The Royal Haciendas All Suites Resort & Spa — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

The good: rooms are nice, beautiful views, clean staff generally were friendly & accommodating grounds are maintained very nicely & the entire resort felt clean. Despite being older it is maintained well The jacuzzi tub on the balcony was lovely & hot Good AC & wifi The beach area was as nice as it can be (the beach is eroding so there are lot of roots & rocks in the water) they do serve you food & drinks to the beach chairs but service was slow The shrimp thermidor at the steakhouse was amazing. One of the best meals Ive had! The mashed potatoes served with it could have come with more but great overall. breakfast buffet was good with lots of options & sitting outside on the water was beautiful teppanyaki restaurant was great, the food & the service. Worth it to try & get a table at the grill Drinks were yummy & they had lots of frozen drink options made quite quickly

The bad: rooms are quite outdated food (besides the 2 restaurants you can book) is really bad. Everytime we ordered something wed have 2 bites & then set it aside. The food was like something youd get at a low end waterpark or beach concession stand. The lunch “buffet” was just salad & tacos with very minimal toppings or options. Breakfast buffet was good but missing a few things like no ketchup to go with the hashbrowns, no bacon… We only stayed for a weekend, & were already so tired of the food. Cant imagine staying 7-10 days “towel service” is far from the beach or pool & you have to sign out a towel by scanning your room key & signing a receipt. Annoying when theres no beach / pool towels in the room, also nowhere clear to leave the wet towels when youre done so had to walk back to the towel service desk to switch them out its not all inclusive. A lot of the restaurant food & room service options are additional paid options. The “steak house” had ZERO steaks included in the all inclusive price which is absolutely insane There are food options on the room service menu that isnt included for all inclusive guests, but isnt stated anywhere that it isnt included which is frustrating No entertainment or shows like you expect at other resorts some guests arent all inclusive so you have to sign for everything when you get food or a drink and are left constantly waiting forever for a bill. I felt the whole trip I was going to receive a bill with charges on it because I accidentally ordered something that wasnt included, so that little bit of anxiety was there every time I ordered which shouldnt be at an all inclusive The staff had an attitude sometimes. The breakfast buffet was empty & we asked to sit on the other side where the sunrise was, the hostess rolled her eyes at us & huffed. The room service staff got annoyed if you ordered more than one thing in the same night. Because of the bills, youre also expected to tip every single time you get something The pizza on the room service menu arrived completely burnt. The next night we decided to get pizza from Lunas which the front desk staff told us was better. Lunas wouldnt allow us to take the pizza to go & said wed have to sit there & eat it in front of them otherwise its an extra charge. We didnt ask them to deliver it to the room, just wanted to take it with us. Really ridiculous Theres nowhere to get a drink or something to eat before the pool bar opens at 11am. As an early riser who ate breakfast at the buffet at 7am, its a long stretch to go without food or a drink. You cant get a drink or a quick snack anywhere unless you wait in line & get seated at the breakfast buffet again. Would be nice to be able to have a coffee or juice on the beach before 11am

Overall, if youre looking for an all inclusive resort experience, this is not the one to go to. Especially for the price, even at a discounted rate, the food isnt worth it. Stay elsewhere & enjoy your time more! There are so many better all inclusives that have more...

Summary: people said Royal Haciendas was a great all-inclusive hotel (before Covid), but now they are offering a terrible service -- and it looks like they don't care much about it!

If you want more details: Dust and noise: there was a site construction in front of our bedroom. This has meant constant noise throughout the day, since doors are not soundproof, as well as a dust-covered jacuzzi and balcony. We spent quite a long time in our bedroom because of our 15-month-old baby, and having to wash a jacuzzi prior to using it, and tend to a waking baby due to the noise was not pleasant (see video I posted together with this review).

Terrible lunch service: they had only 2 restaurants serving lunch (both outdoor), and there wasn't a single day where lunch was served without at least a 45 min wait. On a given day, my wife and baby waited for 1h and 40 min to get food, temperature around 38°C -- and the only reason it didn't take longer was because she kept begging the waiters every 20 min for urgency because she had an upset, hungry child with her. This is absolutely unacceptable in any restaurant, but it's extra upsetting when you're in an all-inclusive.

Service at the main restaurant: during peak breakfast and dinner hours, a single waiter was handling tons of tables, and the 2-3 servers at the buffet have lines of 4, 5 people at every station. We've had lines for simple things like getting a loaf of bread. We've had to go hunt for a highchair ourselves after asking a couple of workers (and not getting one). We've had to go into the carts ourselves and grab utensils because they forgot to give them to us when we arrived and we couldn't find any waiters to help.

