Paradisus Playa Del Carmen - Riviera Maya - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

16656 reviews

• 

  Avoid

  I’ve stayed at about 6 resorts in Mexico over the last 8 years, this one by far the worst. Similar to others experience, the resort is confusing and I left disappointed in my family’s stay: 1. Restaurant bookings. If you are booking this resort any other way than thru Meliá directly (which ownes Paradisus), forget about getting a decent restaurant. When you book thru Melia directly the family concierge reaches out a week before your arrival to get your restaurants booked for dinners during your stay. My family booked this resort thru a travel agent 6 months prior to our arrival meaning when we got to the resort all the restaurants were booked solid with nothing left for us. I can’t review the restaurants but I can review the buffet as I ate dinner there most nights. The food was at best average and when an item ran out the staff was very slow to bring more. 2. Lounges at the pools. Upon arriving it was clear to see there were significantly more guests at this resort than lounges. You have to be out by the pool at 6am to get your spot for the day. Most resorts if you show up to a pool mid day you won’t get a prime spot, but you’ll get a spot. Here people just have to basically drop their stuff on the ground in order to go for a swim. 3. Daily room cleaning. Basically it happens at random. We stayed for 7 days and were out of our room most of the day, had the “make up room” sign out but the room was only cleaned 2 out of 7 days. This is a basic service the resort should have figured out. I shouldn’t have to chase staff in my vacation to clean our room. 4. Staff. Some staff are friendly but some not so much. I’ve been to several resorts in the area where the staff are happy you are there but not here. I recall bartenders specifically when my kids were getting drinks pouring the drink and putting it on the edge of the bar closest to them where my kids couldn’t reach it. Seriously? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing multiple times. 5. Family concierge. I’m not sure what these people do all day. They’re supposed to be your go to for everything at the resort but what I got was a lot of instructions from them rather than action. Want to book a pool cabana, go talk to that person at the pool. I expected them to be booking it for me ( as is described in the write up). Then you talk to the pool concierge and they say talk to the family concierge. The run around never stops. All in all, my family arrived on a Sunday and by Tuesday I was ready to go home. There’s lots of options in the area but I would avoid this one.

  Mar 27, 2025
• 

  Best bartender at resort.

  Jesus was the best bartender at the resort. Really took care of us and was super friendly and made us feel at home! He’s amazing! Love him! If you’re there, look for him at the South Bar!! Made the best cocktails and pretty much whatever you wanted!

  Mar 26, 2025
• 

  Great experience but could use some improvements

  After reading mixed reviews i wasn’t sure what to expect. Here is my honest opinion about this resort. Overall we had a great experience. I travelled with my 3 and 4 year old. They had a blast. The hotel really works around entertaining the children. There are several activities organized per day and every night there was a different show. There is also a kids club sort of like a daycare, where you can leave your children and go enjoy yourself. The staff is very nice and welcoming. Just as we arrived we had someone help bring up our luggages to our room. For the food, the buffet is quite limited with the choices of food. I got tourista 1 night after eating at the buffet and got very sick the same night after eating at the ibana restaurant. My family ate as well and they were fine however i ate shrimp and they didnt. The a la carte restaurants are hell to reserve. The culinary desk opens at 9am but there is always a line up so its best to arrive atleast 20 minutes before. And after waiting over 40 minutes in line to finally reserve the restaurants i get told there is only space in 3 days and starting 9:30 pm. Keep in mind i have two children that are normally in bed by that time. Not convenient at all. Also it is almost impossible to have a chair by the pirate ship pool unless you are waking up at 5am and putting your personal belongings on the chairs you want to reserve. As if thats what you feel like doing while you are on vacation. There are also cabanas available. You are lucky if you can get a hold of one. The closest ones to the pool need to be rented but no where is it written that it needs to be reserved. We were told by the man giving out the towels that it costed 100$ per day to rent. Other people were told 75$ and others were told 35$. And when you go ask the front desk they tell you to go see the person giving out the towels. There is no fixed price so who knows if they are just trying to make money off of our heads. The aqua park is cool. There are slides and a little pool section for the younger kids. There is food that you can order and they bring it directly to where you are seated. There is also ice cream, drinks and cups of snacks such as fresh cut fruit and veggies. The rooms are very well cleaned, our towels were changed everyday and water was brought in our room. I also loved that theres a nespresso bar open 24 hrs!! Overall we had a great time and would most likely go back.

