Crown Paradise Club Cancun — Hotel in Cancún

UPDATED REVIEW Day 3 at the resort. Due to my previous and honest review of the hotel I was contacted by guest services and offered a free upgrade to a honeymoon suite with a balcony jacuzzi. I appreciated that very much and my kids were super excited as well. My husband and I were also happy because the initial visit here was to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. The woman I spoke to was very nice and very understanding. However, today was the day from the room change and I was now told that the room wouldn’t be a honeymoon suite but a room with a king bed and jacuzzi bathtub in the room. Upon entry we noticed that just as the other room we had, it was extremely dated and in need of some repairs. Getting to the jacuzzi bathtub we filled it and surprise, surprise the jets don’t work! I let the guest services know and they did send up a technician quite quickly who was nice but he told us that the jets having no pressure was normal . I’ve been to many resorts with jacuzzis and this is definitely not normal. I feel that we are just constantly disappointed here. Promised one thing and given another and its main purpose for being an upgrade is quite useless.

As for staff we have encountered some who are truly great.unfortunately my opinion of this hotel remains the same. Definitely a budget hotel so if you have low expectations you will not be disappointed. Come here expecting 3 star quality and you will be fine. on a positive note the main buffet is good . We especially love the breakfast choices as there are many and something for everyone. Special mention to Mariano for great service

I am presently at the Crown Paradise Club Cancun I checked in yesterday. So where to begin…

Check in : Although I was served by a young man named David who was very nice and polite it did not make up for the RIDICULOUS line!! We were in line at 11:30am and only got served at 2:30pm!!! 3 hours to check in!!! It was absolute chaos in the lobby with no nearly enough employees!!! There were people arguing in line, kids crying, no food for any of us to eat and nobody going around offering drinks while people waited 3 hours in line in the scorching heat! I have been to Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas , Bermuda, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Saint Martin, Turcs and caicos etc and have NEVER seen anything like this!! I heard that it is some sort of Mexican holiday which means the hotel knew and should be better prepared!! It was awful.

Food: absolutely terrible!!! There are several restaurants and buffets advertised here BUT only 1 is open and here we go again with the line ups for food. Oven an hour wait to eat at the only restaurant open on this resort only to get in and find nothing is replenished and everything is empty. This buffet is worse than the food you would find in Cuba!!!

Kids pool and slides: although the slides (bigger ones) are nice they are missing paint and not in great condition so you can get scratched going down. The kids pool and pirate ship is missing paint and chipped and cracked everywhere. The slides are dirty and my daughters both had black marks all over them it was disgusting. ALSO the girl who works there tried to convince me to come back the next day because there was only about 25 minutes until closing time because she didn’t want to take the time to fill up the waver form to sign which literally took 2 minutes. The worst part is she literally let another family in who was right in front of us . Maybe because I’m not Mexican lol I told her no my kids are hot we waited in line for over 3 hours , had nothing to eat they were hot and wanted to swim even if it was for 15 minutes!!

Once upon a time this hotel when it was new must have been amazing but not it’s really a 3 star at best. Don’t come here if you’re looking for luxury or food . We already emailed our travel agent and are trying to see if we can be transferred to another hotel!!!

Beach better than expected and warm. Location is close to airport. Those are literally the only positive things worth mentioning.

BE WARNED. It’s not worth...

To start off this was my first experience travelling to Mexico. I have been to other resorts (in Cuba) so had an idea of what to expect. If you aren’t with children this is your warning to NOT book here or change your booking. It would be a disappointing adults trip.

Loud construction on both sides. At check in they made it clear “it’s not the resorts fault because it’s not property of resort”. Noise started at 7:00am. Bring ear plugs.

Food: Horrible. As I said I’ve been to Cuba so had lower expectations but Cuba was better. This resort was terrible. Myself, husband and child had difficulties finding anything we could confirm to be safe and palatable. Buffet: hygiene was absolutely disgusting. No monitoring. I saw multiple children pick things up, put on their plate and back into the buffet and reaching and touching things without picking up. It was very unsanitary. Now this isn’t necessarily the resorts fault as that’s clearly poor parenting and poor manners but in Cuba they had severs which makes sense to prevent that and monitored stations. My son got a hamburger at the buffet and the lady put the burger on the grill, picked up a flipper, washed it in the sink with water but then scraped the side of the sink and proceeded to flip the burger. Like you can’t make this up!!! We had sausages and cut open and they were raw. Nothing seemed fresh. Lots of things sat out and things that were suppose to be chilled were often warm and soggy. The one thing I could eat was yogurt but I noticed expired (check bottom). I know you can eat past expiry but still. Specialty restaurants needed reservations done at 8am online. You can’t sleep in if you want to eat at them. Even by signing in at 8am you aren’t guaranteed despite there being many empty tables. Mexican reservation restaurant was gross. Only decent restaurant was Wayne’s boots but reservations here were more difficult to get. The thing that changed the awful food experiences was going off resort and across the street there is a store which has snacks at very good prices. Lots used Uber eats.

