Paradisus Palma Real Golf & Spa Resort

We just got here late last night and so far we are loving it! We spent the whole day at the adult only bar, 90 Degrees. Shout out to Alberto, Raysa, Olga. Excellent service! Ask for the special drink with ginger. Not too sweet or sour. It's perfect!

We stayed at Paradisus Palma real between December 28, 2024 - January 4, 2025. The pros: Surprisingly good food for Caribbean resort food, even the buffet, it really exceeded our expectations. It was significantly better than any other resort we’ve stayed at to date. The main lunch box buffet restaurant had a standard resort breakfast: juice, fresh fruit, breads, bagels, baked goods like sweet breads, pastries and cookies, pancakes, French toast, made to order omelette and egg stations, bacon, those small cereal boxes (froot loops, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies), yogurt, as well as some Dominican breakfast offerings etc. the lunch and dinner options were usually the same: pastas, pizza, breads, fries, pork chops, chicken, beef, shrimp, rice, beans, various vegetables, sushi, cheeses, charcuterie, soups, a salad bar with different lettuces, vegetables and dressings, and various Dominican dishes etc. they also had cook to order burgers which were quite good, and sometimes they’d have to the smokers out and cooking up different meats as well. Honestly, you’d probably be fine just hitting up the buffet for every meal.. they had something for everyone, it was similar to a cafeteria in North America, though it was a lot of the same stuff every day. They room service is included, we used it daily for our morning coffee; we never really ordered any food though. The ginger bar in the main lobby does both alcoholic drinks and coffee (though I think all the coffees were the same - espresso with a lot of milk lol) and they always had sweet breads, cookies, baked goods as well. Flora: the Dominican restaurant is quite good, we were both surprised to enjoy it. It seems to be the least busy restaurant on site, despite being the one that boasts a proper chef - I highly recommend trying it. They had a lot of fish dishes, but they also had beef & chicken dishes on the menu too. Kicks sports bar: they have TVs up and are playing college football and NFL, they played American rock music, it feels like an actual sports bar. They have an American pub inspired menu: cheese burger, hot dogs, fries, chicken wings, grilled cheese, chilli, fried chicken & waffles, meat loaf, ribs and some dessert options like banana splits, waffles & pancakes. Blue Agave: the Mexican restaurant was good. They had flautas, queso dip, a bunch of different types of tacos, fajita, quesadilla, enchillada etc on the menu. It was pretty good. They started with guacamole, pico de gallo and nachos which were good too. Mascalzone: the Italian restaurant - this was my favorite. They had mussels, veal, octopus, pizzas, calzones, fettuccine Alfredo, lasagna, etc. I really enjoyed the 4 cheese calzone, it was delicious. They gave you a focaccia table bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil to start. Mina: the steak house: This was probably our least favorite of all the restaurants we tried but that was because we personally just aren’t fans of the josper cooking method which they used.. if you like a smokey taste you will like it. They have starters such as potato croquettes, Caesar salad, garden salad, sausages, French onion soup and mains: veal (which is served like a steak) chicken, ribs, strip steaks, and potato and vegetable side dishes. Creme brulee, brownie and cheesecake for dessert. All the restaurants bring out a drink menu that you can purchase quality wines from at an additional charge as well as steaks/ lobsters. We never purchased any of the additional charge items, we just stuck with the free / included drinks and menu items which was fine for us, it was usually only one or two additional dishes at the restaurants that costed extra money and the majority was free / included. The bars around the property had name brand liquors which was included/ free, it seemed to only be the wines that they charged extra for, but they had house wines that are included at no extra charge at both the restaurants and bars. It is a beachfront property, and it is really quite beautiful, the loungers and palapas are all spaced out well and there are plenty of them - we never had to go out early to reserve them, despite the resort being very busy and the beach itself is very well maintained. I honestly don’t think there’s any room for improvement in this department, it was a perfect beach.. Other than maybe the vendors, but they’re everywhere down south - we politely said no thank you and they left us alone and never really bothered us. Most of the staff are very friendly, they seemed to always be smiling and go out of their way to say hi, they seemed pretty happy to be there and were pleasant to meet and be around which made for a very welcoming atmosphere. Most of the front line staff spoke English, however some of the cooks in the buffet and other staff didn’t speak English very well, and it would be good to either learn some basic Spanish or have a translator app on your phone to help ensure you can communicate with everyone. The resort itself is gorgeous, the gardens are all well maintained, the furniture and decor in both the rooms and the main areas are all beautiful, they keep the resort very clean and peaceful. The wifi is decent everywhere; they have boosters down at the beach to ensure you have connection everywhere on the property. We brought our fire stick and we’re glad to have it at night because most of the tv stations are in Spanish. I’m an antiquated dinosaur and still smoke and it’s worth noting that I reached out to various resorts while trying to choose where to stay and they were the only ones to respond that smoking is allowed in open air areas and on your patio. This was a big pro for me as most of the other major southern destination countries have become very unwelcoming for smokers. We made an effort to always go away from others to avoid bothering anyone, but nothing would be worse than having to walk to the opposite side of a property to have a smoke.. especially while on vacation. The resort is quiet and very relaxing - it’s definitely not a party resort and there was a mostly families with young kids & teens as well as couples of all ages there. If we got tired of the regular kid noise, we just hung out on the adults only side of the resort by the pool which was nice and quiet. This might be a pro or con, but there are a lot of wild cats on the adults only side of the resort (I can’t speak to the family side) but they weren’t around much during the day - just at night. I kept it as a pro because they seem friendly enough for feral cats, they don’t come near you but they like to be around people, they didn’t bother us at all. I actually looked forward to sitting on the patio at the end of the night and watching the cats come around. If you don’t like cats, I’d recommend a room on the second or third floor. The cons: They have a very disorganized check in process - the worst I’ve ever experienced at any resort. We along with many other guests were stuck waiting in the lobby for our room for hours, which per conversations with other guests and other trip advisor reviews is a common occurrence here (Detailed explanation of our experience below) There’s a serious lack of communication when / if issues arise and there’s no sense of urgency rectifying them. We were locked out of our room due to faulty bracelets on our first day and had to go to the lobby multiple times. (Detailed explanation of our experience below) There are cockroaches, which isn’t really the resorts fault, it’s the Caribbean and bugs are to be expected, just be careful shaking out your clothes and belongings before leaving. We saw one in our room and a couple outside, but didn’t find any in our clothes when we left, but we made sure to keep our luggage zipped up and didn’t leave things laying around the room. The restaurant reservation process is pretty dated. You have to go down to the main breakfast buffet restaurant in the morning to make your reservations, and a lot of the restaurants are full early. I think due to the privilege club members having their butlers doing the reservations for them, they get first dibs on the better time slots and the regular guests get whatever’s left. There is no communication and coordination between the front desk staff and the housekeeping and maintenance staff. We waited over 3 hours to get into our room the first day, we noticed other people were also waiting well past check in for their rooms too. We spoke to other guests and this seems to be a common, reoccurring issue at this hotel so if you choose to stay here, I highly recommend packing a change of clothes in your carry on so you don’t risk being stuck sitting & waiting in the open air lobby in your travel clothes as it is pretty hot and it really sucks after a long day of travel. The front desk staff kept saying our room wasn’t ready yet, just another 20 minutes, but I watched the concierge try to call house keeping multiple times and they could not get through to them but kept telling us another 20 minutes.. another 20 minutes... We also ran into another issue on our first day with our bracelet keys not working, the bellhop let us in initially with his key card, we had a nap then went for dinner and went to the desk to get them fixed.. we went back to our room and they still didn’t work, so we went back and they said they’d send maintenance down in 10 minutes. We waited for 45 minutes, then had to go back to the front desk and demand the manager come down with us and let us in as it was now nearly 11 pm and we’d been up since 1 am travelling and it had been a very long day and we just wanted to go to bed. We went back to the front desk the following morning for replacement bracelets which thankfully worked. It really is a shame that our first day was so stressful, because other than that the rest of our trip was very enjoyable and I really would like to be a repeat customer. Unfortunately we can only go on vacation over new years due to our work schedules, which comes with inflated pricing and I don’t feel confident that if we tried this resort again, we wouldn’t run into issues which for us, outweighed the value of the steep price and losing a day. If we could go at a cheaper time or for longer than a week, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back however.

