Paradisus Playa del Carmen - Riviera Maya

The best part of the hotel is Celcius bar - Raymundo, Edilberto, Roderi, Angel, and Abisail all know how to trear their guests with 5 star costumer service and above!! Nelson from Capella’s was amazing! Everyone who works here should take note on how they treat people! Thank you for making this a great trip even with some unfortunate circumstances, Hector and Gabriela were able to make up for it.

We recently stayed at Paradisus Playa del Carmen (part of the Meliá Hotels International group), and while there are a few positives, this was ultimately one of the most frustrating resort experiences we’ve had. Let’s start with the good—because there is some. The resort itself is absolutely beautiful. The grounds are well-designed, the decor is stunning, and everything is kept impressively clean. Many of the staff were genuinely warm and welcoming, and the kids had an amazing time with the pools and activities. Now…the rest. We traveled as a group with three separate rooms (a mix of standard and family suites), and it didn’t take long to notice a very obvious—and frankly uncomfortable—class system. Room service from a “standard” room versus a family suite felt like ordering from two entirely different hotels. For something marketed as “all-inclusive,” it quickly became clear that very little is actually included unless you’re willing to keep paying more. And that’s really the theme of this resort: upselling. Constant, relentless upselling. Want a nicer spot by the pool? Pay extra. Want a better experience? Upgrade. Want five minutes of peace without someone trying to sell you family photos? Good luck—someone comes by about every 20 minutes. By day two, you start to feel less like a guest and more like a walking wallet. Now let’s talk about the food—because it deserves its own warning label. I’ve worked in food and beverage for years and travel often specifically for food experiences, so this isn’t said lightly: the food here is truly awful. The buffet was consistently filled with cold, stale, or oddly mushy dishes that were largely inedible. The à la carte restaurants somehow managed to be even more confusing—think “Italian cheesecake” topped with Parmesan cheese (yes, really). At one point, children in our group were served pasta that wasn’t even fully cooked. It felt less like dining and more like a culinary dare. Unfortunately, the issues didn’t stop there. Upon check-in, the problems started immediately—our room’s toilet and sinks didn’t work at all. After maintenance “fixed” it, we were left with a toilet that made a loud, screaming noise for five full minutes every time it was flushed. Not exactly the relaxing, luxury experience you’d expect. More seriously, one member of our group had money stolen from their room. When this was brought to the front desk’s attention, the response was not only unhelpful—it was incredibly inappropriate. Two security officers escorted our family members back to their room and proceeded to rifle through each and every one of their personal belongings, insisting they had to search everything themselves “just in case” the money was still there. The entire situation felt invasive, accusatory, and completely mishandled. Beyond this extreme and uncomfortable search, no apology was ever offered—just shrugs. On top of that, we were told we couldn’t take something as simple as a banana from the buffet back to our room for a child—despite clearly seeing others do the same. Another guest in our group was refused a bottle of water (at an all-inclusive resort!) and met with surprising rudeness when asking. By the end of the trip, the message was very clear: if you’re not part of their premium “Circle” membership, expect to be treated like a second-tier guest. In short, while the property is beautiful and some staff are wonderful, the overall experience is overshadowed by poor food, inconsistent service, aggressive upselling, and a noticeable lack of basic hospitality. If you’re considering this resort: either be prepared to spend significantly more than you planned—or consider staying somewhere else entirely.

