Cancun · Mexico
Mayan Monkey Cancun Hotel Zone - Across the Beach
Suspicious-review evidence
≈375 possibly bought · 5026 top-rated reviews scanned
Explain how it works
We compare every 5★ review's word count against the global distribution. Hostels where unusually many top-rated reviews are suspiciously short — way under the typical length — start to look like the staff (or a boost-my-listing service) is padding the score with throwaway praise.
The detector flags reviews that are both top-rated and below a length threshold, then estimates how many of them statistically shouldn't exist. For this hostel we scanned 5026 top-rated reviews and 0% were suspiciously short.
Length z-score: 10.95. A z-score measures how far this hostel's distribution of 5★ review lengths sits from the global average, in standard deviations. 0 = perfectly typical. 1–2 = slightly unusual but within normal noise. 3–5 = strongly anomalous. Anything 10+ means the pattern is so far from the global norm that it's effectively impossible to get there organically.
This is a heuristic, not a verdict — it surfaces hostels worth a second look, not proof of fraud. Read the actual reviews below and judge for yourself.
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Confirmed paid
Positive reviews are paid for in drinks! Do not believe. This place used to be great. Was there in September and again in January. It has now become like every other money grabbing place. Doesn’t matter how you book, they use different tactics to extract as much cash from you as possible. Overbooking, only taking cash, charging extra for card payments, late and early fees, the list goes on. It’s also filthy now. Used to be so clean but I don’t even think they change the sheets anymore. Such a shame. Was one of my favourite places to stay before.
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Confirmed paid
Mayra is cool! Great person ask for a free shot!
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Confirmed paid
everything was perfect and free tequila shot from the waiters :)
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Confirmed paid
Muy buena atención por Lara en la recepción, gracias por el upgrade, volveré!
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Confirmed paid
Terrible experience with a men there that sells tickets for a night club , he will always tell you a lot of people will go and then no one goes , i asked for a refund of the ticket and there was no way for it to be refunded , so the only option was to go alone to spend money at a place with terrible reviews or lose my money on nothing, of course he gets a commission every time he does this
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Confirmed paid
Leaving another follow up review. Still haven’t received my $255 refund because Mayan Money refunded ANOTHER BANK IN ERROR and are refusing to provide me with my refund. Now I have to bear the financial burden of Gustavo’s ‘mistake’ when he ran my credit card for breakfast which was supposed to be $15, and instead I was charged $270, an error compounded even further by their mistake of refunding to the WRONG BANK. Avoid this man at check in if you want to pay the correct amount for your purchases. Mayan monkey’s response to this - “they can’t do anything further because they’ve refunded the money” and hanging up on me, not once but twice. Lovely. I hope the person at the other bank enjoys their free money!
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Confirmed paid
1. I was a disk jockey for 33 years and played a lot of music to entertain people and the music here is so loud you simply can't communicate with anyone. If there are only 6 people in the bar they still have it as loud as it can go literally driving people away 2. Book the room on hotels.com I accidentally booked the wrong day and ask if they could just apply it to this day nope I had to forfeit what I had already paid and then pay again double the price what the room was for the other booking. 3. The room smells like open sewage due to some sort of plumbing issue. It was so gross you could hardly brush your teeth in there. This was in their private room. 4. They will give you free drinks for positive Google reviews. If you read some of the reviews you'll see that the experience people have there is totally different from the ones they paid for. 5. I had to give them my driver's license just to get a room key.
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Suspiciously short
HORRIBLE !!! ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. ALL OF THESE 5 STAR REVIEWS ARE FAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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Suspiciously short
My iPhone was stolen at this hostel a few weeks ago. Someone (I believe an employee) literally turned it off! I informed the employees and security guard and asked them to review the camera footage. They were no help at all! This was not a great start to my travels. Do yourself a favor and don’t leave anything of value out and make sure that your lock is secured.
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Suspiciously short
I had worried where I would stay for one night between a layover and this was the most perfect choice. $30 usd a night sounded too good to be true but it’s actually way nicer than I would have expected. Literal steps from the public beach, and the nicest staff. They give you towels even if you arrive early. You can leave your bags and go to the pool or beach all day before 3pm check in. I would come here again for a great value and fun vibe.
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Suspiciously short
Bed is super comfortable, place is nice , everything looks awesome. Although it's a hostel. People sleep there. I'm in bed right now , just next to the bar. Music crazy loud at 11pm, it's like I'm in the bar ( also there is like 8 people at the bar in total). Paper thin walls , and not clean at all. A lot of stuff are good , bit big failure at the basic features = sound and cleanliness. Also the other reviews are probably fake. One mentioned a story about a swimmingpool. There is none
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Suspiciously short
Stayed for about a week and started off well. Then after I realized they charged me the entire amount of my stay instead of the key deposit amount that was agreed because I already prepaid the full amount on-line. I brought it up to them. They then started acting all sketchy/dodgy and kept blowing me off, giving me the whole run around. Email them this and that, give it a few days, talk to the manager, etc. I've followed up with all their email requests, like giving them all my credit card details and bank information and they just ignored me after a couple excuses. So basically, I got double charged and they kept gaslighting me and blowing me off. Apparently, I'm also not the only one and I've heard from other travelers and testimonials that they've also had the same scam pulled on them. Additionally, I had my wallet stolen out of my bag and requested that I get to review the footage and they also kept blowing me off. Overall, I cannot recommend this hostel anymore as they've stopped replying to my emails for my stolen funds. Please be weary of the amount that they charge your credit card for the key deposit as it seems that they're reluctant to cooperate after you've handed over your money. Very dishonest business practice and should be ashamed of yourselves! Update: what's the point of asking me to email you again when you just ignore me? It's obviously a copy and paste template to look like you care but not really.
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Suspiciously short
🫰🏼
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Perfecto
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amazing
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👍
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top
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perfecto
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Perfectoo
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Great
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Perfecto
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Amazing!!
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Fantastico!
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Excelente
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我在这家住了10天，氛围很好，工作人员很有善，很棒的青旅。
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