I have read many reviews before coming to this hotel, and my general opinion was negative throughout my entire trip to Cancun. But when I entered the glass doors to the hotel my opinion changed with a clean and modern lobby.
The employes were hospitible and provided a worthy service. However, the rooms were mediocre. We got the Deluxe Ocean View Room, and I was expecting more.
We did not have a balcony in our room, the rooms were covered with this ugly stone surface that had dirt clogged in each crevice. Oh and this is a kicker....there was a spider in my bed when I was about to go to sleep! The TV set should be updated...actually everything about the hotel should have been updated. I realize the hotel has been around for a while, but come on!
The lobby permitted smoking which was so dumb! The timeshare people were interesting and I wanted to know more, but they ended up being so annoying! The swimming pool is small and sand gets tracked everywhere. The resort is very small.
Now for the positive viewpoint. The food there is excellent, but pricey. The bus stop is right in front of the hotel. The beach's sand is very soft, and the waters are amazing!
Overall...just go to a different hotel.

We just returned from a two week stay in Cancun. We stayed at three different hotels during our trip because we were locked in on specific dates for a presidential suite and got great prices on flights flying mid-week, which allowed us to spend the extra money extending our trip. The other hotels during our trip were the Moon Palace and the Omni (I'll post reviews for both as well).

We booked our first two nights in Cancun at the Presidente through priceline. We thought we got a great price even though we knew they charged an additional $20 per night resort fee. Well, now we feel we overpaid for what we got.

We were initially impressed with the Presidente Cancun when we walked through the lobby doors. The lobby is very clean and modern looking. Then everything went downhill from there. The hallway leading to our rooms were very drab looking and had an awful locker-room smell to it. The rooms weren't any better. It was a very basic decor with awful tile flooring that hid the dirt covering the entire floor. The bathroom was worse with rust stains all over the tub and a foul smell from the toilet. Our driver to the hotel said that the Presidente was remodeled within the last year...if they did, they wasted a lot of money because it's in very poor shape. It's definitely not a 4- or 5-star hotel...more like a 1-star motel.

The poolside service was also very poor. They had only one server for both pool areas for most of our stay. After about 30 minutes of waiting and looking for someone to take our drink order the first day, I went over to the closest bar and put in my order. The bartender asked where we were sitting and said that he'd send the drinks right over. Well, it took over 20 minutes for the drinks to arrive. Then my sister-in-law asked if they had nachos, to which he replied yes, so she placed the order. An hour later, there were no nachos and still no one who worked there was in sight. When she tracked someone down, he said that they don't have nachos on their menu. I don't know why the first guy said that they did when they didn't, and it wasn't due to a language barrier because he spoke English and my sister-in-law speaks enough Spanish to get by.

A couple of other things to note. The hotel's Italian restaurant charges a service charge just to eat there (my sister-in-law says it was 100 pesos or $10 dollars). I think that's ridiculous!!! But on a positive note, the room service menu prices were very reasonable and included some items from their Italian restaurant and they only charge 30 pesos or $3 service charge.

The hotel's location is okay. The sand on the beach is really soft and the water is very calm, although it's not the pretty blue Carribean water I was hoping to see there. The hotel is about a 7-10 minute walk to an indoor shopping center and about 15 minutes to the Forum by the Sea Mall where there are lots of places to eat and shop. It's also across the street from a great, cheap sandwhich place called Ty Coz, which a lot of posters on this site have recommended.

My wife - then girlfriend - and I went off to Cancun for our first extended vacation together. We booked through American Airlines and chose the hotel on the price and on the beach location. The location is great. Don't be fooled by other parts of Cancun. Further down the Zona - as toward Club Med - the beach and ocean start to become hazards. Not at the Presidente where the beach is accessable and wonderful.

The bus stops right out in front of the hotel for quick trips into Cancun proper or down the Zona to the clubs. It is good to be far enough away from the clubs that your hotel does not vibrate from the noise.

We found the hotel service to be of the highest quality and the food was most excellent.

We also enjoyed the pool area and were glad that we could relax well into the night.

I was leery about booking this hotel given some of the recent negative feedback, but my wife and I were so happy that we did. Here are the positives:
1. Great location - close to grocery store and a few cheap eats across the street, bus stop in front of hotel (yes use the bus Rt. 1 it will take you up and down the hotel zone - but more importantly - it will get you close to Parque de la Palapas - all kinds of cheap and GREAT restaurants. Just try to stay off the bus between 4 - 6:30pm - it will be crowded at that time. Don't eat in the hotel zone - expensive and really mediocre food).
2. The hotel is older - but it is in wonderful shape for the age - recently updated. The rooms are simple - but this is a beach hotel folks - the tile floors and wicker furniture are functional - not damaged by sand and wet suites! I have never stayed in a cleaner hotel - leave the maid $3 per night and you will be treated like royalty and your room will be spotless!
3. The beach is the best in Cancun - enough said. Plus you are at the end of the hotel zone - away from thumping diso clubs. My wife and I like to read and relax on the beach - we walked by several hotels with bars that would not allow this type of relaxation.
4. The service is wonderful and we were not bothered one time by timeshare folks - they were there and made eye contact - but did not approach unless you looked interested. You will get hounded on the streets though. We did not eat at the restaurants in the hotel - we always travel to authentic restaurants when we are traveling in a foreign country.
5. Both good and bad - the resort is a very secure place. Why is this bad too - you almost felt like you were being watched by the "robo-cops" the head security guy thought he was a mix between Arnold Swartzenager and Don Juan!
Ok, now the minor bad:
1. The bar service was terrible - one bar to take care of the restaurants and the beach crowd. We did not use it much because we are not big drinkers - but the service was really bad.
2. There is a $21 fee per day for the resort and tips for servants that you don't come in contact with. I think they need the $ - but I would like to know exactly how much I am going to pay per night when I book the room - a secondary site did not inform us of these fees when we booked through them - I don't rec. onlinehotels.com. In the end I did not mind paying this extra daily fee because our room rate was a bargain compared to other 4 star hotels - and this was not a ICH problem - there web site states the additional daily fees.
We will go back to the ICH in Cancun - no it is not a brand new hotel - but the things people are complaining about on here are silly - this is a wonderful hotel that treats their quests very well. I think some of the complaints stem from English as a second language - yes all the front desk help "speak" English - but it is not fluent and they have trouble understanding complex long questions that are not the typical questions. Relax and don't be put off if they direct you to another worker - they are trying to get you to someone that can understand you!