If you've never done an all-inclusive resort before, you may like this one. If you're like us and you've been to many all-inclusive resorts where you've had stress-free vacations, you may not want to stay here. We came for spring break and expected it to be busy, but most resorts increase staffing to account for the crowds, and we booked the Family Concierge, so we thought we would be taken care of. We didn't expect the concierge to lie to us repeatedly, and we were so stressed out during the whole trip that we were happy to leave. 1. Hands down the worst and most stressful part of our trip was the kids club. FALSE ADVERTISING: the Kidsdom hours are NOT 9a-10p...the hours are 9a-2p, 3p-5p, and 6p-10p. Each time slot is considered separate, and you have to line up early for each session to make sure that your kid gets 1 out of the only 15 available slots. Exactly when do you get to chill and relax? You cannot make reservations so you have to wake up early and feed your kid breakfast, then take them down to the kids club to line up before they open at 9am, hope that the 15 available slots do not fill up. They do not have any food or snacks for your kid and they expect you to leave your pool/beach spot (which hopefully doesn't get taken while you're gone) to take your kid out to feed them. But once you take them out, your kid's spot is gone...there are no "in and outs". The kids club closes from 2-3pm, and then you have to line up again before 3pm to sign your kid up again for the afternoon session, which is also not guaranteed a spot because it's considered separate from the morning session. Then you have to pick up your kid by 4:45pm, feed them something, and then line up again by 6pm and hope that they get one of the evening spots. The Family Concierge kids activity on Sun, Tues and Thurs is a joke. They are scheduled for 2-3pm, you must have reservations from your concierge, the activity only took 20min, and they expect you to stay there outside the room to wait for your child to finish. The Kidsdom morning session does take your kiddo to the kids pool, but at the 3pm session, you have to have fed your kid and changed them into dry clothes or they won't let them attend. Every day was a struggle and took away from any time to rest and relax. 2. The app does not work at all. They will tell you it's "down right now", but it is not functional. 3. If you book from an outside source (we did a package with Costco), you will not be able to access anything ahead of your trip. We heard that some people who booked direct from the resort were able to contact their concierge to make dinner reservations ahead of their trip. Unluckily for us, that means restaurants were booked, leaving us with little dining options. 4. Our Family Concierge told us every night the restaurants we wanted to go to were booked. Every day was stressful hoping for a cancellation and not knowing what time or where we were eating. When you look at the restaurants, they are at half capacity even though they are booked. I suspect it's poor staffing/planning on the resort's behalf. 5. Our Family Concierge was not much help. She sent generic texts with the daily schedule. We got a lot of excuses like "I'm so sorry it's so busy right now but I'll see what I can do", but then nothing was done. Our concierge often didn't respond to our texts, and then she even LIED TO US when she told us she had a cabana for us, but when we checked with the pool concierge, they had no idea what she was talking about. 6. The pool area was busy and when we tried to do what everyone else was doing, going out to the pool early in the morning to lay out our stuff, security bagged all of our things and put them by the pool concierge. The pool cabanas (which cost extra) all were booked 2 days out, so strongly suggest on your first day you go to the pool concierge to see what days are available for you to book a pool cabana. We said screw it and paid 1200mxn/person for a Bali bed/Cabana at Kanna Beach Club (see below). 7. The reception area at the Family Concierge had only 1 person there at a time, so expect a long wait time for both check in and check out. The good parts: 1. The food at the restaurants - if you can get a reservation - is great. Our favorite was the Italian restaurant, Capella. 2. Housekeeping put cute stuffed animals, games, and beach toys in the room for our kiddo. 3. Kanna Beach Club is 1200mxn/person but well worth it on during busy season. You have a reserved spot 10-5p and can book in advance. The money you pay for the Bali bed (which is covered) goes toward your food, and drinks are included. We were nowhere near running out of food credits by the time we left. Service was fantastic, the food was great. 4. The Family Concierge beach was lovely with a bar that serves alcohol, so you can get your drinks yourself, but there is no beach food or drink service. There were plenty of loungers. Only problem was if there was any wind, you could not open the umbrellas and so you would bake in the sun. There was hardly any shade. They did do a decent job of cleaning up the seaweed. Overall this resort did NOT live up to what was advertised on its website. We were there for spring break, so it was understandably busy, but we've been to other resorts for spring break and it has never been this bad. We spoke with many other families during our time here and found that they were having very similar issues. The Family Concierge and Kidsdom were underwhelming and I can safely say this is the LEAST relaxing vacation we've ever had.

Never coming back or recommending this resort AFTER the fact when we signed in to be with our family, you split us up & our rooms were on the OTHER side of the campus, you made it DIFFICULT for us in EVERY way. Keep the families together for christ sake!!

We've had wonderful experiences at Paradisus, have been twice now and plan to return yearly. There is so much for kids to do between the pools, beach, and waterpark, but my kids favorite part was Kidsdom (the childcare/ daycare). We'd only use them for like 3 hours each day, but our kids were asking to go back. The teachers are fantastic! Shout out to Yessenia, Yadira, Lety, & especially Jocelyn for making our kids feel so welcomed and cared for and giving them such a fun and memorable experience!