Magic Blue Hotel Playa del Carmen

Magic Blue was a nice hotel. The location was great, just a few blocks from everything. It was clean, friendly and quiet. I would definitely recommend this place.

It was very quiet until a group of Italian men arrived near the end of the week. This was a little annoying but the hotel responded quickly and asked them to tone it down.

I was very excited to stay here for my honeymoon. I work with children and I was looking forward to getting away for awhile. This hotel is adults only and I couldn't wait for the quiet and relaxation that was awaiting me.
Online it was stated that the hotel provided an airport shuttle service. I tried calling for a few days to set that up for my new husband and myself but nobody would answer the phone. We ended up just paying for a shuttle that the airport provided and it wasn't a big deal for us. We were just excited about being on vacation finally.
Once we got to the hotel, we were greeted by a gentleman who seemed to be tired of people in general. My husband is Honduranian and speaks Spanish very well and he spoke to the gentelman in Spanish. But that seemed to annony him as well. We didn't feel very welcomed but we were determined to just let things go and have a great time.
Well, this same gentleman brought us up to our room and started explaining the services to us. It turned out that he forgot to tell us some important things and that all the information he did tell us was incorrect.
First, we arrived Sunday evening and it turns out that on Mondays, for the majority of the morning and afternoon, they turn off all the water: shower, sink, everything. He was supposed to tell us that, but he didn't and I got caught in the shower with soap all over me and no water. So, again, we just said oh well, lets go swimming then :)
Next, the hotel doesn't offer a room phone. Instead they offer a cell phone that has $20 USD worth of minutes on it and you are supposed to be able to call outside of mexico and locally. Well, we tried calling the US to let people know we had arrived but the call would never go through. We talked to the Reception, and that same guy told us that he didn't know why it wouldn't work but that we could get a new phone in the morning, since our minutes were being used up just be trying to call. The next morning we tried to get a new phone but a different guy at the reception told us that we couldn't and that we would just have to deal with it not calling out of Mexico. Also, even though we automatically have to pay the $20 usd for the phone, we only get 150 minutes instead of 200 minutes. This is so the hotel can make more money.
Also, he told us that we could have a complimentary national drink that we could get when we liked. Since we had just had our Bachelor/ette parties and the reception, we were done with alcohol for awhile so we decided to wait a few days for that. We tried to get the drink 3-4 days later and we were told that the drink was only a welcome drink and that we could only have had it the first night we were there. When we told him what the other gentleman had said, he said that the guy had not said that because he was there and heard him. He made us feel like he thought we were liars just because we obvisiously had misunderstood the other guy. And anyways, it is only a drink. Why would it even matter if we had it then or a few days later? That really turned us off since we had paid quite a bit of money to stay there for our honeymoon and that we had picked this place over other all-adults and all-inclusives. But we didn't want to fight over a silly drink and have them do something to our room or something. So we just left it at that and decided to write a review for other travelers to see.
Also, many of the things that they claim to have online they don't actually have. For instance, sound proof rooms, doesn't excist. At least with the Palapa rooms, which look nice and are supposed to help keep the room cool. We could hear constant traffic, people on the street, music, and worst of all, at 7:45am EVERY morning, we were awoken by what sounded like church bells that gonged for a good 10min. It did it everyday from Monday morning to Saturday morning that we were there. I don't know if the rooms below heard it, but I don't know how they could have missed it, it was so loud.
Also, all of the activities they have listed they don't provide and don't really help you find. We found everything either by looking online, asking the vendors on 5th ave, or by just walking around and seeing for ourselves. Even the massage therapist, they said to go the the beach club they have but there was no therapist there. Again, we just walked around and found one on our own.
Speaking of the beach club, it is free to have a chair and umbrella if you bring the towel from the hotel with you. We only spent about an hour there though because it was probably the ugliest part of the beach. On that part of the beach, there were boats docked all along the water and there was only a small part that you could walk up to and get in the water. Once we walked around and saw other parts of the beach that were beautiful, we were pretty upset that that was the best they had for us and all the other guests.
Well, even with all of that going on, when you first walk through to get to your room, it is beautiful. It is set up bungalow style with all of the rooms facing the pool and lush vegetation. All of the entrances are outside and we were on the 3rd floor and had an amazing aerial view of the pool and such. But overall, we weren't impressed and wouldn't stay again. I would tell people to check out Mosquito Blue, which is also adults only, and is closer to 5th. It looked really nice when we walked by and we almost stayed there ourselves. It was maily the reception staff that put a bad taste in our mouths. All of the other staff seemed nice and even with the noise and such I wouldn't have given it such a bad review if it wasn't for them. It is a small hotel and there are only 3 people who work the reception and they made all the difference.