First of all, making the reservation gave us quite a lot of trouble. We were a group of 8 and we got 4 rooms, each very different from the other. All the rooms were very small, very small bathrooms as well. Air Conditioning didn't work very well in most of them, although they were included in the rate. The staff is very nice, except for the policeman who guards the hotel by night. Overall I would recommend getting another hotel such as Lunata, mosquito beach, blue parrot...etc The have better location, good values and much better facilities.

Pension San Juan is a reasonably priced clean hotel with 16 rooms on 5th avenue close to calle 6 north. We opted for a premium room (~$60/night) and stayed in room C5. This could be considered either the best room or worst room in the hotel. Postives: large room, king sized bed, neat domed ceiling, decent bathroom, balcony with chairs for people watching (only room that has this), close to the kitchen. Negatives: directly across from El Pica Pica bar which plays mostly bad disco music until 2am and has a very obnoxious street hawker trying to lure unsuspecting tourists inside, next to Bourbon Street bar, which has live bands almost everynight (but generally good blues), and next to the kitchen, where people are up cooking breakfast at 7:30am. If you are a light sleeper, this is not a good room. Some of the other rooms near the back are probably quieter at night. The "free" coffee offered is instant coffee, and not very good, but there is a Starbucks 2 blocks to the north, and 7-11 1 block to the south. Our room had a safe, but it was non-functional. The overhead light burned out, oh well. Location is great as the beach is one block away, and there are dozens of bars and restaurants within a few blocks. El Fogon Restaurant (calle 8 north and 30th avenue) has excellent reasonable authentic Mexican food. Alux restaurant/bar is an underground cenote/cave, and is definitely worth the $5 cab fair to go for a drink (opens at 6pm). Our best meal was probably at Babe's Noodle bar (calle 10 just west of 5th), which has good Thai food and seafood. Watch your stuff! I had my nice digital camera stolen out of a zippered pocket on my backpack while I was walking down the street in broad daylight a block from the police station. Definitely a professional pick-pocket. Overall, a really nice hotel, and you can't beat the weather (80s and sunny everyday), cold beers, and tequila!

It´s a nice hotel, .
It´s in the 5th avenue, pretty good location.
VERY VERY CLEAN!!

WE CHOSE IT because it wasn´t expensive.
We stayed in the room without air conditioner,
the only two things I didn´t like:
noisy
the bed was too small to share.

NICE PLACE!

We stayed at the pension san juan for two nights january 8th-10th 2006. we drove our rental car from Cancun to Playa de Carmen and parked a few streets from the main drag and walked around to look for a place to stay since we had no reservations....most places were asking for 90-130 bucks a night and then we decided to look at this hotel...it does not look very inviting from the outside but we were getting tired of looking and went inside...a normal room was $50 a night with a/c, hot water, a fridge and a safe. We looked at the rooms and decided to stay there. they were safe clean and right on the main srtip...also just walk one block and you are at a great spot on the beach. They take credit cards there but they will charge 5% more so we just paid with cash. My one and only complaint was the noise level...there is so much going on in playa de carmen at night that you are bound to hear all of the music and bars, unless you are off the main drag. We also had very drunk and loud neighbors which didnt help. The hotel has a balcony sitting area and kitchen that is really nice that we used everyday. After our stay here we went to Tulum and then came back to Playa de Carmen to stay another two nights....we thought about being adventuous and stayting at a different place. after asking around we went back to pension san juan. They only had supierior rooms availible so we paid $60 a night and got cable tv and a bigger room. but of course it was still loud. Wonderful hotel...would stay there again.
Also if you walk to your left and turn down the first block there is a great restraunt on the left corner that if you buy a $2 beer they let you use there beach chairs and umbrellas all day, and the food is good too.