Hi everybody,
One of the reasons we ruled out going to Sayulita was that we couldn’t find adequate accommodations for long stays. In Playa del Carmen there was a lot of offer and from what was seen in the photos, the qualities were good.
So, I began to contact the hosts of all the accommodations that I had liked. I discarded many in the first place because the internet speed was bad, others because they really did not have a work space, others because the photos were incomplete, others because they asked for a security deposit outside the platform, or they wanted to charge for electricity separately.
When I told you about the accommodations in the Algarve area, I explained that everyone wanted to charge for services separately. In Playa del Carmen, it is the same.
I also realized that not even the 5% of the accommodations that indicate that they have a “dedicated workspace”, actually do. It turns out that, for the hosts, one can work comfortably at the dining room table, the kitchen bar, and even the sofa table.
After an exhaustive search, we decided to book a first month in an apartment that seemed big and had a desk. NO accommodation in Playa del Carmen had a comfortable chair to work.
The accommodation is managed by an Australian named Jamie and her husband Manuel. After seeing the reality of Playa del Carmen, I told Diego that I could not understand how a person leaves a country like Australia, to end up in a place like Playa del Carmen. In addition, it was clear that they did not earn much money either.
When we arrived, Jamie was friendly and showed us the apartment that at first glance we liked because it was large and on the top floor, it only had a terrace and the jacuzzi.
Then we began to see the failures of the accommodation that made us generally not like it.
We had planned to spend a month there and then go another month to a house that was further away from the center, but they canceled our reservation, and I will tell you in another post how I had to fight with Airbnb about this. So, seeing that for December every place was already full in Playa del Carmen, we decided to extend our stay in the same accommodation and then go to Colombia.
Now comes the interesting part…
The first thing is that the host from the first day told me that the apartment was for sale and that if she could come and do the showing with the potential buyers. Because I am a good person, I told her yes and she came to the apartment one day to do the showing; But the following week she was already asking to do another visit, something that already began to bother me because I can do a favor, but it is not for abuse. Still, I agreed.
We barely finished the month in the accommodation when there were several problems: a whole day without internet and then it constantly failed, the building ran out of gas for a whole day so we couldn’t use the kitchen, the sink pipe broke. To this must be added the mismanagement of the problems by the host.
I escalated the internet problem to Airbnb and the host reimbursed us for one night’s accommodation, which was a pittance. The funny thing is that two days later she was asking to do another showing of the apartment and right there, the whole building ran out of gas, and we couldn’t use the kitchen.
The host didn’t admit her responsibility for any of the failures of the accommodation but on the contrary, she told me that I “did not have the ability to solve the problems myself”. Imagine, I pay for a very expensive accommodation and the host wants me to change the light bulbs, fix the broken pipes and solve the gas and internet problems.
After I complained to Airbnb, I was reimbursed $200 for the inconvenience, but still, I reported to all possible organizations and continued doing my job of busting social networks.
In summary:
Pros:
- Amenities. There was enough shampoo, conditioner, and soap for the entire stay.
- Relatively good location because we were a 10-minute walk from two large supermarkets (Walmart and Soriana) and a 20-minute walk from a fairly decent beach.
- Space. The apartment is large.
Cons:
- Too many failures during our stay: broken clothesline, burned out light bulbs, internet not working, pipes broken, kitchen not working, air conditioner that leaks water when it rains, etc.
- The apartment was filthy. I had to re-clean the entire floor and there was even food under the sofas. The sofas and chairs were also dirty and had a lot of hair (from people and pets). I had to cover the sofas with sheets.
- Non-existent internet. The speed is not bad “when the internet works” and it never worked properly. We even got disconnected for a whole day.
- Noise. This was the worst of our stay. Starting with the water pumps in the building that were right next to our room and were squeaking all day, children screaming or crying all day long, construction works drilling all day, the next-door neighbors who every day had barbecue or birthdays and they spent hours shouting; at night, drunk people were heard screaming and breaking bottles. In addition, the windows are very old, and the sound insulation is zero.
- Quality. Even when the apartment was not bad at all, it was very old and neglected, and the furniture was very worn out. For a month we paid almost 1800 dollars and it seems to me more than excessive for the general quality of the place. I don’t pay half for an accommodation like that.
Think that in Turkey for 1000 euros a month we had a giant house with a garden, private pool and gardener service included, in one of the most touristy beach areas in the country. In Algarve, for less than 900 euros, we had a brand new apartment 10min walking from Falesia beach.
- Kitchen was very poorly equipped for long stays. We asked for some basic things like tuppers, juicer, tea towels, bowls, but it didn’t matter. In addition, the kitchen and its utensils in general were very old and worn out.
- Bad smell. In the room where the washer and dryer were, it always smelled like sewage. In addition, several days you could not even open the window from the bad smell. Sometimes the bathroom smelled bad too.
- Badly prepared for the rain. We had a couple of days of heavy rain and the air conditioners started leaking water without even using them.
- Views. The apartment does not have views from either side, not even from the terrace. The only views are walls of buildings.
In short, the accommodations in Playa del Carmen are excessively expensive for the qualities they have. In the next post I will tell you my opinion about the city and I can tell you it was ruled out as a possible place to live and we could have avoided it, especially considering that Mexico has so many wonderful places.
The apartment cost $ 250,000 and it seemed an outrage to me for what it was, considering it doesn’t even have ocean view. With that money in many European countries, you can buy a better property. The apartment has been for sale for two years and according to what the host told me, the owner was desperate to sell it. After staying there, I fully understand why.
But the story does not end there. When I left, I made a request for money for the work time that I had lost due to internet failures (About $500). The woman appeared 3 days after my check-out and rejected my application, making up a lot of things that I had supposedly done in her accommodation. After this, she made a request for $3 “just to inform Airbnb of what I had done”. Many of the things she said I had already reported during my stay.
Also, I had already sent my review before she “reported what I did in her accommodation”. It is very rare that she reported such alleged damages 3 days after my check-out and right after seeing my request for money. Additionally, she had only attached 3 super blurry photos that could be from anywhere.
That same day, I received an email from Airbnb saying that for a “suspicious request for money” they took me off the platform forever and that I would never be able to open an account again. Ah! The funny thing is that Diego’s account was also blocked (I’ll tell you better about this in another post).
As Airbnb’s management of our data after blocking the account is not clear, we filed a complaint with the Data Protection Agency. Five minutes after Diego sent his complaint, an email arrived saying that the blocking of the account had been a mistake and immediately the same email reached me without even having made the complaint.
15 days after I left there, I received a notification that the host had left her review and that both evaluations were already public. A few days later, I received an email from Airbnb saying that they removed the review I left “because there were things that were beyond the control of the host.” Of course, they didn’t remove the review that the host left for me. Leaving comments on social networks, I saw that Airbnb has a habit of eliminating negative reviews by making these kinds of absurd excuses, which is why there are so many “Superhosts”. I will tell you more about this in another post.
Here is the link to my YouTube channel:
And here you have the link of the property so you don’t make the mistake of booking there:
(3 years have passed and the property is still on sale)
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/27898979?source_impression_id=p3_1652220062_LCuZkkLD4DVnVi62