Paradisus Princesa Del Mar

Big ups to customer service Rep Ada for coming through and making the trip what I was expecting ! Beautiful resort and staff, find out for yourself what it's all about, no negative no positive from me here just a content Traveler ?? ps : stayed on normal side with royal service bracelet

Our stay in the Royal Service part of the hotel was amazing especially due to exceptional service of its staff. Thank you Joel for your kind and professional assistance during our stay and all the restaurant reservations you made for us, Felix and Riga for exceptional entertainment, Virginia for preparing so delicious drinks and Daniel to make an interesting cook show in the Japanese restaurant. The hotel grounds are beautiful and well kept. Our room was very comfortable, clean and centrally located, just a few steps from the restaurant and reception, surrounded by the swimming pool. The private beach is wonderful and with plenty of sunbeds and beach bar. We enjoyed the evening entertainment, although the number of chairs available was limited. The disco bar is very spacious and has a nice atmosphere. I definitely recommend to stay at this hotel, especially in the Royal Service part and will be back soon.

We paid $1,200 per person, taxes in, from Canada and we felt that the resort had lots to offer for the price! The premises are gorgeous so is the pool area, the beach and the buildings! The food and service at the Japanese and Bamboo restaurants were really good! The meal at the Italian restaurant was ok! You walk on the premises and it is all so beautiful, people are well behaved and well mannered but as soon as you enter the buffet restaurant, it becomes chaotic because the size of the buffet cannot accommodate the number of people. The wait time at the egg station can be as long as 15 minutes, there are not enough plates so when a stack of plates comes out, people jump on it (same thing for ash browns and desserts), so people become impatient and cut each other off! It is not the employee’s fault; they work extremely hard and are really kind. The problem is with management; they are the decision-makers! The tropical drinks at the beach area are awful but the service is great; again, not the fault of employees! Overall, for the price we paid, we felt that it was well worth it and at that price, or even less, we would return in a heart beat! Hope this helps! Safe travels! Christine

