Mérida, Mexico

Hotel Cigno

Price per night from$423.89

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD423.89), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Hotel Cigno Photos

Style

Tranquila temptress

Setting

Surprisingly central serenity

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A peaceful boutique bolthole, adults-only Hotel Cigno is a refined mansion in central Mérida, reimagined with a modest clutch of rooms and suites, a stellar restaurant and bar, plus rooftop and garden pools. It has the co-ords to please flâneurs and the restful hotel frills to soothe them after their wanderings. And despite the hotel’s modest room-count, its range of experiences — from village cookery classes to freediving — ensure your Yucatán fling is all-consuming. 

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A cocktail each on arrival and 10 per cent off at the restaurant

Facilities

Photos Hotel Cigno facilities

Need to know

Rooms

10, including six suites.

Check–Out

Noon; check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates are room only but you can buy à la carte breakfast (French toast, croque madame or chilaquiles) from US$25.

Also

Unfortunately, this converted historic stay is unsuitable if you need wheelchair access, although there’s a choice of ground-floor suites that may work for you, depending on your mobility needs.

At the hotel

Concierge; free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, ceiling fan, TV, coffee- and tea-making kit, minibar, free bottled water, bathrobes, hairdryer and local, natural bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Choices centre around which floor you’d prefer: there are two spacious suites at ground level, differentiated by their view of the pool, and two rooftop suites, each with a plunge pool out back and hammock-blessed balcony overlooking the courtyard. If cooling swims are your priority, two Classic Room Kings are beside the top-floor pool.

Poolside

Modest pools top and tail this boutique stay. The ground-floor garden pool — edged by tropical planting, and with a sunken lounge area to one side — is the main spot for cooling dips. But sunseekers may prefer the ray levels up on the roof; and if you’re staying in one of the Classic Room Kings, you’re in pole position to monopolize this quieter option.

Spa

There’s no spa at Hotel Cigno but its resident treatment room can be booked via reception for massage therapies, including myofascial, abhyanga (an Ayurvedic treatment with oils) and janzu (water therapy). Yoga with sound-healing sessions can also be arranged at additional cost.

Packing tips

Bring your flirtiest swimwear, and then — like the hotel’s namesake swan — you can glide around in graceful elegance with all the action going on beneath the surface.

Children

Hotel Cigno is an adults-only stay (for guests aged 18 or older).

Sustainability efforts

The team at Hotel Cigno is committed to treading lightly, with energy-saving measures in place, no single-use plastic, recycling and composting, and refillable vessels for bath products and drinking water in rooms. Beyond this, they have a kitchen garden which supplies organic produce to its Cocina Vidente restaurant, and bath products are made with honey and its derivatives, farmed by Mayan communities in the region, as part of an outreach project.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel Cigno food and drink

Top Table

Cigno’s indoor-outdoor aesthetic makes tables that overlook the garden pool irresistible.

Dress Code

Pool cover-ups or casual linen separates are fine by day, but for a sense of occasion come evening, amp up the glamour with dresses for Mrs Smiths and light tailoring and/or a polo shirt for Mr Smiths.

Hotel restaurant

Breakfast is cooked to order and served either in the library or the restaurant: dishes such as French toast, chilaquiles, croque madame and quesadillas are a flavourful start to the day. Cocina Vidente is no one-meal-wonder, however. Proudly Mexican plates, spun with regional produce and including a choice of tacos, enmoladas and fish, sit alongside pasta and burger options for lunch or dinner. The setting they’re served in impresses with high, original ceilings, decorative floors and an airy dining room punctuated by prettily tiled pillars and opening onto the courtyard. Private dinners can be arranged, either in the library or the wine cellar.

Hotel bar

Cocina Vidente’s bar is at the heart of Cigno, with high stools at the counter, but also tables dotting the path to the restaurant. Cocktails are its star turn, muddled and shaken to order, with spicy house margaritas and mezcalitas a particular highlight. Wine, too, has its time to shine, with a cellar of bottles and wine tastings sometimes held at the hotel’s rooftop bar — a convivial spot beside the pool for sundowners. 

Last orders

Breakfast runs from 8am until noon (or 2pm at weekends). Lunch and dinner are served from 2pm until 10pm.

Room service

A selection of plates from Cocina Vidente’s menus can be whisked to your door from 8am until 9pm daily.

Location

Photos Hotel Cigno location
Address
Hotel Cigno
Calle 66 Barrio de la Ermita no. 593
Mérida
97000
Mexico

A historic compound on an unassuming side street, Hotel Cigno is in La Ermita barrio in central Mérida.

Planes

Mérida International Airport, which has frequent connections from Mexico City, is 20 to 30 minutes from the hotel by road (depending on traffic), and staff can arrange private transfers at additional cost.

Automobiles

It’s easier to use taxis and guided excursions to navigate the city, but if you’re intent on driving, the hotel has free valet parking in a neighboring garage.

Worth getting out of bed for

Hotel Cigno’s concierge team can help you immerse yourself in all the Yucatán has to offer. As well as arranging lesser-known spa treatments such as janzu water therapy and abhyanga (an Ayurvedic massage with oils), they’ll book you in for yoga with sound healing or a traditional Mayan cacao ceremony. Or you can brush up your shake, stir and pour with a mixology class (paired with typical Yucatán snacks). Away from your boutique lodgings, you can explore Mérida by bicycle. Notable options include an underwater photography shoot at a cenote; an introduction to freediving; kayaking trips or a guided tour of the ancient Mayan settlement of Izamal by quad bike. And if you want to explore home cooking with a family in a typical Mayan village, a culinary class with a difference can be organised, too. 

Local restaurants

Chef Obed Reyes elevates rustic ingredients, including a selection of offal, into work-of-art plates at Holoch, set in one of the kaleidoscopically coloured townhouses that typify Mérida’s Old Town: expect excellent flavours, fine cocktails and low-lit tables. A couple of blocks south of Parque de la Mejorada, Cantina Gallos serves fusion Lebanese-Mexican fare in an arts space that also houses a cinema, gallery and wine bar. 

Local cafés

A tree-shaded courtyard and flat whites worthy of your social channels are the enticing top notes at neighbourhood Café Lavé. 

Local bars

Swing by Smith-approved Casa Olivia for signature mezcalitas.

Reviews

Photos Hotel Cigno reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this converted townhouse hotel in the Yucatán and unpacked their dried chillies and mezcal, a full account of their urban escape will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Cigno in Mérida…

Stately double doors at the entrance, original ceilings and ornately tiled floors have been beautifully conserved in the overhaul of this 19th-century mansion in central Mérida to create Hotel Cigno. And yet, it’s not just the period features that lend this elegant stay some yesteryear charm. No sooner have you taken your welcome drink through to the courtyard lounge than you feel the tempo beginning to slow. Perhaps it’s the hammock swaying seductively on your private balcony; perhaps it’s the wealth of made-for-lingering outdoor spaces, or perhaps it’s the care that goes into the locally sourced Mexican cuisine at Cocina Vidente, but this 10-room retreat is a place to savour simple pleasures. 

Time spent away from Cigno has a similar, easy charm, thanks to the wealth of tours and experiences that hotel staff are ready to arrange. What could — with such central co-ords — be so easily mistaken for a basecamp is in fact a restful escape to retreat to after a day’s exploring. And a romantic dinner for two in the hotel’s private, storied wine cellar is the kind of old-school move you’ll be happy to embrace.

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Price per night from $423.89