Finding the Acanto Hotel was a pure pleasure.. The place has just seven rooms around a private pool / courtyard and each of the rooms has a small kitchen with stove, refrigerator etc which is nice. Its half a block from the main shopping / restaurant / bar street in Playa and one and a half blocks from the beach I typically stay at larger full service places but Acanto has provided a new experience for Playa. They are in the process of getting ready for a condohotel conversion and looks like these will be gone fast - good news is that ill hopefully still be able to get a room on my next visit.

We stayed in September 2007. This is our experience you can take it or leave but this is what we got from it! Yes the property is cute and has a good location and a nice pool with a fountain, but I wasn't sleeping outside so here it goes. For me personally and my husband it is nice when staying at a hotel to have more than one person who speaks and understands English for all the guest that stay there from the U.S & Canada. During our stay there was the one gal who spoke English that worked their only certain hours, so it would always happen when we needed help she wasn't there so that was frustrating. The beds were terrible for our stay in 09-2007 we asked if they had any thing to make it more comfortable no there was not. My husband who usually has no problem falling asleep did not sleep well at all either between the mattress and the so called air conditioner which is a wall unit and we did have the ceiling fan on too still not good or a comfortable rest. The sheets were not as the website claims and were not even soft at all but were rough and old, and scratchy, ours looked like they belonged in a child's room with the crayon looking design on them. The Wi-Fi did not work in our room and we had to go outside down the stairs which was great when I got bitten by ants. The chairs and table in our room were not usable because it constantly tipped from side to side not stable. The futon was so flat and hard you could fill the wooden frame and it needed some serious cleaning it was gross had stains on it and so did all the pillows and the bed comforter had cigarette burns on it and needed some cleaning as well. I think the whole time we were there the sheets were only changed once and when I asked for more hand towels the house cleaning lady gave me something that was more of dingy stained rag. If all of what I mentioned was actually fixed to what it should be then it would be a nice place. And they need more than two lounge chairs for the pool area ones that don't smell like a moldy rag!

Check in was friendly and location is great. The pool is a joke, very small and dirty. Might as well put some fish in there and turn it into a pond.
We walked into the room and the airconditioning was out of order, so after a few minutes they moved us to another room, down and up the stairs with the luggage, but the front desk guy helped us out. The airconditioning worked, but was loud and the room had a musty odor. At night we slept with the ceiling fan on because AC was too loud. The room is quite big, but it needs an overhaul. Furniture is mismatched, so are the towels: faded and old. The cotton sheets were rough and they had never seen an iron. We could feel the wrinkles in our sleep. The bed was small. All in all in the morning we were glad to get up early and get out of there. Definitely not worth the money.

My husband and I married in Playa a year ago in April and were returning for our anniversary. We wanted an intimate and tranquil place to relax and I immediately thought of the Acanto (I had stayed here on two previous occassions). We arrived a bit early for our check-in and were greeted warmly by Edgar. He let us know our room would be ready in an hour (on time). We changed out of our snowy Chicago clothes, left our bags with him and went off to have some food and margaritas. When we returned our bags had been taken up to our room and bulky winter boots placed in the closet. Although this was my third stay at the Acanto, my husband had not joined me until now. He walked into the hotel and immediately felt comfortable. He loved the ambiance and intimacy of the space and said it was like having our own condo in Playa--with a bit of everything we needed to relax and enjoy ourselves. We stocked the fridge with beer and water and got some insect repellant so we could enjoy the lounge area/pool right outside our room.
We spent our days shopping on fifth, going to the beach, eating/drinking and even managed a quick trip to cozumel by taking the ferry--just a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It was all effortless because we knew we could pop in and out of the hotel which is near everything you could possibly want to do in Playa.
As always, Malena (and now Edgar too), were incredibly welcoming and accomodating to all of our needs. Malena booked our return travel to Cancun and hugged us goodbye.
The Acanto will continue to be a special place for us to escape to when Chicago winters become too much to bare and for the romantic weekend get aways throughout the year.
Thanks Matt!!