back some day, it was really fabulous. You don't really say what your budget is. We did the all inclusive package, which included free meals and drinks and choice of 4 or 5 really good restaurants on site, as well as a beach bar. Very nice pool and a beach just steps away. A hurricane has happened since we went and I understand that the beach is a little eroded since we went, but still perfectly useable. We went snorkeling there, and also did some parasailing, which was cool. A really lovely absolutely first rate place. (Of course, also nice beds and showers, too.)
posted by onlyconnect at 12:00 PM on December 17, 2007

this is where we stayed http://hotelbasico.com/ - totally awesome. great seafood restaurant i ate lunch there almost everyday, rooms are spacious, super laid back young staff, and the best (only?) rooftop lounge in playa del carmen, it was hoppin' a few nights. pretty inexpensive as well. they also own http://www.hoteldeseo.com/, a swankier version around the corner, though the lounge is not on the roof. 1 block to the beach i think. these are not all inclusive. only thing is the pool at basico is not really for swimming, more like a dunker. deseo has a regular pool i think. check em out.
posted by fumbducker at 8:48 PM on December 17, 2007

ps.. not sure if $25 a day is realistic, i didnt see anything like that when i went last year.
posted by fumbducker at 8:50 PM on December 17, 2007

Hi kaizen,
this depends totally on your budget.
There are plenty of opportunities. You can go to Playacar and stay in the Royal Hideaway or in one of the RIU hotels.
If you like to stay more in the center you can go to The Royal. These are all AI hotels. If you like it more private or cheap there in Las Palapas, great place. Or Mimi del mar, really in the center and still cheap.
Enjoy your party!!!
posted by dinzi at 5:49 AM on December 18, 2007