El Dorado Casitas Royale — Hotel in Quintana Roo

Ok, let's start with the short version, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES JOIN THEIR EXOTIC TRAVELERS VACATION CLUB. If you get past my opening statementand want to know more, please read on. This review is ridiculously long, but accurate. My wife and I joined up with Exotic Travelers Club in 2017 (their version of a timeshare)...I know, I know, first mistake. But at first it was fantastic. Then there was a change in management, perhaps a couple somewhere in the first couple of years. None the less, my wife and I visited many of their El Dorado properties between 2017 and early 2020. The covid happened, and we still came out braving the airports, flights, and taxis with a devil may care attitude that said "we love these resorts and the people who depend on these jobs to support their families" and we showed up in support. Once the covid scare subsided and the world returned to a sense of normalcy, that's when the problems set in. We used our "exclusive" membership to book a room for ourselves and another for our neighbors and good friends at the Margaritaville resort in Puerto Morelos in Nov 2022. The promise of a relaxing vacation with good friends sounded too good to pass up. Nope, train wreck. Neither party was put into the rooms we were promised and paid for, the individual service was non-existent, and one of our party ended up with violent food poisoning. We thought it was a fluke since we weren't at our usual resort, and we went on a trip in Dec 2022 to Azul beach resort with our teenage daughter. Which in hind sight was originally booked at Margaritaville, but we had to make a change in our reservation dates 45 days after we made the initial reservation but dates were no longer available for our vacation, and granted we were still 11 months out, but they couldn't accommodate us, so we ended up booking at Azul. As our vacation was getting near, I received an email from Exotic Travelers for a sale, so I looked up our dates we had booked and found a 2 room suite for a small amount over what we had originally paid for the room with a pull out couch bed. I called the Exotic Travelers concierge number to inquire and change our existing reservation (paying the difference in fees of course) and was told since we were so close to our existing reservation that we were subject to black out dates. In the contract I signed to become a member, no where does it state that I am subject to black out dates. Once we arrive at the resort, we had the misfortune of losing a bag in transit by the airline. No fault of the resort, of course, but we had to spend a day off property replacing the missing clothing and sundries needed for a week long vacation. When we got back to the room, a rather large puddle had formed in the entry of the room stemming from the toilet. We called maintenance, they came out an hour later, cleaned up the water, told us it was fixed, and left. Then the rain started. The next morning, the toilet lake in the entry of the room was back, and now it was joined by a rain water fall coming from the cold air return in the ceiling. We took all of the extra blankets, sheets, and towels to attempt to absorb the rain/toilet deluge forming in our hotel room and moved all of our suit cases and belongings out of the way of the steadily forming pond of rain and toilet water. We called and explained about the un-requested water sports park forming in our hotel room and were finally granted access to another room, the day before we were set to fly back home. Amongst all of the unfortunate things that happened regarding plumbing emergencies, we were told on numerous occasions that we did not need to make reservations at any of the restaurants at the resort. I thought this odd, since reservations were required at the other properties we've stayed at previously, but nights 1 and 2 we were seated promptly. Night 3, however, and after dealing with 2 days of toilet/ rain water deluge, we were told by the restaurant we arrived at for dinner that reservations were required and were turned away from eating dinner...

We checked in on Sunday, October 13th, 2024 with some friends. My receptionist at the Casita registration was not very helpful. Language barrier was horrible. However, our friends got a wonderful person and was able to help us as far as making reservations for the restaurants. If this person would not have helped we would not have been able to eat that evening except for room service. You need to have an evening buffet for easy access for people who cannot get reservations, arrive late or did not know exactly where they wanted to eat . I've heard a lot of people that we spoke with at the resort complain about the lack of communication with your staff and with the. people that are vacationing there. Also, we had a concierge named Jacob who is a joke!! The only time we literally got to see him was when we walked out of the concierge office and said hello and goodbye. Never once did he reach out to us until we had to call our Beach Bum travel agent and complain about the situation then, and only then, after we went up to the office (several times) did he even remotely try to help us. He is a joke!! He informed us that he was "NOT our private butler" and blew us off due to the fact that he didn't want to have to deal with the questions that we had and the negative feedback we were giving him. That's when he said he had another customer and couldn't help us any longer. We also texted him a few times and Never did we hear from him. Elizabeth did come and speak with us, which I assume was the prodding of our travel agent. We had dead crabs in our walkout out pool (still wondering how they got there, and they were large)Your hot tubs did not work, which were in another area of the resort. It was like sitting in a bacteria infested hot bath. Jets did not work. Walk out Pool was dirty even though they did skim it. Things were constantly in it. We paid for an all-inclusive resort and we got a non-inclusive resort. We had to bribe the bartender with pre-paid tips before getting the top shelf liquor (which we paid for with our trip). You need to have specific maps of your resort, not these teeny tiny brochures that you offer. They're a joke. Also the TV in our room 2904, channels 4 and 5 which are the room service menu and the activity schedule we were unable to get. We had to rely on our friends who could get the channels in room 2910. However their room phone did not work for several days even after they called numerous times to have it fixed. Also, after being to our room twice they were never able to fix our TV. Your lounge chairs in the walk out pool should be disinfected and sanitized. They are filthy! Also, it is my understanding that you had a new app for your guests to be able to use and navigate the resort. Unfortunately that was a joke also because it did not work. We were told it was a new app and had glitches. These  glitches should be worked out before people pay thousands of dollars to come to your resort to Have a stress-free time. But end up being more stressed by being there.. this is not only my opinion but numerous people's opinions that we made friends with. I would never, ever recommend this resort to anyone! We have traveled all over and not experienced anything as we did here the concierge. Jacob should be a groundskeeper person. This was a big bone of contention with us as there was a concierge in our area walking the pool and talking with people. His name was James Brown. He even reached out and texted Jacob telling him where we were and please come and see us, as we were at the pool. We never saw him, nor did he try to reach out to us. He is a big reason why I would not ever go there again. The family side is wonderful with a swim out pool area at each room. The pool is humongous. They have activities there such as grilling out during different times of the day, wine tasting, etc. nothing at the adult side!!! And the bar stays open later in the evening. What's up with that? That's a children's/family side, not the all-inclusive adult side, which the bars close at the pools at 5:00...

