We always try to find the positives, and during our travels around Mexico we have encountered some of the loveliest people in the service and tourism industry ever, who work incredibly hard to give guests a wonderful experience. Unfortunately on this occasion we can’t be as positive as we’d like.
I’ll start with the positives:
The location of the MX Roma hotel is great. Right in the Roma Norte district which is in our opinion, is the best area in Mexico City.
Having breakfast included in the price is a bonus.
The reception staff are very helpful.
The not-so-positive:
We arrived after a long bus journey and were very tired. The first room we were offered was extremely small. We knew from other reviews that the rooms are on the small side, but that room was a rabbit hutch. We were kindly offered a different room by the reception staff, which was perfect. We went out for an early evening meal and returned to our room at 9pm. Literally just as our heads hit the pillow at 9:40pm the most awful loud grinding noise started directly above us. I went up to the top floor to find a guy using a metal angle grinder with sparks flying. I videoed this. I went down to reception to be informed that maintenance work was being carried out all night until 6am!
I asked why it couldn’t be done during the day. They said it had to be done at night. I asked why we were given a room directly below where the maintenance work was being done and why we weren’t warned about it. They said they knocked on our door and tried to call us at 3pm. But we didn’t arrive at the hotel until 4:30pm! They also saw us when we went out for a meal and when we returned and said nothing.
They offered us another room on the first floor as the only other room available. Unfortunately it faced the street and so we couldn’t sleep due to the loud traffic and noise from the reception area directly below us.
I contacted the host Isaac to say we couldn’t stay in that room for the next 3 nights. We’d get no sleep. I asked when the maintenance work would stop so we could return to our original room. He offered us the last night free. But we were more interested in when the noisy building work was going to stop so we could return to our room.
There was also an unpleasant incident with the doorman. When we arrived, WE took our bags to our room ourselves using the lift. A few seconds later the doorman ran up the stairs to meet us at our room, stood in the doorway with his hand out demanding a tip: “tip, tip, tip, tip.....”. I’m very generous in tipping when I’ve received a service. But he’d done nothing except leave the main entrance unguarded.
I mentioned this to Isaac also.
But we received no specific response or reassurances from him regarding our specific questions and concerns nor any reassurance that the doorman would stop harassing us for money.
All he responded with was a very curt reply that we could cancel our booking and leave at 11am the next morning. That wasn’t an option as it was already 1am with not enough time to find alternative accommodation.
In the end we spoke to reception in the morning who reassured us that the maintenance work was completed and we could return to our original room. So having unpacked, repacked and moved our bags twice, we returned to our quiet room and got a decent night sleep.
We had got nowhere with the ‘host’ Isaac, so we had to involve the AirBnB resolution team who were very helpful. They understood our situation and that we hadn’t been treated property by the host and in recognition of this, reimbursed us 50% of the total cost of our stay.
Isaac doesn’t appear to act like a host in the AirBnB sense of the word. He’s more like a remote administrator. Best to deal with the reception staff who are usually very helpful.
Or if you don’t get anywhere with the host, take any issue you have to the AirBnB team. They were great in resolving our issues.
With a host who actually takes a personal interest in the guests, the MX Roma would have been a hotel we could have highly recommended.
Other tips:
For some reason the hotel pipes music throughout the building which echos loudly into the rooms. But if it disturbs you when you want to sleep, the staff on reception will usually turn it off if you ask.
Request a room that doesn’t face the street.
Don’t ask reception to order you a taxi. They’re 2 - 3 times the price of UBER. We couldn’t get the UBER app to work for some reason. So we had to order a taxi on our check-out day to the TAPO bus station. As well as arriving late, the driver charged us 50 pesos more than reception quoted and he took us to the airport by mistake! We nearly missed our bus to Oaxaca! We paid 300 pesos for that stressful ride (around 150 pesos with UBER).