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Playa del Carmen

Description: Playa del Carmen is a city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea in the north east of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, ... more

Playa del Carmen ... located at 20.62° North, 87.07° West. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. In the 2005 census the city had a population of about 100,383 people, and is rapidly growing in population. It is the third-largest city in Quintana Roo, after Cancún and Chetumal. Originally a small fishing town, tourism to Playa del Carmen began with the passenger ferry service to Cozumel, an island across the Cozumel Channel and world-famous scuba diving destination. While passing through, many people realized that it was a nice place to relax away from the crowds of Cancún but with the same quality beaches and turquoise waters. While perhaps not as impressive as Cozumel, Playa del Carmen's coast offers some good scuba diving opportunities, as well as cenote diving for the more adventurous.

Newest Review: ... walking distance of each other between 30th and 35th streets, between Avenues 8 and Constituyentes. They open daily at 7am (even Sunday) and stay open until 12 midnight or 1am. They sell clothes (Mega has a Tesco range, WalMart stocks Asda stuff), homewares and food including fresh bread and deli counters. Everything is ludicrously cheap when compared to the $ or £. 5th Avenue is the busiest ... more

... restaurant street and therefore prices are higher than down the side roads. Repetition is the order of the day here - they have 3 Starbucks, 3 Haagen Dazs cafes, 2 Ciao Gelatos, etc. They also have Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, my favourite Dairy...more

Read Reviews for Playa del Carmen

Playa del Carmen: A Nice Place To Visit... (2689 words)
by - written on 27/07/08 (Very useful, 96 readings)
Rating:

Playa del Carmen, about 45 minutes from Cancun, is a beach resort on the Mexican Riviera Maya. It is supposed to be what Cancun was like 20 years ago - quaint, friendly, less-touristy. I never made it into the hotel zone at Cancun but if what they say is true, I dread to think what Cancun is like because Playa is essentially Blackpool-meets-Benidorm. It's fab. I came to Playa to do a month long teacher training course with the intention of staying for a year afterwards. But things don't always work out like you've planned and I left a month later to take up my current job in Mexico City. That said, even with only a month in Playa under my belt, I still stayed ... Read the complete review

Mayan Riviera vacation (2197 words)
by - written on 10/05/05 (Very useful, 322 readings)
Rating:

Our more than 8000 km trip started on the 13th of March 2000. We bought the trip through a company called Apollo here in Norway. It was sort of a package deal where we got the flight and the hotels arranged. First we had to go to Oslo and then we had to go to Stockholm in Sweden to get the flight that went straight for Cancun in Mexico. The distance is as I already mentioned more than 8000 km and it took us about 12 hours and 30 minutes to get to Cancun. It has been a long time since I have been on a plane for such a long period and it got really really boring towards the end of the flight. The airline company that took us there was Novair. It was a pretty new Airbus ... Read the complete review

Playa del Carmen: A rose....unfortunately would smell (1860 words)
by - written on 17/12/03 (Very useful, 290 readings)
Rating:

After our first all inclusive experience at the RIU Cancun over Labor Day, we decided to try Thanksgiving at the Riu's in Playa del Carmen. I had heard and read that the beaches were better and it was more laid back than Cancun. We loved the Riu Cancun, but found the beach to be a little small for us. We love to take long walks on the beach. We again traveled with Sun Trips with no complaints. They have this down and their charter service, Ryan Air is quite good. Again we got to Cancun and went through immigration and customs quite quickly. Playa del Carmen is about 45 minutes to an hour from the airport. Last time it took us almost the ... Read the complete review

Playa del Carmen (304 words)
by - written on 22/10/01 (Useful, 432 readings)
Rating:

We went to Playa del Carmen last November and spent the most spectacular 2 weeks there at the Riu Yucatan. You know when you long for the holiday of a lifetime, so memorable you relive it over and over again.. well thats how we felt about Playa del Carmen. The people and the setting were magical. Although quite a few hotels in the area unless you went right out to sea and looked back you didnt know there was any otheer hotels around. The food was spectacular and everything was in such abundance I must have put on a stone atleast. I could thoroughly recommend this place. After reading comments I thought I had better add a bit about hotel, ... Read the complete review