Hotel Playa Zipolite

Location and staff, especially Anna

Zero

Great location, clean, nice pool, great aircon and fans, had a fridge & quiet.

Unfortunately no cups/glasses in the room. Not the end of the world.

Location

Disgusting nude guys on the common furniture. More policing of etiquette is required.

We spent a pleasant week here. The rooms are spacious and comfortable enough, the location excellent and the staff are friendly and kind. But all things considered, it doesn’t feel like anyone makes much of an effort to make this a great place to stay. It’s beach front location is its saving grace but I can’t find much else to recommend it. It could be shabby chic, it could be charming and atmospheric (other very basic places felt atmospheric) but as it is it just felt unloved, and after having had a good look around Zipolite, I believe you can do better at this price point, and also for less money.  THE GOOD All staff were friendly and kind. Great location - right on the beach and on the main street - literally a stroll from everything. Very good air conditioning. Spacious room. Good to have a fridge in the room. Bathrooms finished with attactive stone. Very nice pool and water at a very pleasant temperature (some other pools we tried in much fancier places were freezing).

THE NOT SO GOOD Just needs a bit of love, things that wouldn’t be hard to do could perhaps transform it into shabby chic rather than just feeling a bit shabby. For example some beautiful plants separating the pool area from a car park, or on a practical level a couple of hooks in the bathroom to hang towels on, or some bedside lamps that would offer attractive mood lighting rather than the ugly and harsh overhead lighting. Silly details made it look uncared for like the shambolic understairs service cupboard being left open all the time, or the room cleaning trolley just left all day along the corridor, or the cheap plastic washing up bowls dotted here and there to rinse the sand off your feet after walking along the beach. Needs a shelf in the bathroom as there wasn’t really much space to put anything. Bed linens ok but past their prime, a bit yellowed and the odd stains here and there. Towels very old, some are yellowed, and frayed with little stains. No beach towels provided. No daily room cleaning unless you ask for it. Cleanliness in general ok. WiFi in rooms very poor. Comes and goes and extremely unreliable. Sometimes ok, most times poor. Forget streaming. Works better outdoors (but even outdoors it’s variable and can be rubbish). Every two days you have to change your log in and you have to go to reception to get a slip of paper with a new log in - it really was all just a bit too painful. No bar or any kind of food/snack service (by contrast even the hostel next door has a beach bar and food service). Given the beach front location I found it odd that there isn’t much furniture to use on the beach, and what little furniture there is was tatty and poor quality. Once again the hostel next door offered much better beach furniture.