Mexico Hostels & Hotels

A FEW SHOTS OF DF SUITES HOSTEL

A small ground floor courtyard.

The ground floor TV/computer/common area.

A view from the ground floor courtyard.

One of the dorm room bunkbeds including the lockers to the right and the sheets and towels placed on the bed.

The 1st floor open air common area including bar and sofas. A great place to meet people or even get work done.

As you can see from my laptop screen I spent many days working from out here.

Another angle showing the bar and small BBQ which was used for making burgers on special nights.

You can’t see it here but this common area is covered by a tarp, which works pretty well against the rain.

A final look.

Most private rooms have a shelf and small work desk.

Private room beds were large and quite comfortable. TV was optional and a bit more expensive. Rooms were pretty bright and spacious.

Clean and comfy.

Private rooms had their own bathrooms.

Bathrooms were well thought out and clean.

Modern design and plugs for electric razors, etc.

Showers had good pressure, toilets were in good shape and the materials were quite nice.

Showers had shelves for your toiletries and the like.

Hot water (though not always easy to get right), clean, and spacious showers.

Internet status: 
Download: 4.82Mbps
Upload: 3.47Mbps
Latency: 32ms
Often unreliable and/or slow

Review:
Comfortable, fantastic staff, great private rooms, better than average dorms, great value. Well located, good atmosphere but can be loud especially on the 1st floor. Very well run, good management all around, great lounge area and dining area, small but social TV room, but very small kitchen. Some great touches like power plugs for all the dorm beds, TVs in some of the private rooms, clean sheets, well designed bathrooms and other little amenities and deco just let you know that you’re in a good place. What really make this place special are the staff, the constant flow of travelers from both abroad and within Mexico, and the range of room options and placement. Unhappy with noise from the first floor, there are 3 other floors to choose from. You’ll find much of the staff to be knowledgeable and happy to help, with the cleaning ladies in particularly being the highlights. The owners are good people who do a great job running the place and are always looking to improve what can be improved. There are a bunch of personal touches throughout and areas that are quite comfortable to talk to fellow travelers while having drinks. There’s a small bar that sells mainly beer, but you can bring your own drinks, which is convenient given there’s a convenience store on the corner. I stayed over 3 weeks here, and by the end actually found myself sad to leave the staff and the incredible city of DF. My only complaint would be the noise, particularly on the first floor. But this does rank as one of my favorite hostels mainly because of the staff, cleanliness, comfort, and the general atmosphere.

Pros:
Cleanliness
Social Atmosphere
Location
Good breakfast
Price
Multiple room options
Fantastic staff
Great lounge areas
Decent wifi
Plenty of power plugs in the rooms

Cons:
Can be a bit noisy (especially on the first floor)
Small kitchen

A FEW SHOTS OF POC NA HOSTEL

An example of one of the private rooms. Relatively quiet aside from people slamming doors, bright, clean and with the fan, pretty cool.

View from the third floor.

The main common area and dining area. It has a small bar, and the kitchen is to the right, though you can’t bring your own food or drinks here. You can only buy from the restaurant.

Small balcony for the private room.

The view out on to the Caribbean from a private room.

View of some of the maintenance areas of Poc Na.

The surrounding buildings as seen from the 3rd floor.

Poc Na offers diving and snorkeling, the red booth holds a bunch of their gear.

Another view of the private room.

Poc Na roof.

A small table in one of the private rooms would allow for getting work done, but there is no Wifi anywhere except the common area and that is completely useless anyway as it’s too congested and slow.

A small stage for live music acts and other activities of which there are plenty, and they’re daily.

A look across the courtyard to the game area in the back with a ping pong table and a pool table.

Poc Na goes almost all the way to the water’s edge with a nice backyard that features a bar, hammocks and a volleyball court.

A better look at the bar and volleyball court.

Internet status: 
Wifi: useless, but can go to Rooster on the Go for decent access (not free but you can use it as long as you buy some food or drinks), just north of Poc Na about 20 meters away

Review: 
The most entertaining hostel I’ve been to so far. Constant activities such as salsa classes, spanish classes, ping pong, pool/billiards, live bands almost every night, decently priced food and drinks, occasional special acts (like a magic act), regular movie nights outside (via projection onto a wall) and nightly clubbing outdoors with cheap drinks and decent music. It’s a fun place where it’s easy to meet people, and it’s well located on the island. Also a good value for the money if you can deal with the noise. Private rooms are comfortable with 2 fans and spacious, some with decent views. No private bathrooms, and many of the bathrooms are incredibly rudimentary but they do the job. By far the worst thing about this place is no usable internet. While they have wifi in the common area, it’s almost never usable. Too many people on it cause terribly low speeds and/or unreliability whereby you get kicked off the network. So, for digital nomads, Poc Na is not a good option and indeed Isla doesn’t really offer anything particularly impressive in terms of working from there at an affordable hotel/hostel.

That being said, Poc Na is a great place to have a lot of fun. But you might find you’re not sleeping all that much, but mainly because you’re having too much fun.

Pros:
Tons of activities
Location
Outdoor Bar/Dancefloor
Very social
Price
Decent number of power plugs
Restaurant

Cons:
Can be loud
No usable Wifi
Bathrooms can be a bit dirty at times
No food or drinks from outside
No kitchen

Internet status: 
Download: lost data but was pretty good, over 8Mbps
Upload: lost data but was pretty good, over 1Mbps
Latency: lost data but was pretty good, under 60ms

Review:
Nomadas is a great hostel that like many, offer private rooms and dorms. It appears to have been built for this purpose. It can be a bit warm at night but private rooms come with enough fan power to make it relatively comfortable and dorms seem to be adequately ventilated as well. You can pay extra for access to the AC but this proved not to be required. Nomadas features a nice pool, which is necessary for cooling off in Merida, decent Internet, plenty of activities like cooking classes, salsa classes, tours of the city, and weekly live music. The common area is conducive to meeting people though it closes relatively early. It can be a bit loud in the dorms, but the private rooms are generally pretty quite. The price is right, it offers a pretty good value and it’s quite well run. It’s well located near the older part of town, and is a good base from which to explore not only the city but the Mayan ruins in the area. It has great turnover so there are always new people to meet and it’s quite clean and well maintained. This is a good option for people visiting Merida and ranks as one of my top 5 hostels so far.

Pros:
Decent Price
Pool
Activities (cooking, salsa classes, live music)
Social
Fans and/or AC in rooms
Power plugs
Good wifi
Clean
Well run
Good kitchen

Cons:
Bit strict
After 11 there’s nowhere to hangout