We stayed at the HIExp in Playa during the Christmas season of 2012. It was a very clean and comfortable hotel The daily breakfast was good and complete..albeit a bit too consistent as we stayed 6 nights and ate almost the same everyday. The staff was very accommodating and helpful and friendly..spoke good English as well.

My family spent 4 nights in Playa Del Carmen after staying at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. We did not want an all-inclusive resort in PDC because we had planned to make several days trips. We wanted a safe, clean and inexpensive place, and the Holiday Inn Express met all our expectations.

As others have pointed out, this hotel is not centrally located. It is about 12 minutes walk to the busier 10 Ave and another 2-3 minutes walk to the ADO bus station or 5 Ave, where the action is. It is a safe and flat walk. There is a convenient store about 5 mins and a grill restaurant about 7 mins from the hotel. The hotel provides a free shuttle almost hourly from the hotel to 3 locations near 5 Ave throughout the day. I believe the first shuttle is around 9-something and the last one is around 5-something. You have to walk or take back. There are taxis parked at the hotel in the morning if you do not want to take the shuttle.

There are a couple of beach facilities where you can use for free as guests of the Holiday Inn Express. One such place is the Senior Frog beach near the ferry terminal. This is a clothing optional beach.

The check in process is straightforward and the front desk people were friendly and professional. The concierge was very friendly and full of advice. We took her advice of taking the ADO bus to Chitchen Itza; in hindsight, we would not recommend taking the ADO bus because it takes an hour longer each direction. For 5 people, we could have hired a taxi for the day for the same price.

We had 2 rooms and both were quite big and very clean and quite modern. One of the shower drain was draining very slowly, so we called the front desk. The maintenance guy showed up within 5 minutes and fixed it. Fantastic responsiveness.

The hotel have bicycles for guests to use for free. You just need to give the security people an ID to check out the bicycles. We had a wonderful ride around the Playacar resort area which rather relaxing and safe.

Breakfast appear to be yummy but all I had was toast and jam. The day we check into the hotel, I had a terrible case of food poisoning. Prior to my illness, my last meal was lunch at the all-inclusive resort in Cancun. I was taken to the emergency room in PlayaMed Hospital in an ambulance. Anyway, I felt the effect of the food poisoning for several days so all I could eat was toast and jam. My family thought that the breakfast was quite good. There were toasts, pastries, cereal, about 6 diffrerent kinds of Mexican food (bean, etc.), fruits, yoghurt, milk, coffee, juice, etc.

Throughout the day and night, coffee, tea and water are available from the lobby for free. I did not like the taste of the tap water. It tasted rather salty and unpleasant.

My #1 complaint about this hotel is the weak wifi. Wifi from from our rooms were rather weak and unusable. Wifi from the lobby was better but not strong either. Most frustrating was that the signals keep dropping every so often. There are ethernet jacks in the room, so bring an ethernet cable if you've a laptop. Also, they have a business center with 3 computers and 1 printer, which is very useful for online checkin for flights.

I would stay at this hotel again for my next visit.

I have stayed here numerous times and it is still a great hotel.
Nice people, clean hotel and pool.
The free breakfast is ok as well.
The gym equipment is good but a bit dated and in need of some repairs (if you run on the treadmill closest to the glass wall the rubber matt jams sometimes).

We were to start our vacation at a resort just south of Playa del Carmen on the 3rd of Dec., 2012 but flight came in late so we came a day earlier and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express. The front desk was extremely nice, he called and got us pizza from take out, told us about the breakfast in the morning and we were all set. The room was very clean and the bed was one of the best we have had in this area. We did have a problem with our shower as the water was just a trickle but the maintenance guys came and worked on it and had it working within an hour. The breakfast the next morning was very good, fruit, eggs, cereal, and a mexican dish which was really good. We had coffee out by the pool which was very nice and the workout room looked really nice. We didn't use the pool or work out room but all seemed up to par. I would stay here again and probably will as this flight seems to be what we now have to take. Great place