TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Even though our experience wasn’t perfect, we absolutely loved the resort. Our reception upon arrival was very cordial. We stayed in the Del Mar section in the resort, which consists of their cheapest rooms. The only downside of this resort was a few details in our room that they ultimately fixed after I requested it. Our refrigerator was not cold, and we wanted to stash some drinks into it. Our TV remote didn’t seem to work. They sent security after I requested it because of drunks outside of our room making a lot of noise. The grounds were beautiful. I could see that they put a lot of care into upkeep. It is a natural setting, complete with mangrove swamp. The only negative to having this type of setting is mosquitoes. Take mosquito repellent! The resort is located on the beach, and we stayed in a building that was just a short walk from both the Trattoria buffet (for lunch) and the beach. The large swimming pool was also a short walk from our room. You can take a golf cart from pickup stations to get around the massive property. The restaurants are excellent. We ate at the Brazilian restaurant, El Puerto (pulled pork, brisket, and sausage served family style), and the Mexican restaurant. I think the Mexican restaurant was my favorite one. The quality of food and service were outstanding. There are many beach chairs on the beach, a bar, and a hamburger shack. We ate hamburgers and fries which were very tasty while at the beach. TIP: Watch your food! The coati family will be by to try to steal your food while you are at the beach. I saw one run by and grab a woman’s sandwich and take off with it. Also, a couple of people told me that the coati got to be a little aggressive when they were feeding them scraps of food. It might be a good idea not to feed the animals so that they will eat natural food and not beg from humans. I would definitely return to this resort. They really take good care of you there.

Here’s the good the bad and ugly! The good: nice staff, very helpful and accommodating. Great location, right on the beautiful beach. Right between Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Easy to get a taxi and get around. Make sure you use certified taxi’s! White cars with blue stripe! They have you download their app when you get there, which is very helpful in finding where you need to be for different restaurants as the resorts are huge! They also have golf carts that will take you all around the place which was really nice as well. There is also a drying rack on the balconies which was extremely nice to have. I cannot speak for the other rooms though. The not so great: as soon as we arrived and got checked in the concierge, pulled us off to the side to set up our dinner reservations, and get us signed up for a special breakfast at one of the sister hotels there, after reading the paper after I had signed it, I realized it was a presentation to get us to buy into their club level. I did not appreciate the fact that every single time we walked through the lobby they tried to get us to go to this breakfast and or get us to sign up for the club level. The food was ok. Not fantastic, and the breakfast option is one… the buffet, which isn’t fantastic. The food is a myriad of things from donuts to hotdogs cooked with potatoes. ALSO, you can’t order hard alcohol at the buffet. Which is totally fine, but when you get there late at night, after traveling all day long, you just want a salad and a margarita neither of which you can get. The water surrounding this hotel that makes up all of their water features is pretty nasty. I’m assuming they just don’t have a good filtration system, and so it is very murky full of algae and as soon as the sun starts to go down the mosquitoes are out! Please be sure and bring bug spray as the stuff there on site that’s for sale is almost $40 a bottle. They do have bug repellent in each room, but we did not use it so I cannot officially say how well it did or did not work . You have to have reservations for every single restaurant except the Buffet. And they only allow you three reservations per five day stay. The only food available after 11 again is at the Buffet as they are open until 1 AM I believe, but you are not allowed to take food out of the restaurant and back to your room and there is absolutely no room service. There might be room service if you become a club member, but we were not interested in that. There is a free coffee shop that is included with your stay, however, it is not located super close to this hotel. You can walk there, but it is not in the lobby like we had anticipated. It is down in the shopping center area. All of the shopping centers were basically the exact same stuff, and super overpriced and expensive. I believe it was the second night we were there the power and AC went out in my sons room. It took five hours for someone to show up and tell him that he just hast to flip the breaker every five minutes when it would go back off. Super frustrating! Our AC also quit working and they got it fixed in about an hour. The ugly: a lot of this resort was very rundown. We had chunks missing out of the ceiling of our balcony chipped, concrete everywhere including the pool. The pool is open from 8 to 8 but the bar opens between 1030 and 11 and closes at six. Also, the pool was so hot! They really needed to pipe in some cool water. There is plenty of sitting/lounging space though. There are activity people constantly walking around talking to you trying to get you involved in all the games and trivia and stuff that they play and they will not take no for an answer. My take away: if you want a place to hang out on a beautiful beach with a beverage this might be the place for you. If you are looking for somewhere with good food and atmosphere and people that are not so pushy, I do not suggest this hotel.

