Paradisus Playa del Carmen - Riviera Maya

Sarah Romero

This is a beautiful, well kept resort. My kids loved the ship pool and water park. They spent most of the day at the ship pool. Service by staff is excellent. Room cleaning is incredible by a few male cleaners, be sure to tip them well! Pros: excellent service by staff. I got sick one day and the guest service was incredible, checking in and making accommodations for food to ensure a quick recovery. The shows for kids were so cute, be sure to check out the circus and lion king. Face painting also a PLUS! Incredible artists doing the face paint. Also, be sure to walk down to the left when you get to the beach and go see Esmeralda public beach. It’s a beautiful pool of ocean water for small kids. That’s where we spent most of our beach time due to the crazy seaweed in front of resort. Water park is 4 feet deep throughout so be sure to bring life jackets for kids who can’t swim or they can’t safely use this area without mom and dad holding them. The buffalo hot wings at the Celsius bar were the best hot wings we’ve ever had. The adult pool was awesome and the drinks were incredible at the adult pool bar. Cons: I am a beach person and I was so sad I couldn’t see the beach at all from any area of the resort unless I took the very BEAUTIFUL walk down the bridge to get to the beach. Not horrible but would have enjoyed seeing the beach from areas of resort. Also, I was sad to know they don’t have the trampoline bungee for the kids. Turns out this was many years ago and was replaced by water park. Kids loved water park but I guess I went too far back with reviews and expected to see the trampolines. Huge CON for me was that there was no coffee pot in the room. Please get coffee pots in the room!!! This is a must for me and was so disappointing. Food at the buffet was good and plenty. We ended up using buffet for all meals because the majority of times we could get for fancy dinners were during the show times. We didn’t want to miss the shows and my kids loved the buffet, as did we. There were plenty of options and we aren’t too picky with food. Overall, great stay and glad we had the opportunity to visit.

Michael Khbeis

Overall, we were very pleased with Melia properties in Spain and tried the Paradisus for 9 nights/10 days. First and foremost, I will get a FAQ out of the way: Is the Family Concierge worth the upgrade? In my humble opinion, YES it was worth the upgrade. Our concierge, Eduardo Gamboa, takes care of your dining and experience reservations and is available via WhatsApp. Furthermore, they go out of their way to make the trip memorable for the kids with gifts and in room scavenger hunts, etc. This upgrade comes with a local cenote tour that would typically run $120+ per person and a dinner for the adults at the steakhouse that typically would be al la carte. Finally, the Family Concierge level gives access to a heated family pool with its own swim up bar and the Lunchbox Cafe - an al la carte restaurant that was of the highest quality for breakfast and lunch. So my recommendation is to splurge on the concierge level. Now about the rest of the property and amenities: PROS: The property is HUGE and mostly well maintained. The kids club is very clean with an attentive staff and low ratios. So low, that there is a first come first served queue for evening drop off with only 8 slots in the under 5 years old category. The resort is very family friendly with a lot of shows and activities. For the most part, the food is really good and higher quality than most regional all inclusive resorts (except for Spain where Meliá really impressed us). Highly recommend the taqueria and the Lunchbox (reserved for family concierge) restaurants. The Italian restaurant was great with wood fired pizzas and pasta, but saw some day-to-day inconsistency. The property also hosted a lot of pop up food booths and a big fiesta on the weekly basis (but not on the same day). The local wildlife, consisting of coati, turtles, koi, and cats, was an added bonus in entertaining us. Our concierge was exceptional and most of the staff was very friendly and polite. We got a full suite that was spacious and nicely decorated. The spa facility, located in the adults only “La Perla” side was very nice. The decor, art, and common spaces were well aligned with a 5-star resort rating. CONS: One of the big cons is the resort is set back from the ocean, meaning NONE of the rooms have an ocean view. The restaurant service staff was mixed in their attitudes and kindness and the quality of the food varied from day to day. The coffee is all based on Nespresso pods, which should assure patrons of some consistency; however, oddly this was not the case with some drinks being good but others not. Also, the show schedules sent by the concierge and shown in the app regularly differed from actual locations which was a reoccurring challenge and resulted in us being late or missing some of the shows. This is a gap that should be remedied. Finally, our room suffered intermittent power outages, mainly during the afternoon during peak air conditioning loads and also had a reoccurring scent of sewer gas. Maintenance came to address but did nothing to resolve it - likely a case of core infrastructure deficiency in venting or pee-traps to prevent it from coming in. These were small, but not insignificant things that make us rate it 4 out of 5 stars overall.

Alejandra Contreras Caballero

I’ve stayed at several all inclusives in Cancun and PDC. This one is a very beautiful property, but the reason I wouldn’t come back to stay here is that the food at all of the restaurants is just average. All restaurants require reservations ahead of time. So they should definitely make that clear during booking. There’s one hotel in the property that’s billed as a “nicer” steakhouse but that’s NOT part of the all inclusive, you have to pay for everything including water (which like, WHY have this restaurant inside an all inclusive hotel then??). There are only two beach access points from the hotel, both far from each other. So it’s not the same as other PDC hotels where the whole hotel has beach access. In the beach itself there’s only a few cabanas, and if those are taken the rest of the beach chairs have NO umbrellas, so you’d be stuck baking in the super hot sun (however they DO have a lot of other shaded areas in the “quiet zone” which is indeed very quiet, but it is NOT on the beach. All restaurants require reservations ahead of time. So they should definitely make that clear during booking.

Faiza Naeem

The resort in my experience was just average. Will begin with positives; there were lots of activities available and arranged for the kids in the resort. Mini bars, restaurants outside and inside the resort including snack stations were easily accessible. However, the quality of service needs to be improved. A couple of times when I called for something , they didn't attend to the needs right away such as, delayed room cleaning, food/snacks arriving after 1 hour of request, something missing after room service person comes with the items requested (missing cup, bringing fewer items than requested) Being truthfully honest I've been to a better resort with more access to other restaurants with better quality flavorful food and access to more choices and variety of cuisines. So my expectations for this resort was pretty high. Unfortunately it didn't live up to that and it was just average for me. There was only one small buffet restaurant with flavourless and bland food. Food flavour there in the resort restaurants was nowhere close to Mexican food. My guesses are because most of the tourists there are white , they have made their food according to their desire which means just a little bit of salt and pepper. Majority of the food dishes were pork, and because being a Muslim, I and my family don't eat pork, that left the rest of the food choices very limited. One of the occasions , their salmon had a lot of smell which made me lose my appetite. We picked this resort based on the food reviews. However, it just goes to show that reviews can be deceiving and depends on who wrote the reviews (their food preferences/choices). Their resort doesn't give access to adults only to the people with kids, so bare that in mind.

Dee Legall

This hotel would have received a better star rating had it not been for the non existent customer service . Starting with the positive, food was excellent , kids enjoyed the pool and water park. Staff were amazing except front desk. In response to complaints or concerns there is no resolution or response. We booked for a wedding and the price we were quoted and confirmed visa email was not honored when we arrived We attempted to speak to the person who quoted us the price and showed our detailed emails but front desk staff always stated he was not on duty. We were also not placed in a suite as promised. We basically ended up in the same room type as our friends but paying more. Basically , 3 adults 1 kid squashed in a double occupancy room. In the end we paid much more than quoted as we were already in Mexico with no other immediate options. Additionally on the last day of our stay our room began to leak. Reported to front desk who stated" yes man we are aware ". The leak could be seen even upon exiting the room with water running down the halls and into the passageway. As up to checkout no one came to resolve the issue. Documents and pics available .