Hotel Rio Lagartos

We stayed at the Hotel Rio Lagartos for one night as part of a birdwatching tour with Ecocolors. We opted out of the afternoon activity and decided to hang out at the hotel…I think we made a good choice. We arrived right at check in after eating in one of the local restaurants. Check-in was quick. The hotel is a cool design with an open center and lots of live plants everywhere. We were on the second floor and there is no elevator…so be prepared for the steps…including all the way up to the rooftop bar. They have music and drinks up there at night and is an awesome place to watch the sunset. Our room was large and fairly basic, but clean… with a small balcony for fresh air. There is a small fridge and even a few minibar items. One odd thing was a window that opened up into the hallway…I think it was for a cross breeze if you don’t like AC…but need to make sure the drapes are closed all the way or people in the hallway can see in. The pool area was nice with a swim up bar, we sat with our legs in the water for awhile when it was hot. They have a dock nestled in the mangroves with some chairs to lounge in and a picnic table. This is a great place to relax and watch the birds and boats go by. We did have dinner there and the food was quick to come out and good, but we were the only diners and we could not eat up on the roof…so we ate by the pool…there is also indoor seating. We left before the free breakfast. The town is great, safe, and very walkable from the hotel. You will get offers for tours, but a no gracias was all it took to move on. We really liked our stay here and would recommend.

The design of the hotel was very interesting, we especially enjoyed the hammock in our room and the terrace on the top floor. The staff was very attentive and the "American breakfast" was included. It was within walking distance of everything in town, and we had a great view from our room. It was a little bit of a drive to get here, but if you are visiting Rio Lagartos or Las Coloradas, we highly recommend this place!

Likes - There are not many hotels in Rio Lagartos and Hotel Rio Lagartos is probably one if not the best to choose from. The room was very spacious and provided with air conditioning, fridge and a spectacular view onto the lagoon. The hotel has a nice open area with pool where you can relax and it has a direct access to the lagoon so if you book a boat trip (like we did), they can come to pick you up directly at the hotel, which is convenient. The roof terrace is also agreat place to enjoy the view of the lagoon and the small town from a high point. You can take great pictures forom there! Also, parking space is available, although this is not secured away with a gate but nontheless we did nothave any problem. The entire village seems a vey safe place. Improvements - Two main comments on things that could be improved: 1. breakfast. It was not great, both in terms of choices and quality of food. Probably one of the most average in our entire trip (we booked 7 hotels on a two-week tour across the Youcatan peninsula). For the price we paid you would expect a bit more. You can choose between coffee or juice, not both. Once, I ordered "hot-cakes" (which is basically pancakes) and I got 3 small sad-looking pancakes that I felt were taken straight out of a supermaket pack. No syrup was offered and when I asked I got some honey. The fruit was litelly three thin slices of apple, thre thin slices of melon and three thin slices of papaya. The egg omelette was ok. No bread, No jam. That is it. If you wanted something else you would have to pay, but considering the quality we got, why would I order more? My personal suggestion is to book the Rio Lagartos Hotel without breakfast and walk out to the nearby small restaurans/bars (they all do breakfast). We had lunch outside for both days of our stay and there are terrific places where the food is absolutely great. 2. Wifi. Although the Hotel has wi-fi, we could never make it work with our phone. We did try several times and asked what channel we should connect to (they got few) but it never worked. It was the only hotel on our trip where we could not have internet connection. Disappointing, hopefully they can improve their IT infrastructure. Fortunately we had a pre-paid sim card we could use and I reccommend anyone travelling Mexco to purchase one, as it comes handy when plan A (i.e. hotel with a working wi-fi) fails