My boyfriend and I stayed at Magic Express for a week at the beginning of February. Overall the experience was a good one. Here are some things that you might want to take into consideration when staying at this hotel:

The hotel is a very far walk from the beach. When we arrived we took the bus from the airport in Cancun to the bus station on Avenida Quinta. We made the mistake of walking to the hotel from the bus station. It was hot and it was humid and we couldnt find any street names and were exhausted after lugging our bags to the hotel. Save yourself the hastle and take a cab ride for $5 US from the bus station. The hotel itself is located on a major highway and there is a big brick wall seperating it from the sketchy neighborhood a few feet behind it. I dont recommend walking around the back of the hotel at night.

The hotel and our room were very clean. Our room had a very high ceiling and two double beds (we couldnt get a room with a single bed). The tv was an LCD screen, (a bit small but it did the trick), The bathroom was really clean (the shower is stand up). The room was cleaned every day. The mattresses on the beds felt very hard the first night, but we got used to them after that. We paid a minimum charge for a room safe for our valuables which I highly recommend.

Breakfast: Very repetitive. I was getting tired of eating croissants, and muffins all the time. On the bright side its free and I learned how to say Chocolate Frosted flakes in Spanish "Choco Zucharitos".

Free Shuttle:I didnt know this until I got there but the hotel offers a free shuttle van anywhere in the downtown Playa del Carmen/Playacar area between 7am-7pm. I found this out when I got to the hotel and checked in. We used it a couple of mornings and the most we ever waited for it to come was 15 minutes. If you dont mind having to share your shuttle van with other hotel guests and making the occaisional side stop then you should definitely use it.

The staff: The staff was really helpful. The front desk staff spoke English. Some of the other staff couldnt speak English at all but they were all friendly and made the effort to talk to me when they saw me trying to speak Spanish. One day I told the shuttle van driver that we wanted to go see the ruins at Tulum and asked him to take us to the bus station because I thought that was the only cheap way to get there. Luckily he drove us to the Collectivos stop (they are vans that are commonly used by the locals to get around Playa del Carmen and nearby towns. We got on a collectivo that went to Tulum. It stopped right in front of the entrance to the ruins and we only paid $2.50 US each.

Overall, if you dont mind not being right on beach then you should definitely stay at this hotel. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a great vacation without paying a lot.