Casa Iguana Holbox - Beachfront Hotel

It all started when we first arrived. My *********** fee said that hotel would cost USD $436.64. When we arrived, they instantly tried to charge me 8600 mxn pesos. When I did the conversion in Google, it said it worked out to be 7,477.63 mxn pesos. They tried to charge us over ~1,000 mxn pesos more than the official Mexican conversion rate. We argued for quite close to an hour, called ***********, cancelled and tried to reprocess the booking through ***********, only this time attempting to pay directly through the *********** app. I offered to pay directly to there bank account and a couple of other things, though they refused. They said we could cancel and take a new hotel, though my partner and I were super exhausted from the whole day of travelling and moving around large suitcases, that we did not have the energy to book and move again, especially after all the arguing. This was not the first experience I wanted my partner to have with Holbox. Totally tainted her opinion of the island from the get go. Be careful with this place, as you will get done on the exchange rate. To add to this, although the property says it has wifi, the rooms themselves do not have wifi. I need wifi for work and my partner who is ill and in Mexico for medical trea**ent, spends most her days on the bed resting connected to the the internet. For her I did my best to tether my phone which I left outside of the apar**ent which cut out all the time. For myself I had to go near the main front office in order to get any signal for any of my video calls. The day after the first day, we tried to cancel and re-book another hotel that has wifi access in the room, they straight up refused to refund us the next 2 days. They kept saying that every hotel in Holbox has an internet problem, though I have been here a few times and although there are general problem with internet speeds in Holbox (for those hotels that don't use Starlink), this remark was classic deflection. Casa Iguana does not have wifi access points inside each of there rooms. Our issue was that we could not get access to the wifi access point inside of our room. They ended up giving me temporary access to room 1, which was closest to the wifi access point, though this was not all the time and my partner could not benefit from this at all. Customer service was not great at all. Our experience in general was very poor.

My husband and I, along with 3 other couples, spent 9 nights in Holbox at this quaint and rustic hotel. This was our 3rd time to Holbox and the other couples first time and we couldn't have been happier with our hotel choice. Our rooms were clean and had everything we needed, including a safe and filtered drinking water refilled each day. The hotel has a restaurant on site and breakfast is included each morning. We enjoyed many lunches and a few dinners here as well. The french fries were a big hit with our group! The beach service was a little hit or miss but we didn't mind walking to the bar to get our drinks. The on-site masseuse is wonderful but expect US prices. Totally worth it though. The two small pools were great for a quick dip. The location was perfect - not too far from town but not too close to be bothered by the noise that has invaded Holbox :( I wish Holbox was still the sleepy little island it once was but things are changing. Thankfully Casa Iguana has that old school Holbox charm that we adore.

This was our 3rd stay at Casa Iguana and unfortunately will be our last. Our room was in the back of the complex, right in front of a pool that was used almost exclusively by screaming kids. We are a couple with no kids and this hotel seems to have become mainly a hotel for families with kids, so it was not at all peaceful. The other problem was that the hotel has for some reason completely closed down its beach facilities. Last 2 stays there were palapa umbrellas on the beach with loungers and the staff from the restaurant would bring us food and drinks on the beach. All of that was gone and the restaurant didn't even seem to be open half the time. Only for breakfast - which featured mediocre food, cold coffee and slow service. So strange for a hotel right on the beach to have zero beach presence - we either had to lie on a towel on the beach or go to another hotel to use their facilities. Perhaps they are under different management. But we can't recommend the hotel and won't be staying there again.