Attractive house in good location.
Review Submitted: March 22, 2009
Date of Stay: March 2009
The house was very comfortable, pretty, in an excellent location, and the service of the house manager and housekeepers were very good. The beach really is only a few minutes' walk away. The rooms are very pretty and comfortable. Shops and convenience stores are close, and a huge market is a short car or taxi ride away. Fifth Avenue with shops and restaurants begins about five minutes' walk from the door.
These are not complaints, but recommendations about choosing to rent or not:
1) It is probably not the best for very small children unless carefully supervised, not only because of the pool but a few ledges around the house that some of our children thought looked like good locations to sit, but could have been dangerous! You can lock the doors to the pool/outside at night and put up the keys, though, so we felt secure in that.
2) If you are very afraid of insects, parts of the house are open air so you are bound to get a few inside...I found a very large scary orange spider on my pillow!
I wish we could have stayed longer, but the best activities we did were trips to Chichen Itza (note it is a three hour car drive away), Coba, Crococun Zoo, and of course the beach. Ah Cacao cafe has excellent drinking chocolate, and Yax Che, Sur, and Carboncitos restaurants were very good. There were many things we just did not have time to do...maybe on our next trip! I would definitely consider this rental if I were going with a large group again.
Owner's Response: We are pleased that this reviewer enjoyed the beauty of Casa Balam and its great location near the beach and all the attractions of Playa del Carmen's 5th Avenue. Our staff appreciates the acknowledgment of their excellent work (and we feel so grateful to have such dedicated employees). Regarding the spider: what can we say? This is the tropics and critters do get in sometimes in spite of our best efforts to keep them out. We would like to point out, however, that the "open" areas are just the breezeway, terrace and part of the stairwell. All the bedrooms, baths, living room/kitchen and other living areas have screened windows, and all but 2 bedroom doors are screened. We do recommend that guests keep the non-screened doors closed. An orange spider? Cool! We've never seen an orange one, and we want to reassure potential guests that there are no poisonous spiders in our area. Regarding child safety, we do let our guests know at the outset that the pool is not fenced and that they need to take this into consideration when thinking about renting, We have contacted this reviewer regarding the other perceived safety issues to see what we can do to improve things. We encourge folks with small children or elderly or disabled family members to discuss their needs with us when considering rental so that we can all be sure that it will be a good "fit" for all.
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