Review 2 of 2 for two separate stays in the same apartment (17-20 Feb 2019).
We were in Mexico City two separate times during our two week visit to Mexico, and we stayed at this apartment two different times. We’re basically writing the same review for both stays, but since Airbnb has you rate every stay separately we’re taking advantage of that fact and deliberately giving two different overall ratings. We really feel this apartment deserves more than a 4 but less than a 5, so we are assigning a 4 to the first visit review and a 5 to the second visit review so that the two reviews average out to a 4.5 overall rating which we think is appropriate.
The apartment is in the Condessa neighborhood, conveniently only a couple blocks from the Chapultepec metro stop. The Airbnb photos are accurate, it is a large apartment, with plenty of closet and dresser drawer storage. The apartment was clean and the kitchen was well equipped with utensils, dishes, etc. There was both an electric space heater and an electric fan, and we used both of them at several different times and were very glad to have them.
Alejandra provided welcome supplies like eggs, fruit, a liter of water, sodas and beer, some packaged toasts, oil and vinegar, sugar, etc. and was helpful and responsive to our questions about using the washing machine and providing laundry detergent. A local map with various information was very helpful too.
She also provided helpful hints and tips via text message several times throughout the week, for example letting us know about the weekly fruit and vegetable market every Tuesday on Pachuca street (2 blocks away). She also told us that many places you might want to visit are closed on Mondays and suggested several things to do that day which were not closed. We really appreciated these helpful hints, and the fact that she checked in with us throughout the visit to see if we needed anything.
There were 24-hour front desk guards, all of whom were friendly and helpful (but they didn’t know much English, so using even broken Spanish will be more effective). If you arrive before check-in or need to leave after check-out you can leave your luggage with the guard which is very handy.
The Airbnb listing warns you about the noise from the highway since this apartment is on the 6th floor. Unfortunately the noise from the street was louder than we expected. We’re from NYC and we expected the constant drone on the highway, and the earplugs definitely helped with that aspect of it. But what was more disturbing were the loud gunning of engines and shifting of gears of the many trucks driving on the service road beneath the highway, and the ear plugs only partially blocked that kind of very loud noise. Also there were relatively frequent sirens, but they weren’t constant. If you are a sound sleeper then this may not bother you so much, and the ear plugs did help, but if you are bothered by noise at night you may want to consider this.
The first week we were there we found the mattress to be extremely firm, and between that and the traffic noise we didn’t sleep as well as normal. But when we came back the second week a foam top had been added to the mattress which made it a lot more comfortable and we slept better then.
There are a lot of restaurants and stores in the neighborhood. Three places we bought food from several times are the Superama Pachuca supermarket (on Fernando Montes de Oca between Zamora and Pachuca), The Green Corner market (on the corner of Fernando Montes de Oca and Avenida Mazatlan), and the Panificadora La Condesa bakery and convenience store (on the corner of Juan de la Barrera and Pachuca).