Opal Suites

Great location, close to beaches and shopping. Staff are friendly and the condominium is modern and kept clean. Negatives, basically an AirBnB, transient and noisy. Especially the contracted cleaning maids that don’t work for the condo. Owners must advise clients of the pool rules along with the guest admittance procedures. There is NO SMOKING ALLOWED in any public/common areas. Let me repeat there is “NO SMOKING IN ANY PUBLIC AREAS” not only here at my condo but anywhere in public here.

This will be a difficult review to write. That is because we adore the staff here — everyone like Jonathan, Pedro, the cleaning gals, etc— are simply the best. I sincerely hope that my giving an objective review of Opal Suites does not adversely affect these fine people. This was our second stay here, the first being before the pandemic. To be honest I simply did not recall how noisy this place is. Our room (4th floor) faced the street and the din from traffic was jarring on the nerves. The kitchen amenities were basic and of such poor quality that we found ourselves buying things like tongs, a decent knife, a dish brush, etc. Our A/C was great but we heard from other long term visitors that theirs barely worked. For a long term stay ( one month) we had only one housecleaning visit a week meaning that we had to wash our own towels with our regular laundry. I met an owner in the gym who said that they don’t have a budget in the place for repairs (one washing machine has been out for months and the steam room doesn’t work. I had to repair the BBQ myself and doubt that the propane tank will be filled any time soon.) If you go to the gym when we visited in December you have to do your workout as early in the morning as possible as the temperature hits 30C all the time. There is an air conditioner in the gym but it is under-powered and can’t cool down the large space. A simple solution would be to get a fan and I would have donated this but others said that whatever you leave behind just gets taken home by someone, which is understandable I suppose. On the pro side the pool area is lovely and there is a brand new high end grocery store just a couple of blocks away. While we enjoyed our month long stay we both agreed that if we were to come back to Playa Del Carmen we would seek out a better equipped and quieter apartment. p.s. Just around the corner by the entrance to the garage is a mean white dog. It is super aggressive and therefore it is not uncommon to see people lunging out into the street to avoid it.