Pure Mareazul

Loved this hotel. It was super quiet and had so much space. Probably the biggest pool I’d ever seen. The staff kept things very nice and neat. The beach was small but there weren’t that many people at the resort so it wasn’t bad. Solid 4-​star place. Wish they had more food options but it made us drive into Playa Del Carmen and get dinner there which was fine.

We loved the place… Its really a residential/​condo complex. not a all inclusive hotel…
Located within the Grand Coral Resort complex… Pure MareAzul is a high end condo complex located beach front Playa Del Carmen…
Be warned its VERY private and secluded but we rented a little car that made us moving to/​from Downtown Playa del Carmen in no more than 10 minutes.
Our 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath, LR, Kitchenette, Dinning room, private laggon «pool», included free breakfast everyday during our stay… Staff is great, honest, room service included… No issues whatsoever.
Reservation is very strange, I get the feeling that renting out the condos was an afterthought an no formal website will be established. that being said I did everything through fax and even emailed my CC info… I took a chance and It worked out…
All was great, the complex is so peaceful and beautiful… Very family friendly… The pool is the biggest I have ever seen, you can bring drink and snacks with you. no stink eye…
I am coming back and bringing more family with me!

Pure Mareazul is a condo complex that rents out unsold apartments as though they were hotel rooms. We rented via
. The apartments are huge. Ours was two bedroom with THREE baths; there was a small one intended to be a maid’s bath but the other two are very big and luxurious. I would say that our apartment was about 1500 square feet, a huge living room/​dining room/​kitchen area, connected to a large veranda, an enormous master bedroom with en suite bath, another fairly large bedroom with the bathroom next-​door, lots of closets, dressers, a big TV with a thousand or so channels (almost all in Spanish), high quality furniture and fancy kitchen appliances by Bosch, though our stove only worked erratically. They tried to fix it many times, but it never worked on a regular basis.
All the apartments look out over the swimming pool complex (enormous, interconnected, beautiful but UNHEATED pools). There is a somewhat distant sea view from all the verandas. One building is really ocean front, and it costs more. When we asked about it they said an additional $ 80 per night. There is a small restaurant at the pool and another at the beach club. There is also a small store that we never went in to, a gym, a business center containing a couple of computers. Everything looks new. As for services, there are the restaurants and the beach club. The latter almost certainly has equipment for rent and for sale. There are comfortable lounge chairs set up at the pool and beach (no charge). You can order food but there is no pressure. There are expensive messages at the beach club as well. The beach at this spot is fairly wide, well kept up and beautiful. It is nicer than the beach at other areas in the Riviera Maya that we visited, wider and cleaner. There is some seaweed on the beach, but they clean it up in the area around the condo complex. While we were there, at least, the waves were not too strong, OK for kids, of whom there were quite a few in the water. Nothing was really crowded in mid-​January. That may be different nearer to holidays.
What there ISN’T is Internet in the apartments. We thought that might be a big problem, but, in fact, the free wifi at the pool and at the main office are open 24 hours a day. That was really quite sufficient for Skype etc. Wifi in the apartments would be nice, but …
I should talk about location. The condo complex is a gated community that is part of a larger gated community on the northern edge of Playa del Carmen. It isn’t easy walking distance to anywhere. In my opinion, you really need a car, but if you are willing to pay for taxis whenever you need them, they seem to be abundant. Of course you would need to call the taxi to pick you up from the condo complex. That means walking to the office, which is closed at 10 PM on Sunday, I think, but otherwise is apparently staffed all the time, or having a cell phone that works in Mexico. My ATT cellphone does not, at least not without an expensive package from ATT. Last I heard Verizon works in this area for FREE. You could also buy a cheap, throw away local phone or SIM card in town.
About Playa del Carmen: this is a pretty nice, small Mexican city. Nothing old or of cultural interest, but it does feel like Mexico, which I like. I didn’t observe any crime, but there were police cars EVERYWHERE, with there lights blazing. Does that mean high crime or low crime? The tourist center of town is the Quinta Avenida (5^th Avenue). This is an endless tourist strip (miles long). In my opinion, there is nothing worth buying. The restaurants there are expensive and I suspect they are not very good. In the surrounding areas there are some pretty attractive taquerias and seafood places, not too off the beaten track, pretty clean and attractive looking. I recommend exploring these. There is NO night time restaurant to the condo complex itself however.
The general region: Tulum is a very interesting ruin. It is an hour drive away, easy driving on a good multi-​lane highway. Don’t miss swimming in the cenotes (natural pools to which you pay admission). They are not cheap but we refused to pay $ 89 US dollars a person to go to Xel-​Ha, a Cenote water park which we remembered liking from a trip ten years ago. There is enough to do, but you do need a car or to take tours at high prices. There is always the lovely beach and pools at the complex.
In short, this was a really nice place to stay. We were a party of three adults and had much more space than we imagined. Two couples traveling together would have plenty of privacy (in my opinion). It is quite luxurious and well maintained though I think I would have been mad about the stove if I had wanted to cook. We did manage to boil some eggs. I imagine we could have moved to a different apartment if we had wanted to. These apartments are no more expensive than a fairly good hotel, so it was a great deal for us.