  So I am going to try and be fairly detailed in regards to things. I am going to also address some of other peoples complaints. So we stayed at the the regular part as we did not want to pay extra for Royal service. The grounds where beautiful. We arrived and they did take our passports to check us in. They sad on the desk while they worked things out.  Our check in process took 20 minutes. However, my husband did ask for his passport back to go get some money while we waited and they gave it to him, to do so. I know there was one review that complained about this. They clearly didnt ask if they could take it to go get money because they happily did so. Our room was nice enough but the top sheet stunk. We told the maid the next day and she changed our sheets. So while there was a problem it was fixed upon request. Also, I saw people complaining about the maid not cleaning the room everyday. There is a card on your door handle that says clean room. If you want your room cleaned, put it on your door. Our room was cleaned everyday. Also people complaining there is only two beer in your fridge. This trick has worked at every single hotel i have ever stayed at. Place a dollar bill in an empty can of beer and put it back in your fridge. Once we did that we had 6 the next day. The buffet- I will say i had low expectation as i had never been to cuba before and my expectations where about right. The food wasn't great. The variety was limited. If you didn't get there early they often ran out of things. The pasta and fresh meat station always had pretty long lines. They ran out of ice cream a few times.  You  wont starve but you wont be wowed. The service we got from Marisol was amazing. Everyday she saw us and immediately waved said hello, seated us and then provided excellent service. We were sad we did not see her our last two days because she was so lovely and went over the top  to provide good service. We didnt find we were treated the same way by other buffet staff, good service but not as good as Marisol. The snack bar almost never had anything but ham and cheese and chicken sandwich. Especially late at night. It was a bit lacking in terms of variety to begin with but then they never actually had what was on the menu. Everynight we would try ordering  other things but they only had  those two sandwiches. They where good, dont get me wrong but really wanted something  different  by night 3. At the pizza restaurant (forget what i was call) they also ran out of food a lot.  The resort could do a better job of keeping things stocked, although i dont know how much of this has to do with the embargo. The beach was beautiful. We loved that there was someone there finding you a spot where you wanted it when you got there. It was so nice to not have to search for chairs your self. It was a nice touch.  There were always enough chairs, the music was good. There was also an unfortunate incident with someone who was snorkelling while we where there. We didn't actually see the beginning of it, we had arrived to the beach when they were already working on him. There was about 10 lifeguards working on him and more were running up from i believe royal service. They worked on the man for what felt like 15-20 minutes and they revived him. It was nice too see  how many life guards responded and that they worked so hard to revive him and respond. The pool is beautiful, clean and the pool bar staff is amazing.  However, they need more chairs. It was often frustrating to find chairs unless you got up at the crack of dawn. Every single chair had a towel on it. Especially on change over day. The pool bar had three ladies and one man mainly working and we loved all of them. They where quick an fun and they asked you how strong, so you could get as tipsy as you wanted too without getting stupid. If your drink was too strong they would adjust it. They where great. I would say the pool party was fun but i think foam would make it a bit more fun! (just my opinion but that seemed to be the consensus in the pool. The pool towels was frustrating.  The pools towels was also frustrating. It seemed like every time i went to switch my towel there were none. one time i went three times in the same day, no towels. The resort should really consider getting more because they shouldn't be out so often The french al a cart wasnt very good. The food was so similar to the buffet and they wanted you to pay 20 dollars extra for lobster. We already paid a lot to go to this resort, i am not paying another 20 for lobster, it should be included. The Italian  restaurant was really good but portions were small. We found out from someone else after that when they asked for more it was provided to them. So if you find the portion small ask for more, a tip i wish i knew before hand but not a huge deal cause the meal was great. The Japanese was the best. The lobby bar was great. The servers were mostly excellent. our favs were Yeni and Alexander. Everyone else was pretty good but they where so much faster than the others. Yeni was also so pleasant, chatting but not too much, so that she was still fast, always a smile. Alexander was by far the quickest on the bar, never waited long for your drinks even if busy The piano bar was awesome and the girl working the bar ( i dont remember her name) made the best pina coladas in the place. The piano bar was so much fun. The girl who played the piano was awesome and really got everyone into singing. It was a great spot. The cigar bar was also great for a drink and a cigar of course. Oscar was a fantastic bartender there. He was fast and on it. He would look over and all u had to do was nod and he would start your next drink and bring it over fast. The disco was fun, clean and the music was good. It was bumping most nights. The internet is frustrating. It lagged a lot. Although this isnt a huge deal, we were on vacation. When less people are on it, it lags less. So we called our kids at 7 am most days and it was fine then. To sum up, the resort is beautiful, the staff was amazing, the food could be better and have mode variety. They need to get more pool chairs and beach towels.

We were there at the end of November. The hotel is nice and clean, rooms are nice, even on the regular side. The staff are very friendly and helpful. Shows are great, just get a chair early or you'll be standing. Disco after the shows was good too. Lobby bar or piano bar is the place to be after the shows also. Beach is nice, sandflies during the day and a lot of mosquitoes at night and we forgot to bring bugspray??. Buffet was ok, it is Cuba after all but better than other places we've been to, although the beach restaurant was really good. Chicken and pork with bbq sauce, sweet potatoes, yams etc were good. Fries whenever they were in stock but went really quickly. If you don't get to the buffet early, they'll run out of stuff and sometimes don't replenish. The snack bar has a bunch of items but only had 1or 2 things in stock. We had tuna and ham and cheese to last a year lol. Their veggie sandwich is cabbage and cucumbers, we never had it but we saw others complain about that. The night shift only 1 person working sometimes and she got frustrated and it showed. Definitely needed 2 people at night time as that's the only place to eat. One couple got in on the late flight and waited 1 hour for a sandwich, they were hungry and upset which is understandable. The al a cartes, even though we had reservations, it took about 2 hrd at some. The Japanese and hilltop are the best though. As we share our experience, know that we're not picky and did make a LOT of friends both with staff and visitors and we do recommend giving this place a try. We had a very nice time overall and will return in the future.