Dinner availability: While checking in, we were told dinner needed reservations. We immediately went to the reservation desk, and the person in charge of it told us there were no openings for ANY of the nights we were here. We were told to "keep trying" directly with the restaurant front desks. This has meant that, instead of enjoying my vacation, I needed to keep going up to my room for a phone call, or to the restaurant doors several times a day to beg for a room for a nice dinner with my family, without success.

Room service: I called to secure an early breakfast for a specific day. The representative refused to speak English (it should be bilingual) said I had to speak "ES-PA-ÑOL". I tried my best, but (because I was struggling to hear and understand her) I politely asked her to repeat a specific information a couple of times. She screamed -- it was not just being dry, she was seriously yelling her syllables -- at me because I asked her to repeat the question.

Room service #2: my family had to call if we needed water or soft drinks. They only refilled our fridge in one day.

Covid testing information: When checking in, no one brought up anything about Covid testing procedures. So when we arrived at the front desk to get testing scheduled 48 hours prior to our flight, the receptionist let us know we should have come 72 hrs before the flight to guarantee a spot. Needless to say, the hours between speaking to the front desk and the lab, and receiving the confirmation email were tense, as we were unsure if we'd be able to get the test results on time for our flight. This wouldn't even have happened if someone had simply given us this information when we first arrived.

After so many problems (and 2 nights before my departure), I asked to speak to a manager. He apologized, asked me to write an email with the issues I had experienced, said he would follow up with the employees, and helped my family with a dinner reservation for our last night. And that was it. No compensation, discount, nor refund.

So, if you are going to Mexico and want to spend a few days at Playa Del Carmen, please find another spot to stay! The Royal Haciendas hotel doesn't show commitment to their customers'...

Very disappointed with the service. The resort is small but the service we were expecting based on the reviews was to make up for that. It fell short. Pros: not a super crowded, busy resort the rooms are spacious but very outdated, tvs small and not all smart the reservation based restaurants (of which there are 2) have excellent service and food Alejandro in charge of events does an excellent job purified water used for all ice the kids have a nice splash pad area (not a “water park” ) there is a swing set and climbing structure for kids ( not a “playground”)

Cons: If you don’t have a gold band (part of the royal resort club/time share owner) expect below standard service room service never showed up for us you will likely be asked to change rooms on Saturday and at that time you’re left with no room for a few hours, this is because it’s a time share so owners come in Saturdays for various weeks. the bedding is very thin and the beds are very soft, not resort like and below Holiday Inn standards some of the staff at La Palapa are rude, not the wait staff, one in particular that stood out as very rude was Luisa. Difference in how she treated and seated gold members vs others. The concierge, Porforio, was not available even once for anything after we said no to the time share presentation. The man at the tourist center blew our mind, he advised us to walk around and look at other resorts as a way to entertain our kids, when I asked if we could go in, he said no, look from the outside. When I asked what he recommends for kids in terms of excursions, he said “nothing, the weather will improve, no point seeing the dolphins as it is a huge group so you only get a few seconds with them”…but guess he was being honest. They offer a shuttle to the city, it is a task to get back. You must pay to return and you’re at the mercy of the drivers, we had to fight not to be placed with 6 in a car with seats for 4. The soft serve ice cream machine and pancake maker broke down too many times to count on our stay. they ran out of rice so were unable to serve the menu offerings for sushi at the lobby bar restaurant (the rotunda) they do not have toast available for breakfast, you must toast your bread in a panini press my daughter was not well and no accommodations for the her were made though many say they do but they didn’t for us, perhaps because we aren’t gold members or they discriminate against colored individuals, we were unable to figure out what the issue was food takes extremely long to come to you, no matter where you are on the resort the beach is barely existent, don’t come here if you want beach the majority of the staff are not very friendly or warm, while they’re not all rude, several were rude and that is a no no for a small resort who should try and stand apart by service you will receive a bill at every restaurant as a means for them to ask for tips, it’s a zero bill, very weird. towel pick up and drop off is a very cumbersome process

Conclusion: This is not the ideal place for a family looking for a fun, family friendly all inclusive experience.. it was my children’s first experience so thankfully they don’t have anything to compare to. Myself and my husband were truly so very disappointed. This was our first vacation after a loss of a close family member. We were hoping to be somewhere less overwhelming but welcoming and we felt very unwelcome by staff.

We tried discussing our concerns with concierge and front staff but no one really seemed to care so we didn’t bother and made the most of the situation. We weren’t interested in the time share, so they weren’t interested in us we guess.

Do not go here if you don’t want to invest in...