Hotel Rancho Encantado

Our stay at Rancho Encantado was comfortable but could so easily have been a 5 star stay, however the food and the service at the restaraunt ruined this. Our room 35 crocodilo was fine and everything worked well, apart from the sunbeds set under the mangrove trees which never got the sun, we noted that other bungalows had decking built and were actually positioned in the sun.  The kayak and paddle board use was great and was always available to us, but then we did visit in the low season.  The boat trip on the lake to the cenotes was an excellent trip and well worth the money, especially being able to set off from the hotel boardwalk. Everything here looks really relaxing, set in the jungle environment, but the reality is that you can always hear a lot of traffic noise from the main road, mainly lorries engine braking, which we found bothersome at times, but being so close I guess there's nothing they can really do about that. The small road leading to the hotel could easily have been concreted or at least repaired. We suffered a puncture in our hire car, we suspect due to the poor state of this road, although to be fair most roads in Mexico are pretty poor, but there's no excuse for the hotel not to have this regularly maintained.  We found our hire car essential for enjoying our stay, as it was the only way we could get into town and sample the really good choice of food that's available there, rather than the poor offerings at the hotel.  Our first evening meal at the hotel was appalling. The service very slow, the margurita's served in plastic glasses and they tasted very watered down. My main was billed as chicken breast and to be honest I was actually expecting a whole one, not 2 thin slices which were on a bed of cold cauliflower puree, accompanied by a few cold vegetables. My wifes fish was a very small portion set on a cold sauce and again accompanied by a few cold vegetables. The only dish that was hot, were the sauted potatoes we ordered, which turned out to be potato wedges. We opted to stay here for our last four nights in Mexico with the intention of just unwinding after a month of travelling, however, in hindsight we should probably have stayed in Holbox.