Básico
Style Back to Básico
Setting Sunny Caribbean shores
Any more cutting-edge and it’d have somebody’s eye out, Básico takes pared-down industrial chic to jaw-dropping extremes. Located in the humming heart of Playa del Carmen on the Riviera Maya, it’s a young, sassy boutique hotel with an eye for design and a mind for a party. In the rooftop terrace bar, sun-tanned scenesters sip martinis, recline on day-beds made from lorry frontages, or bask in the twin water-tank pools.
Need to know
- Rooms 15.
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Rates
Double rooms from $135.00, excluding tax at 14 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional room tax of 2% per room per night on checkout.
Prices have been converted from the hotel's local currency ($135), via XE.com, using today's exchange rate.
- More details Rates include breakfast.
- Facilities In-room massages, library, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: plasma TV, DVD/CD player, Polaroid camera, minibar.
- Poolside The hotel’s twin pools began life as water tanks for the petroleum industry. Sliced in two, hoisted onto the rooftop, and filled with water, they’re now a strikingly quirky bathing spot beside the terrace bar.
- Check-out Midday, but later may be possible, upon request.
- Children Básico is a decidedly adult romantic getaway.
- Also Furry friends can stay free, although there are no particular pet facilities. There’s a two-night minimum stay at weekends.
Food and drink at Básico
- Hotel restaurant Fashioned like a market fish bar, with chalkboard specials and clear views of the cooks frying up the day’s catch, Marisqueria Bar is informal in style but impeccable in quality, serving a delicious selection of locally caught seafood.
- Dress code Glamorama.
- Top table Prime people-watching position is by the wall of the terrace, looking out over the town streets below.
- Last orders The kitchen closes at 11pm each night.
- Room service Available during restaurant opening hours.
- Hotel bar Azotea looks out onto the ocean from the hotel rooftop, and provides a sassy, youthful clientele with a bewildering array of martinis. DJs keep the crowd up late on weekends. There’s a juice bar downstairs too.
Also worth knowing
- Weddings This property is suitable for weddings. More...
Básico 5ta Avenida y Calle 10 Norte, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Riviera Maya, 77710
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Smith extra at Básico
A bottle of wine and 50 per cent off your fourth night (except Friday and Saturday)
In the know
Our favourite rooms
Lucia, Fernanda and Sofia, Básico’s trio of Sea View Rooms, look out over the Caribbean, offering some of the most beautiful panoramas in Playa del Carmen. If you’re after somewhere more removed from the sound of midnight-oil-burning in the bar, then plump for a Patio View Room on the quieter ground floor of the hotel. All the hotel’s rooms share the same pared-down chic interiors, with exposed plumbing, floor-to-ceiling glass walls (for showcasing your bikini body), and distressed concrete walls.
Packing tips
Don’t bother bringing snorkelling gear – Básico has a stash behind the bar. The rooftop terrace and the Playa del Carmen beach are Heidi Klein territory, so make sure your swimwear passes muster.
Also
Although the hotel’s not on the beach, guests have access to Mamitas beach club a few minutes’ wander away. You can spread yourself over one of the cosy canopied day-beds that line the sand or join the bronzed and buff brigade posing by the pool.