Lovely experience in Palma Real. The best one so far. I totally loved Yanira Sosa at The Box Lunch. Always at our service, always happy, very nice and friendly. Deserve a raise. Will definitely come back soon. I can honestly say this hotels is definitely a paradise.

This was our 10th time staying at Meliá reserve quality went down a lot and service was lacking. Don’t get reserve save your $$

We are here right now and from the start it has been an unmitigated disaster. We work with hotels all over the world and this stay as vacationing guests is nothing short of a disaster. Disorganized front of house staff. Asked for rooms in same building for 4 people over 2 months ago, told upon arrival it wasn’t possible. They are at “full capacity “ Restaurants are available on the days they decide, that’s it that’s all. If you want steak house 3 days of your week, no luck. Want a specific time for your reservation, no luck. They organize the restaurants like they are booked months in advance and you’ll be wait listed. We paid over $12k for this trip and we are being told when and where to eat. Breakfast and lunch? If you want to have soggy French toast, crepes and bacon that was made the night before, you’ll love it. No ala carte options, just processed premade items outside of an omelette station at a buffet. Service on beach- expect to wait 40 mins before someone remembers you are sitting there. This resort is missing one key ingredient. Service. It’s lipstick on a pig. It looks nice from the outside but if you’re used to true 5 star service, this is not the place. We work with 5 star resorts and this resort unfortunately is not even close to that. Service and front of the house staff need to be better organized. We are very disappointed in our first 24 hours here. We have spent a total of 2.5 hours of our first day, dealing with Resturant reservation requests, rooms issues, room being 25 degrees and all while waiting extended periods each time. Was told 2 times by concierge he would text us info on reservations but never did, we also told him it was our sons birthday and we wanted to do something for him ( a candle on a cake or something) when we arrived they didn’t know about reservation or the birthday surprise. Would not recommend this place to others due to lack of care, service or attention to detail. Here you do not feel a sense of welcome, it is quite the opposite. You feel like you are an inconvenience. Everyone here passes the buck, no accountability, no solution just plain old terrible service and mid grade at best food. No bueno. Room 9314 January 2025