Pools: All pools even adult pool/ jacuzzi, (exception indoor pool): freezing cold to the point they were not enjoyable, literally freezing. There was only 1 day of warm adult only small pool but I know we had many people complain, next day was freezing again. I did the Spa jacuzzis and also slightly cooler than lukewarm, I was disappointed as I thought they would at least be warm. Ocean was warmer. Pools often sat empty. I saw reviews about this and thought people were just complaining but it’s serious, they are freezing. Be prepared to care for your towel like a child. If you lose the card or towel $25 USD charge, cannot get extra towels or exchange for fresh in the same day. I am unsure if this is due to shortage that has been in multiple reviews. At 7:00am people “claim seats”. Another reason you can’t sleep in. Towels cover the chairs people claim and by 8 there is none. This is done at all pools, adult pool and ocean. Most sit unoccupied all day. I hate this concept though I’m assuming it also may happen at other resorts. Ocean was warmer but massive waves/ undertow. Nice beach though I was told in different months there is tons of seaweed piled.

Rooms: You only get 1 room key per family which is annoying and if you lose it you are charged! I don’t get why all the wrist bands don’t have a swipe. Rooms are very outdated. Poor lighting. I can say the showers were good and hot, cooler during the day. Beds are extremely hard. Wifi is very spotty everywhere. positives: kids drink menu, waterslides, soccer and mini golf. Mini golf had very limited balls and people were losing their minds about the long wait. Bring your own.

My recommendation: I regret booking here and would never consider if my son didn’t come with us. Food and pools ruin the resort. I should have changed resorts prior to arriving, I found reviews were somehow inconsistent. Bring extra money to get off resort: I booked multiple excursions to escape and experience Mexico and we ate off...

This is our balanced, detailed experience of this stay. Hopefully it helps someone with their decision.

Overall, we had an excellent experience at this resort. We are a family of five - two adults and 3 kids aged 6 to 10, and booked a two-room suite with an ocean view. We loved our room, the views of the ocean were to die for. We loved being able to watch the sunrise each morning.

The rooms were very clean upon arrival, and continued to be cleaned and restocked every day with fresh towels and beverages without our ever having to ask. The in-room coffee could use an upgrade, as well as the lobby coffee bar (no decaf options or real cream/milk). It was open early, though, and the coffee was always hot. The kids loved the little pastries they offered, too.

The pools and beach were always clean. Keep in mind, this is a very family-friendly resort with lots of children around, so if you're looking for a calm and quiet environment, this isn't the place for you. Our kids loved the waterslides and kids paradise, too.

Our experience with the staff was always excellent. I read negative reviews from others which claim that the staff are rude and unhelpful, but we did not find that to be the case at all. Every employee we encountered was kind, helpful, and professional, in some cases going above and beyond their job duties to help us (including finding us super glue when our youngest's craft item broke).

The kids LOVED the kid drink menu. It was a creative and thoughtful touch that helped them enjoy the all-you-could-eat experience, too. The adult drinks are by default weak, but we never got a "no" when we asked the server/bartender to make them stronger or use better liquor. Poolside service was excellent, too. Tipping helps!

There is definitely room for improvement at this resort.

We found the food to be consistently hit or miss at both the buffet and the restaurants (we ate at the Mexican, Italian and Seafood spots) and the ingredient quality overall to be lacking (it's clear that they use the cheapest option of pretty much everything, to the point of using rehydrated milk powder instead of real milk). That said, we for sure never went hungry and were more than able to make do with the options we did have, many of which were delicious. I personally thought that they prepared meats exceptionally well - the beef and pork stews were always tender and flavorful. We loved the breakfast buffet, as well, especially the fresh omelettes and endless pancakes!

There is deferred maintenance throughout the resort; things like missing/broken locks on bathroom stall doors, shabby and few games in the rec room, blown speakers in the movie theater, etc. Overall, these things didn't really have a huge impact on our stay, but they did make the experience feel just a little dingy, especially considering that these are such easy fixes that are obviously consistently ignored by staff and management.

One thing that was especially non-ideal was the need to be up before 7 am in order to get seats by the pool. We're early risers so it wasn't a huge deal for us, but it did completely eliminate any chance of sleeping in, which I can see being a real point of frustration for many guests. It also created a little bit of a dog-eat-dog atmosphere with other guests, where several times we had our seats stolen or moved while were down at the beach or at lunch.

We experienced similar frustrations with the restaurant reservation system. I don't know if they recently changed things, but we only needed reservations for the Mexican and Steakhouse spots. The system was glitchy and stressful, as you had literally 30 seconds at exactly 8 am everyday to quickly enter your information. We never managed to get a reservation at the steakhouse because of this. This system needs upgrading for sure.

Overall, I think we received great value for what we paid, although I'm not sure we would return given the plethora of options along the strip that we're excited to try out...