Absolutely beautiful hotel! It really exceeded our expectations, after staying in at least 10 other all-inclusive hotels/cruise ships. Great value for money. It was at only half capacity, which we loved :) Rooms: clean, wide, comfortable, great bed, sustainable cosmetics. Lazy people will say they are located far away from the beach… but we loved the walks in the jungle! If you like freezing cold AC, this hotel is not for you. Food: impressive variety and quality. Natural juices during breakfast! Restaurants look clean and organized. Best specialty dinner was at the Mediterranean. Good drinks and if you don’t like pre-mixed stuff, you can order your own mix. Down side is that restaurants don’t have AC, not an issue for me, but some relatives were sweating a lot. I’ve read complaints about the lack of single use plastics, I guess some folks just don’t understand the issue around sustainability. Kudos to Iberostar for their awesome initiatives in this area! Service: all employees are very attentive, friendly and helpful. Special thanks to Ianko (gym), Netza (security), Roger (bar) and Nare (animation). Housekeeping is impeccable. Pool: huge, beautiful, not crowded, quiet spaces, wet bars, many activities during the day. Down side: it closes at 7pm Nature: property is in the middle of a well preserved forest, lots of animals and trees, including peacocks, flamingos, macaws, coatis, boars, monkeys, birds, lizards and, of course, mosquitoes! :) Beach: plenty of space with sun-beds, bars, volleyball, workout area, great swimming and snorkeling. Down side is about water sports, third party service provider opens only from 10-3pm, only 1 out of 6 catamarans working, not respecting reservations, etc. Other: concierge guys are annoying and you need them in order to get reservations for specialty dinner. Don’t fall for the Iberostar membership presentation, we didn’t, but they do insist.

We enjoyed our week vacation at Paraiso Del Mar but it fell a bit short of our expectations having traveled to other five star resorts. As some others have stated this is more like a three star resort than a five star resort. If you know that before booking it, you will appreciate the resort for what it is. A beautiful place with, good food, a mix of wildlife and other eco friendly tweaks like no plastic water bottles and garbage sorting/ recycling. We understood cost savings and eco friendly when it came to limited A/C at the restaurants or a smaller menu at the buffet to cut down on waste. But things like NO top shelf liquor, you’re only allowed to book three of the restaurants for dinner on a seven night stay, the other four nights you have to have dinner at the buffet. There was no drink service anywhere you had to walk to get your own drinks and the bars weren’t very close unless you camped out right next to them. They had a small plaza which was nice but it serviced three or four other resorts so a trip to the coffee bar or the takito restaurant was a TRIP. So grabbing an afternoon iced coffee or a treat for the kid wasn’t easy or quick. There was no food option by the pool other than going to the buffet or a burger shack on the beach and the burgers were very low grade. So in my opinion they had less food options some what limited access to bars and no room service, so they had less staff and infrastructure to support. The least they could do is offer some top shelf options and a decent burger since you have to do all of the leg work yourself. A warning for those that may not like to walk much, you need to cover some ground to get your monies worth here. That being said we are walkers and did enjoy the jungle paths they had and many chances to encounter the local wild life. The pool was massive with plenty of options to find shade the same with the beach area. The staff worked hard and they did what they could for us but their attitude was clear they knew it was three stars as well. The E team was great the worked hard to keep things fun around the pool and for the night life. Thank you!! We may come back again but next time we will understand ahead of time that you get what you pay for. Getting an upgraded room here doesn’t come with any upgraded services. As well we will bring our own favorite bottle of tequila, a water jug and a container to bring some snacks to the room for the kids.

As usual, a beautiful stay at another Iberostar resort. My teen and I spent 4 nights at Paraiso Del Mar. We had an AMAZING time. It is important to say that we felt safe at all times within this large resort. The staff does a great job and everyone seems to be very courteous and professional. Things we loved: - The food was delicious everywhere!!! - The a la carte restaurants are amazing. The Japanese restaurant is super fun and interactive. The Mediterranean has delicious Octopus plus super tender beef short ribs dish. The shopping mall has great Tacos (taki-to); crepes, gelato and a great coffee shop with nice pastries. (All included regardless of which hotel you stay). - loved the frozen mango margaritas (with tajin) I liked them on the sweeter side. - daily coffee at the front lobby bar (cortados are so delicious). - the swim up bars were so convenient - the Ice cream shop by the swim up bar (yummy) - the waterfall/jacuzzi by the at the beginning of the pool was so much fun and a perfect deep tissue massage ;) - the water park at Lindo/Maya (if staying at Beach/del Mar you supposed to pay, but we didn’t and no asked us anything; we had a blast of fun - just walk right to it). - the lindo/ Maya side has a lazy river, wave pool and water slides- just walk right over to that side; you can enjoy the facilities ( not the bars/restaurants) - not a big deal. - and the best part the golf cart rides (what a blessing). So this could be a little confusing but not really; I’ll explain: Golf carts have stops and routes for each hotel (however they will drop you off in your desired location if within their hotel route; there is an inter lobby shuttle (golf cart) that also goes to the shopping mall. - the somewhat difficult/confusing part: there are many places to eat but everything is within designated hours, so your best bet is to use the Iberostar app. It’s a gateway to reserving a la carte restaurants and seeing their activities. Hope this was helpful to you.