We stayed here April 12, 2008-April19, 2008. We booked through Orbitz and got 5 nights and airfare for $700 a person! Wow! What a deal. Our first time in Akumal (pronounced aaah-coo-mool) and it was exactly what we wanted. Quiet!!! The beach never really had more than 12 people on it at any one time and half of those were just walking up and down the beach. The sand on the beach is soft, but you will have to look for sandbars to walk out into the ocean. Some would call that a drawback, we however felt that it kept the number of screaming sand throwing children down! :) Plus there was GREAT snorkeling for FREE right off your own beach.
As for the villas, we were booked into a one bedroom garden. And yes, I will admit that there was a slight odor to our room. Sometimes pretty strong, other times not at all. Bring a nice strong fragrant candle to cover the smell. Or spend more money and get a larger room that is first or second level. Other than that they were clean and comfortable. Yes, the bed was hard like every bed we have slept on in Mexico. The kitchen was good-we made breakfast and lunch and ate out for dinner. They provide a large bottle of water-think deep rock water fountain-for drinking. They have a resturant on sight and the food was good and the staff attentive and friendly.
The iguana living under the walk way right out our door was a fun daily sight.
Overall, for the price we were happy. I am sure there are nicer places to stay but it was really nice to have a kitchen and the beach to ourselves!
PS. You must go to Crococun Zoo!!! Absolutely the best day ever!

We recently stayed at the Las Villas Akumal (3/3-3/11/08). It was a mostly pleasant experience. We wanted to stay at a quiet place, with cooking facilities on the beach. We stayed in the Garden View room on the ocean side. I highly recommend the ocean side if you are going to book a Garden view room, otherwise you'll be overlooking the parking lot. These are clean, somewhat spartan studio apartments, which are just steps from the pool and the beach. The beach itself is quiet (most days we were the only people there). At most, our beach had 5 people on it, with plenty of open chairs and umbrellas. The beach is sandy, but kind of rocky for swimming, but just wear aqua socks or Tevas, and you'll be fine.
The staff is friendly and helpful. David, the manager was most accommodating.
If you don't feel like cooking, there is a restaurant upstairs that is hardly ever crowded, and the service is excellent.
The town of Akumal is just a 15-20 minute beach walk, where there are good restaurants, and grocery shopping, and even a farmers' market somedays with excellent produce. It's also a fairly short drive to Playa del Carmen and also to Tulum.
The only real downside was that some of the families who stayed here were not real considerate of the other guests. Our first morning we were awakened at 6:30am by some very young children screaming at the pool!
There were other families (mostly Europeans), who were quite good about watching their children, and making sure that they were polite, and quiet. The American families were the biggest offenders here, leaving their toddlers unattended and screaming at the pool, or throwing sand on the beach.
Once these people left, it was quite a nice experience.

We, my family of six, returned just last night from one relaxing week in Akumal at Las Villas.

It was our 10th trip (since 1991) to Akumal and our 2nd to Las Villas. My daughter wanted at the last minute to celebrate her 21st birthday in Akumal. Since this momentus occasion was on President's Day weeekend I had to scramble to find somewhere on the more deluxe side to accommodate all of us. Las Villas Akumal was the only place with the 3 bedrooms we needed. It had been some years since our last stay and I remembered it had been nice but definitely not our favorite spot. I remembered that Jade beach had been too windy with too many waves for good snorkling and kyacking we prefer Akumal Sur or Soliman for these. We also prefer houses to condos but this time we had our 5 yr. old grandson and the situation was perfect with the swimming pools and the other kids always around to play. This definitely made our stay easier.

The 3 bedroom villas are set-up nicely with plenty of room for everyone. The bathrooms could have been a bit larger but they certainly were adequate and very clean as was the entire apt. and public areas. We found the staff courteous and the little rooftop restaurant convenient, although gatronomically marginal, on several occasions when we were too tired to go out.

The two major complaints I had on my previous stay and this stay as well: The beds are the famous Akumal cement slab with thin mattress (like sleeping on the floor) and the pillows are terrible. If they would only put thick softer mattresses on the slabs it would be like sleeping on a Simmon's pillow-top. The other is no lounger on the terraces. I like to lay out and read on my own terrace, not always at the pool or beach and there are only chairs and the hammock swings which are fun but ours were not in good repair and kept breaking.

If you have kids and want to be relatively close to the main Akumal beach and center (you can walk easily from Las Villas) you may want to consider stay here.

We loved this place!!! Yes, there was a problem with the air conditioning in our 2-bdrm unit, but it was fixed within a day. Our garden view unit was actually ocean front. It had no patio but we walked 15 feet to the beach and outside patio area. If you want to find something to gripe about, I guess you could find it anywhere, but you really had to look here. The staff couldn't have been more accomodating. The manager, David, I found quite gracious and helpful. The beach was rocky, yes, but put on your Tevas and go swimming --- it's lovely. If you mind the rocks, walk 10 minutes to Akumal Bay for the pristine sandy beach you crave, and bring your snorkel gear because it's a great place to see fish and turtles and rays. Kayaks were available at the villas, as was snorkeling equipment. Our teenagers were never bored!!!! We had dinner and lunch at the upstairs restaurant, and it was quite good. The location was great, easy access by car or taxi to all the tourist sites. Hit happy hour at Lol Ha, snorkel at YalKu, relax and enjoy the magic...