Del Gobernador is a lovely hotel and a great value. We stayed on the first floor of one of the courtyards, and it was nice to stroll outside in the morning and sit on the patio. The waiters do provide food and drinks there if you ask inside the restaurant.

The air conditioning in the rooms was vigorous--it even froze out my wife. Be aware that the maid turns off the AC at the circuit breaker when she cleans the rooms (who knows why). At first, we thought it was broken and called maintenance to fix it. After we learned the trick, we just turned it back on for ourselves every day.

Since the fire code is strict about four people maximum in a room, and we were a party of five, we needed two rooms. Del Gobernador does have some connecting ("communicados") rooms, but it took a great deal of explaining to actually get two rooms that connected. We stayed three nights in rooms that were next door but didn't connect and then moved for our last two nights. It was apparently a rare request--they didn't know where the key to the connecting door was, and had to find it.

It is more of a convention hotel than a family hotel. Perhaps they are not used to having families staying there, for all that Mexicans tend to have larger families than Americans. Several times, the restaurant was closed for a large party, and they served the rest of us in convention rooms across the way.

The hotel has two small *outdoor* pools that are located in two separate small courtyards. One pool has a little wading area for small children. The pools may seem to be indoors unless it's raining. Our children enjoyed the pools very much, and had them practically to themselves.

All in all, we saw very few Americans in the hotel. When we first arrived, the hotel was packed with French tourists. When they left, a Mexican amateur baseball league moved in. (Or was it soccer? It was hard to tell.) The team was pretty rowdy. Our picturesque patio room didn't seem so quaint when the bars closed at 03:00 and the team came home singing drunkenly in Spanish.

Like the other hotel we stayed in this trip, Del Gobernador seems very concerned about losing the remote control for the TV. They make you sign a separate little contract when you check in, agreeing to pay a fine if the remote is lost or damaged.

Three short blocks up and one over takes you to the Zocalo, the main square. There are lots of little shops, restaurants, and bars along the way, along with several Internet cafes. It's a nice neighborhood, and seemed very safe. During the day, there is a policeman on every corner, directing traffic. They were fairly helpful in giving directions.

This is really Mexico. Unlike Cancun, where every waiter seems to speak better English than you do, nobody in Merida seems to speak much English. If they have a second language, it's Maya. If you are fairly conversant in Spanish, you should be OK. Otherwise, keep your phrase book handy.

I have stayed at this hotel on three different business trips over the past two years. They have finished their remodel in the last year and the rooms now rival those of a five star hotel. It is quaint and relatively quiet, with a small indoor pool and a good restaurant. I paid about $40/night and have paid more than ten times that for less value! This is a nice place!