Royal Hideaway Playacar - All Inclusive Adults Only — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

It may have been my expectations, but overall this vacation was a disappointment and it was all because of the resort. ||||To begin with, we had paid for an upgraded room and were instead given a lower grade room, saved for people in wheelchairs ( which was awful to hear that if your disabled, you are not treated equally). They tried explaining that that is all they had left for us despite the resort not being full. No refund was given or any other compensation, even though we asked. The truly disturbing thing though was the constant lies told to us by the staff. On the first night, the manager gave us their card and said in the morning they would fix the mistake. They didn’t work for 2 days and the email and number on the card wasn’t functional. No one followed up to change our room, we had to continuously ask. After three days into our 7 day trip, they moved us but not to the upgraded room we paid for, to one of their standard rooms. It was an experience that tainted the entire trip. ||||On the good side, the food at the a la carte restaurants was fantastic. The resort was overall quite beautiful. Some staff worked very hard (others could care less). And the beach at this resort is beautiful. It is also a smaller resort so felt like far less people and was much quieter than others next door.||||Things to be away of:||- there are few bars.||- room service can take up to one hour or more.||- changes are made to where you can eat and what restaurants are open for breakfast and lunch without being told. Very confusing. No consistency. Staff didn’t even know.||-long waits for breakfast and lunch for sit down meals. Find a buffet if one is open or you will wait a long long time.||- Book into your evening restaurants asap or you will be eating at 9:00 pm while staff loudly clean dishes and close down for the night.||- do not believe what you may be told by staff, often they said things untrue so they didn’t need to put any effort into helping you. (This wasn’t the case for all staff though, many staff were amazing and worked so hard. Seems to be a problem coming from the top as many staff were also unsure of what was happening but to appease you would tell you something made up). For instance:||- sign up for all 1:00 activities when you arrive. They have very limited spots (10-12 people). We had been told to return in the mornings to sign up, which was untrue. Your concierge will not help you with this, you must find the towel person at the pool hut to book activities. The concierge will also not tell you this or that there even are activities.||- they say every building has a concierge when you arrive so the main one you sign in with, doesn’t need to assist you. This is not true. Some buildings have a concierge and it is random if they will be there or available.||- You will not be told anything about the resort or activities, what to do, where to eat, ect when you arrive. It is part of the mystery of the place you must discover on your own. The staff doesn’t even know and will give you conflicting information.||- apparently there is snorkel equipment and beach toys like kayaks available at the back of the restaurant on the beach. No one told us until our last morning there.||- not a lot of entertainment in the evening.||- this is a quiet resort with senior-like activities like bingo (that is screamed over a bad sound system daily at the pool). low impact aqua aerobics and silent parties where you wear headphones of music playing. ||- none of the hot tub pools work despite staff saying they do. There is one main pool with one bar for service. They do have staff that serve people around the pool and beach but them coming by is random so you usually need to wait in line at the one bar open during the day.||- the resort has a hierarchy system with lounge chairs around the pool. It creates a strange hunger games mentality among patrons. One is only allowed to sit there if they have visited the resort 15 times, or paid again another VIP rate which still wouldn’t guarantee you got a chair.||- despite it being a private resort, random vendors walk up and down the beach selling everything from jewelry to cigars to drugs openly approaching anyone napping in a chair, and are pushy.||- the downstairs bar Allegra is awful. Lighting is so bright it’s nauseating and there is an overwhelming dirty toothpaste scent that fills the space. It’s small and the service was horrible (except for one young man), but generally expect no service and no effort. No table service and the workers generally were on their phone. They don’t have proper tools or ingredients like a blender and other basic bar ingredients. The sound, when they had karaoke or a band play, inside the space is tinny and horrible.||- large Mexican rats roam the grounds. The staff call them cute. They are comfortable with humans and expect to be fed. Not cute. Will enter your room if on the ground floor.||||Apparently this resort has been around a while. The prices for this one are much higher than other resorts. We were very upset to not be given the room we paid for and then no compensation given for that despite us asking. Although most of the staff were so nice, they would lie to your face over and again. I wonder how well staff are being paid as so many seemed to not be into their job, although on average the staff at the restaurants were top notch.||||Over all, while the resort is pretty, I wouldn’t go back. Being lied to over and again gives me a sense of unease. Too bad, was really looking forward to...

Absolutely horrible service! This resort does not deserve a 5 star rating. CHECK IN: We arrived at the hotel at 9 a.m. understanding our room wouldn't be ready but wanted to access the resort right away if we could. When we met with the reception and said our room wasn't ready but to come back and try at 11. When we did, they said they have a room for us but it wasn't ready, which was perfectly fine. So we went back a 3 (standard check-in time) and they said the room still wasn't ready and to come back at 5. When we returned again they said the room still wasn't ready and to check back in a couple of hours. We didn't get access to our room until 7:00. This was frustrating because we couldn't shower and all the restaurants require a reservation which they wouldn't give until we were fully checked in. Because we didn't know we'd have to wait so long, we hadn't eaten since shortly after arriving and were very hungry and when we got our room we were told the dinner reservation is for 8:30. After getting to our room, showering and changing, we went to the restaurant to see if we could get in early and were delighted to see the restaurant only had about 50% of the tables occupied. We asked if we could get in early but they said no we must stick to our reservation time. We explained our situation and that we hadn't eaten all day they said there was nothing they could do for us (at the time we didn't realize there was 24 hour room service).