The person who handled our check in was clueless. He ended up having to call for help to check us in and explain the changes to a signed Exotic contract. We ended up in 3101, 1 of 4 Emerald rooms on the El Dorado Royale property. The problems began immediately with the second bathroom. Instead of having a proper countertop (glass & marble), it was a piece of painted plywood. The toilet did not flush–it was about to overflow. If I had not shut off the toilet, there would have been human excrement everywhere. Only high pressure air came out of the faucet.Doesn’t anybody evaluate the rooms before check in? Then went to “dressing room / closet” only to find multiple scuff marks everywhere

We went to Habb for dinner. We were 10 minutes late for our reservation, and then had to wait an additional 15 minutes to get to the hostess only to rudely be told we would not be seated because we were 25 minutes late. Had to be 80 degrees in the restaurant, and half the tables were empty. They were clearly understaffed.

La Isla–who would set up an outdoor seafood lunch buffet when its 90 degrees out? The seafood was not kept cold enough. I tried an oyster, spit it out, and we left immediately.

We went to use the beach beds. Pillows were moldy; the bed was not made up. The next day was the first time we saw our beach butler after being at the resort for 4 days. Oversight? Never seen vendors or guards with machine guns on the beach. They would bother us every day. Forget the beach, not that there is much of a beach.

For the duration of our stay there was construction going on as they were rebuilding a staircase in the room next to ours. So much for serenity.

Turn down service was awful–They never refreshed towels at night. One day we had to use the towels by the jacuzzi, and they were not replaced for the duration of our stay. 2 of the 4 remotes did not work. Alerted the butler, and maintenance came and said the two that work will work in either room. The sliders are rusty and difficult to move. Door locks were even worse. We had to leave the door ajar to the delight of the mosquitos. The curtains did not move smoothly along the tracks. One night the wand came off in my hand as I was trying to close the curtain. The AC in the bedroom died. The filter had dust an inch thick on it. That’s a health hazard, gross and affectedour ability to sleep. We came back to our room after breakfast. The lounge chairs outside our room were not made up nor were our beach beds. I found a 2” rusty screw on the walkway to our outdoor dining area. The walkway was in need of repair. I called our butler to the room and asked her to see the general manager. We repeatedly tried to get to the manager, and were blocked at every turn. Attention to detail was nonexistent. Lots of lip service. Cesar Contreras is the Member Care manager. He might as well be the director of excuses and deflection. Other than trying to constantly baffle us with BS, he did absolutely nothing to help us. Ditto for other people who were supposed to help us–Lorena Loeza the head financial officer and Soraya Nassar; the senior Exotic representative, both of whom did the dump and run never to be heard from again.

On our last night, we came back from dinner and realized that the AC in the living room was not working. I went flying as I slipped on a large puddle on the floor. Our butler called maintenance and they never came.

The information database iscompromised. We get many calls from fraudsters asking to buy our nights. Flyback is a joke. Exotic sells it to you & when problems arise they disappear. We could not wait to go home. Even though we are members, we will never go back. It feels like a house of cards about to implode. I would never recommend any resorts under the Grupo Lomas umbrella. All you have to do is do a simple search on the web to uncover many people who have enormous problems with Exotic Travelers. Isn’t it funny that when you write a bad review, you get a generic response from the hotel manager who does not provide any...