Quick Overview...
All in all this was my Worst experience in Playa del Carmen. I'm not a picky person when it comes to hotels in Playa del Carmen. We look for location, clean, affordable, and relaxing. We do not stay all-inclusive and prefer the smaller boutique hotels. This hotel has a wonderful location but needs extensive updates and maintenance. I should have demanded a refund and went to another hotel. I would not stay here again and would not recommend this hotel to anyone else. Many other places in Playa with comparable or better rates with much better facilities.

Detailed Review...
My husband and I stayed at Hotel Pelicano Inn for 5 nights. Jan 8-13, 2011. We have been to Playa several times and decided this trip to fly down and find a place to stay instead of doing reservations. (we did our online research, reviews, etc and had list of options to check). So I was told they had rooms available and we could stay in Oceanview room for 3 nights and then move to an Oceanfront room remaining 2 nights. I did take a look at the room before booking. Paid for all 5 nights and walked to our room. Then it all went downhill from there...

Just as an FYI - there are no tv’s or radio/clocks in the rooms.

Room 306 - clean, spacious room but dated with suprisingly comfortable bed for Mexico. My husband had to move the small refrigerator to different area of room to find an outlet that would work. Water would not work when I went to flush toilet, sink and shower no water. So go to front desk to be told it will be fixed right away. Three hours later they tell us it's fixed. So we have wasted half of our day waiting around. Noticed a slight smell but thought maybe it was where water had been off for some time. Went to dinner came back and smell was worse. Decided to close door to bathroom and see what the morning would hold. Well I almost got sick when I went to use bathroom next morning, it smelled like pure sewage. So we went downstairs to tell front desk something has to be done. This was on Sunday. I was told manager was not working and was out of town. I explained the smell was horrible and we should be moved that we were wasting our vacation. He explained we could pay extra and move to Oceanfront room. I would not agree to paying extra as the reason for moving was not out of my convenience. Housekeeping agreed there was definitely a problem in room. Finally around 12 noon after several trips of speaking with front desk I told them to either refund our money for the entire stay or move us to an Oceanfront room with no extra cost. Finally they told us we could move to oceanfront room.

Room 218 - Oceanfront room... Again clean but needs updates. The lamp in the room looked to have either so much dust gathered on it or it was mildew. There was no ceiling fan in this room and the lighting was very minimal. Shower had lots of pressure but at best the water was luke warm never any Hot water. The bed in this room was more than undesirable, even for Mexico. The bed sank in the middle (I don’t mean you rolled to the middle it was broken length wise in the middle. It was shaped like a banana. After 4 nights of this bed my husband and I both were aching in our hip and back (and we are only 30&31 years old). This room also had small refrigerator. The view from this room was beautiful with large, spacious balcony. You could hear the music from Fusion at night. The music played some nights until 2am but with the balcony door closed you could hardly hear the music. The music was actually quite nice especially since we did not have tv or radio.

Housekeeping staff did good job keeping the room clean. Most of the problems we encountered are more on the level of managment and owner issues that need to be addressed in order for this hotel to be a pleasant stay. The sad part is the location and lay out of hotel makes for potentially nice hotel someone just needs to come in and spruce the place up quite a bit. Again much better hotels for same or cheaper prices in my opinion!

Awsome hotel. The hotel has an excellent location and was extremely clean. However, it was the supberb staff that makes this hotel one of a kind! I cannot wait to go back.

We just returned from a vacation to Merida and Playa del Carmen and we stayed 3 nights at the Pelicano. Our beach front room was spacious, clean and comfortable (including the beds) - and only steps from the most beautiful beach I have ever seen! The Pelicano is not "fancy" but it is lovely. Muchas gracias to Luis who made us feel right at home. The restaurant offers delicious food - we had breakfast every morning on the beach! After breakfast, lounging on the beach -- lounge chairs and umbrellas provided. It was wonderful! The service was excellent, but I want to say a special "thank you" to Leo who works in the restaurant. A very comfortable, reasonably priced hotel in a perfect location (one block from 5th avenue). Check out the Pelicano - you'll be glad you did!

I've been reading all your comments, and i can understand the both sides, worst and the better, but let me say you that we're working a lot for get better our services and give you a beatiful and funcional hotel with a great location!! We have 39 rooms with air conditioned, a nice beach, amenities, bottles of water, some rooms with fridge, iron and hair dryer by request, tours, Restaurant, next opening: bar in the beach!! Please remember: we don't have TV or phone (only at front desk) for your tranquility and relaxing days.