  Mar 26, 2025
• 

  Perfect hotel for young kids with some kinks

  We just returned from five nights at this resort and since I relied heavily on reviews to help me make my decision (esp for such a $$$ trip), I wanted to share our experience as well for some pointers and any of the "cons" we encountered were not at all deal breakers but more just things to be aware of: *This hotel is perfectly suited for families with young kids who are happy to stay at the resort 24/7. Our kids are 5 and 8 and loved nothing more than playing at the pools all day, every day. We used the pirate ship pool, the family concierge pool (our favorite) and the water park. The water park is great for stronger swimmers (the water around the slides is deep) and they have a splashpad for younger swimmers. We did not see many families with kids older than 9-10. *Like every other warm weather hotel I've been to, there is an issue with finding pool chairs. Yes, you need to go down and reserve a chair early in the AM (i.e. by putting something on it). And don't be that guy who puts your stuff on multiple chairs and then doesn't come until lunch time or at all. There's a lot of that going on here and it can be hard to find a place to sit. *Family concierge: When booking the trip it did not give me the option to purchase a room outside of the family concierge tier so that is what I did. However, aside from access to the family concierge pool (which we loved!) and the lunchbox restaurant (also loved), I am unclear what the benefit is. As you'll see in other reviews, the concierge service itself is a bit lacking. They are sometimes unresponsive or unhelpful and I did not feel necessary to the experience. Like someone else mentioned, I had no idea about the complimentary cenote trip or games room until reading a review here after we returned. *Restaurants: I have been to all inclusives before so I feel my expectations were in line with how the food would be. You should not be going there expecting to be blown away by the food. The food here was great for an all inclusive (we never tried the buffet FYI). LOVED the coffee bar and the kids ate at the ice cream place every day. Our favorites were Celsius for our daily poolside lunch and Lunchbox for breakfast and lunch too. From reading the reviews I knew making dinner reservations was a whole ordeal so I tried to be proactive and contacted the hotel before our trip. It took *many* emails and literally three weeks of me following up to get confirmation the day before we left of our reservations. I only booked 3 nights of meals because I knew we wanted to go into Playa as well but our concierge did proactively book us dinners for our other two nights which I appreciated. In talking to other guests and seeing reviews it seems this is a big pain point for people they need to remedy. *Tipping: we came with the expectation we would be tipping frequently however *some* things felt as though they were only done for the tip. For example, we had to wait awhile to check in because we got there early and were assured our bags would be brought up when the room was ready. However, by the time we made it to the room almost an hour after check in time because we had been at the pool (4p), our bags still weren't there. So we call and someone brings them up and we tip them but it would have been nice if the bags were already in the room for us as we were told they would be. Also, I forgot to leave a bit $$ for housekeeping each day; the day I remembered we received turn down service that night. Which was lovely! But I couldn't help but wonder if that was to be included every night and we hadn't gotten it or if we got it because I happened to leave a tip that day. In essence, the onus shouldn't be on the guest to tip in order to receive a certain standard of service. *Transportation to/from airport: just a heads up, the company recommended by the hotel (Otium) was more than twice ($375) what we paid through USA Transfers ($150). We had 0 issues and it was a seamless process. All in all we had an awesome time, everyone was exceedingly friendly and I very much miss my daily pina coladas. The kids had a blast and were asking if we could come back before we had even left. Our room was spacious and maybe not the most modern but had everything we needed and we were happy to relax and hang out at the pool all day with some dabbling at the beach and looking at the coatis. Highly recommend this for young kids!

  Mar 26, 2025
• 

  Poor Family Concierge Experience

  I wanted to love this place and had friends who stayed here and had a great experience. Unfortunately ours was not the same. PROS -Beautiful Location -Swim up suites are great for easy access to the pool -The other pools were nice -Misc staff around the hotel were very nice CONS 1. There was no communication before hand about the need to book restaurants weeks in advance. And when I asked about restaurant reservations (in response to a survey they sent regarding my interests)- they booked random times and then said that was all they could do because there was no way to contact me since I did not book directly. The tone of the message was admonishing me for not booking directly. However the hotel had already been in contact with me via the American Express travel chat/email. 2. We paid for the family concierge but our concierge provided little to no value. 2A. On arrival, our concierge told us he works from 9am-5pm but on our second day he did not work until 3pm. We had to reach out to the general concierge for help with a restaurant reservation change. However the other concierge never made the change, and when our concierge arrived at work- he never told us that he didn't see the "new" reservation in the system- though I referenced it several times in our text thread. We arrived at the restaurant at 9:30pm with no reservation and few options. Luckily, the Capella restaurant manager took pity on us and made an accommodation and seated us. 2B. Our concierge did not tell us about the complimentary excursion to the cenote that was included in the family concierge package. He also did not tell us about the game room located off the main lobby. He sent us a daily general text of the activities but totally lacked in sharing information about activities and benefits that were exclusive to family concierge guests. 3. On our last morning there was a LARGE roach in our bathroom.

  Mar 25, 2025