We recently spent one night at Cabanas Zazilkin near Tulum. Our stay was supposed to be for 3 nights but we left after one night. First of all however I'll start with the positives.
The beach there is the most beautiful we saw on a coast that has some very stunning beaches. The sand is so white that it was almost blinding under the midday sun. It was very soft and fine as dust as well. This also extends out into the water where the sea floor could not have been better. There is no need for water shoes here. The ruins are beautiful off in the distance and it is well worth getting up very early to watch the sun rise over the Caribbean. Our cabana was very close to the ocean so we were able to catch a bit of a breeze at night. There are iguanas everywhere including in our room in the morning. There was quite a gap at the bottom of our door which allowed them access. I didn't mind seeing harmless iguanas (that was actually pretty cool :) ), but I was a bit leery of the gap because there are very deadly snakes in the area. Make sure to keep your bags zipped up and shake out your clothing and shoes before you put them on if they've been left lying around. You wouldn't want to find a suprise visitor in your pants. The bathrooms were ok for Mexico, but the toilets lacked seats. The beach was almost deserted on the Monday we arrived and if you are craving quiet and solitude this is the place to find it. You could sit for an hour in the midday without hearing anything but the waves and the birds. This place, however is not paradise. We were quite disappointed with some of the things we encountered. First of all, Tulum gets very, very hot. We had been warned about the heat here but we never believed it because we had been staying in another cabana less than an hour away and found it comfortable. Who would have thought that an hours drive could make such a difference. The reason it is so peaceful during the day is because it was way too hot too talk or move much. We were lucky that our cabana got some breeze because others had to leave their doors open to make it bearable at night. Even without the heat though it still would have been hard to get a good sleep on that bed. We had a standard cabana bed which consists of a cement platform with a mattress on it. The problem here is that the platform was a double while the mattress on it was a queen. Rolling over onto the outer foot or so of the mattress would probably result in a concussion thanks to the cement night stand by the head of the bed. The mosquito netting over the bed was very scary looking and dirty. I really did not want it touching me, but thankfully we must have gone at a good time because even without using netting or repellant, I escaped Tulum without a single mosquito bite. We were also lucky that it did not rain, as there were a few spots in the thatched roof through which you could see the sky. We had the misfortune of arriving right before siesta time at the hotel which lasts for hours. We had not experienced this in other areas and so were not expecting it. In the middle of the afternoon heat we found that we were unable to buy any water and ended up drinking a couple of warm beer that were in our suitcase. When my boyfriend accidently interupted siesta by asking very politely in Spanish where we could go to buy water, etc. (we met very few English speaking people here, some knowlege of Spanish is almost a requirement) he was told in English to "go home" He even tried to apologize in Spanish for his earlier interruption that night when the place re-opened, but even that was met with hostility. The next morning we decided to walk to the ruins then pack up and leave for more friendly areas. The people in this area are mostly Mayans and backpackers who resent tourists for destroying their way of life. The ironic thing was that in the morning the beach was littered with garbage and no one seemed to concerned about protecting the pristine beach. The more touristy areas seemed way more concerned with protecting the environment and keeping things clean. I will return to Tulum, but next time we will stick to the more touristy areas further down from the ruins. If you want solitude and beautiful surroundings and have very little problem with a place where cleanliless is suspect at best maybe this is the place for you but I would not return to cabanas Zazilkin. There are plenty of places along the Riviera Maya that welcome tourists but this is not one of them.