We spent a week in Playa del Carmen in July of 2012. As far as the city itself goes, I was incredibly happy with our choice of staying there rather than Cancun. We did fly into Cancun and rent a car to get to Playa del Carmen. Car rental prices were very reasonable and that way we had a car to get around whenever we wanted. Playa del Carmen was a little more than an hour from Cancun- BUT the top reason I was glad we stayed there is because Playa del Carmen is a lot closer to many of the excursion activities from Cancun. While many people choose to stay in Cancun because the city has a lot more nightlight options, we weren’t looking to party. So we picked Playa del Carmen for our hotel rather than driving back and forth from Cancun for the activities we wanted to do. Most other tourists we ran into were staying in Cancun and many did complain of the long trip to get to the excursions- so score for us.
We were there July 12-19 and there was a fair happening in Playa del Carmen then! I’m not sure if that is the same time it happens every year or not, but regardless it did supply for some fun times exploring the city at night. We bought a lot of different fair foods to try and checked out some of the music they had going on. We considered going on some of the rides, but the lines were taking multiple hours just for one single ride. So after finding that out we decided to just stick with walking around instead. The city was full of street performers as well which made it fun!
While there are many nice restaurants to eat in but we aimed for the cheaper side of things and didn’t have a problem finding that either. There’s something for everyone! We found an awesome pizza place with pizza slices for just 15 pesos apiece and ended up eating there twice. All the open air shops around were full of touristy souvenirs as well, it was a very fun town to be in.
The hotel we chose was about a 10 minute drive from downtown which was great because it meant everything was nice and quiet. It was not all inclusive, but we made that decision on purpose since we don’t drink alcohol and didn’t need something where the price was higher but alcohol was included. I did want a hotel that had breakfast included each morning and this one had a fantastic huge buffet for free. They options were great with traditional Mexican foods and more familiar American items as well. I wish I remembered the name of the hotel we stayed at now, but unfortunately I don’t. I can tell you that I booked it through expedia and in 2012 it was only around $60 a night.
The room wasn’t huge that we stayed in but it was super pretty and very nice. The hotel was always quiet and we had no complaints about it whatsoever. It was located back in a private neighborhood area with condos and things like that around- so it definitely wasn’t in the center of town where you could just walk to whatever you wanted. But it was perfect for us. It has a beautiful pool and some jacuzzis as well though it did not have direct access to the beach. Since we aren’t big beach bums anyway, this was not an issue to us and we were told you could walk to the beach about 20 minutes away if you wanted to. I would definitely stay there again.
Fire Round the World 