Sara Suites Ixtapa

The Sara Suites is a low cost, quite basic hotel on the "wrong" side of the road from the beach. Rooms are sparse - there was no chair at all, but clean and with an excellent air-conditioning system - very quiet and kept the room constantly cool. The bed was comfortable, once you had removed the plastic undersheet (I replaced it with a towel, just in case it got too hot in the night!). My room safe may not have been working (or it may have needed new batteries). There's enough storage space, and the shower was fine , though it took a long time for the hot water to run through at the end of the corridor. Although reception is manned 24 hours, staff are laid back and don't speak much English, and you can gain uncontrolled access to the hotel round the back, so security is minimal - but it doesn't feel like a place where that matters too much. The restaurant was only open on Friday/Saturday, and most of the items on the lunch menu were unavailable - but 500m away ion the centre of the village there are dozens of restaurants offering as wide range of Mexican and international food. (The nearest restaurant is possibly the most expensive in town). It's quite close to the Mango discotheque and on Sunday night I was kept awake - nothing the hotel can do about this. The pool is pleasant - kept clean, quite small but not too crowded. Although the hotel has a "quiet" policy from 2200-0800, in practice you can swim in the pool at almost any time (it's lit past midnight).

Pros: Pool; room airconditioning; price

Cons: Security; restaurant

Location: 100m from the easily accessible El Palmar public beach. Lots of cafes and tourist shops in the village centre. Cyclopista (cycle track) is excellent