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Other than the above-mentioned poor customer service during check-in and trying to get into our first dinner, the customer service overall was awful. The only reason I'm giving it two stars is because a couple of individuals made our experience better (Lorenzo Cauich, Nicolas Gonzales, Juan Gòmez are all amazing). The pool bar is the main place to get drinks during the day if you're hanging out in your swimwear. There was one bartender in particular who would roll his eyes and scoff almost every time we ordered a drink. We don't like the well alcohol and they have plenty of premium spirits and liqueurs visible on the shelf, so we would specify what we wanted. This one bartender was especially annoyed with us for requesting specific drinks, but he's not the only one. Any time we weren't carefully watching them make our drinks most of the bartenders there would use the well liquor despite us specifying what we want and would then get annoyed (sometimes throwing an entire cup into the sink with it's contents out of frustration) that we asked for a new drink. They also often "ran out" of liquor we wanted even though any time we walked past the open store room we could see several bottles on the shelf. For some reason this resort hides their liquor and doesn't want to serve it to guests. We had to speak to management multiple times about this and eventually got a bottle of our preferred liquor behind one of the bars with our room number on it. We didn't want a special bottle for ourselves, we wanted everyone to be able to get all the liquor at the resort, especially because it was clear they had it in stock. Sometimes they even ran out of water. One night we asked for water but the bartender said there isn't any. We were shocked at how that could happen. Fortunately that evening Lorenzo came to the rescue and got us two large bottles! Getting water to our room was also like pulling teeth. We requested extra water and only got it when we were in the room when they stocked the mini bar and because we asked for extra at that point. Room service was even worse than this. We would usually call after we got back to our room from being out and they rarely ever answered. One night we called 19 times and then had to call the front desk to place our order (many nights we placed with the front desk). Room service always took a long time and was wildly inconsistent as far as what you get and the quality of food. One time there was something extremely mouldy in one of the quesadillas, which we didn't realize until we were partway through eating and we both spent the next...

This is a 3 star resort, as reflected in the price. At $250 a night, you get what you pay for. Therefore, value wise, it’s a wonderful experience. The resort itself is the perfect size and layout with a gorgeous infinity pool overlooking the beach. Such a plus, as I’ve been to too many Mexico resort where the beach is not clearly visible from the pool. That said, if you are expecting a 5 star experience, this is not your resort. Let’s start with the room. Either all their air conditioning is broken, or they lock it at a max temp. It was too warm everywhere… the room, the lobby, the restaurant. Sweating in your room or during dinner is just not ok. We estimated in was between 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit inside at the resort. The rooms were dated with terrible paint jobs. It’s clear the painters did no prep work patching or sanding. Painting looked like a college apartment that had been poorly painted over time and time again. Walls are bumpy, clearly showing where previously chipped paint had just been painted over and not sanded. Our shower was broken. The table lamps in our room didn’t work. The bathroom magnifying lamp was broken and our phones didn’t work. It took 2 requests to get someone to come and when they did not everything was able to be fixed. Our hotel door didn’t work, prompting many unwanted treks up to the lobby. After being told over and over again we were putting our key too close to our phones, they finally figured out after two days of this that it was the door lock battery failing. The food was mediocre. Not amazing but certainly not terrible. Some good dishes, some not so great. We ordered nachos our first meal and you could see the outline of the square, not fully melted cheese atop the chips. Finally, the service. The wait staff and housekeeping were so hard working and kind. Wonderful people. However, the overall service was way below par, especially at the lobby and on the beach. Waiting for 20-30 minutes to see a waiter to order beach drinks is not ok. No one ever walking around taking drink orders at the pool. You are expected to get up and wait in line at the bar to get your drinks. The lobby staff was the worst. They seem to make you wait until 3:00 to check in no matter how full the resort is. We arrived on a Tuesday and, though it was quite clear the resort was not near full capacity, we were told to wait an hour and a half until 3 to get our room key. Every single guest we spoke to had the same waiting until 3 experience. I understand this is expected high season when every room is taken, but when the resort is not at capacity, this is unacceptable. I mentioned our phones were broken. I had to hike up to the lobby to order room service. At the desk I asked for the receptionist to arrange for the same meal to be delivered the following morning at 6:30 so we could eat before our departure. She said she would and wrote it down. Not only did it never come, we found out room service doesn’t even open until 7. We never got our breakfast. If you are looking for crazy nightlife, this is not your resort. We enjoy something in between crazy and quiet and RH did deliver. Silent disco and live piano music were great fun. Speaking of nightlife, RH does balance the day life pool fun perfectly. Some great music, but not too loud, a little water aerobics and an amazing electric guitar performance (he was fantastic) were great poolside activities. You don’t have the blaring music and gaggles of drunk adults barely able to stand that you find at some of the larger resorts. Don’t get me wrong, the drinks were flowing, but it was civilized. There is no in pool swim up bar and we didn’t miss that. In conclusion I’ll repeat myself, you get what you pay for and you don’t pay for much at RH. Next trip we will definitely be happy to pay more for nicer aesthetics and better service. That is, unless, RH learns to step up their game. The location, layout, infinity pool overlooking the gorgeous beach all give RH potential to be simply the best. Who knows, maybe they’ll get there. I...