Royal Hideaway Playacar

I have been coming to this hotel for years now and it always provides great service and food. it is classy and everything is very close. It is clean and everybody take care of the guests very attentively. Superb! i will be coming here again!

We had a great dinner experience at Palazzo the evening we arrived. Eduardo Be was our server. I had some allergies and he recommended an appetizer and my meal. They were delicious!! Absolutely trusted him with suggesting what I should have. Fantastic choices!! Thanks again!!

First I will give the Pros: The main buildings, grounds and the beach are beautiful! The pathways and relaxing pools are a calming touch. Swimming pools are well maintained and we loved the guitarist in the afternoon. Azia restaurant was very good and the Teppanyaki was fun and delicious. Palazoo was hit and miss as was Ventannas. Spices was so so as was the Deck buffet during the day. Shrimp tacos were delicious. Food was average at most of the restaurants with the very odd amazing meal. David was a great concierge as was Jose at the pool bar. Secondly the cons: This separate little villas are in desperate need of updating. They need a total Reno done in the room we were in. Peeling paint, broken window in the bathroom. Filthy patio area needed power washing in the worst way. Cushions on our furniture were dirty. Bed skirt was torn and frayed! We were invaded by ants one evening. Maid repeatedly forgot to leave clean face cloths and hand towels. Did a poor job of cleaning the room. They have an unorganized way of seating people for the breakfast buffet. Lineup every morning with empty tables clearly in sight. More staff is needed to bus those tables and move people in faster. We went upstairs to Spices a couple mornings but the food is average to poor at best. Ordered Eggs Benny one morning…it was shameful of the cook to send that plate out to a guest. Cold, I toasted doughy English muffin, no ham or pastrami as listed on the menu, two hard cooked eggs with a yellow pasty blob of something that was supposed to hollandaise sauce. Disgusting! Some staff were clearly unhappy working there and were surly and uninterested in service. Skip the Club Royale dinner show. Food was enitible. My husband got up and left in disgust and ordered room service. The show was way too long! Several nights there was very loud techno music coming from the Allegra Bar which we were facing. It went on to midnight! So much for sleep and nobody cared. Reception hung up on me when I phoned to complain. I had a major asthma attack one afternoon because they were fogging the resort with pesticides for mosquitoes in the middle of the day. Dangerous and irresponsible. My inhaler was a godsend! This is a 3-4 star resort, not a 5 by any stretch. In my opinion….I would avoid this resort. We won’t be back!

There’s a lot to love about this hotel, starting with the design concept itself. The fact that the rooms are in villas dotted around the grounds, each with around 20 units and its own concierge, gives the whole experience a very personal feel. The surrounding grounds are very attractive and well maintained, and while we were there there were painters constantly freshening everything up. Our large room, though not modern in design, was more classic than old-fashioned, so very acceptable, with a huge comfortable bed, decent pillows and silky bed linen. I would only say that the bathrooms are well overdue for a refurb. Our experience of the food was mixed, but the dinners were consistently good and the evening restaurants were delightfully small and intimate for a resort of this size. The reservations system works well. We found Ventanas and Palazzo especially good and really enjoyed the “theatre” of the teppanyaki table at Azia. OTOH, we thought the lunch buffet hugely uninspiring, with insipid salads and tepid “hot” dishes. Ribs off the lunch menu were inedible – grey, tough and, worst of all, luke warm. Definite no-no for pork. The drinks flow 24/7, which is something of a double-edged sword. A few guests take advantage of this to such an extent that, by mid-afternoon, they are behaving worse than the children who are not allowed in the resort. Watch the pool loungers empty out around 3.30 as many people retreat to their balconies for a bit of peace and quiet. The gym is exceptional – great, modern equipment that is vastly underused. The entertainment is of varied quality but we especially enjoyed Gabriel, the guitarist who plays two lunch times a week, and the silent disco was great fun. There are also some decent bands playing at the Allegro bar, which again is intimate and friendly. What a pity then that the whole two-week stay was made quite stressful by the ridiculous games – that you have little choice but to join in – around the whole poolside lounger fiasco. There’s a notice that reads “It is not allowed to reserve sun loungers with towels or personal items”, and yet if you’re not up by 7 am at the very latest (well before dawn), forget trying to sit around the pool. A large proportion of the loungers are reserved for VIP guests (those who have been back an unknown number of times – rumoured to be around 15), and are sometimes left unoccupied for a large part of the day. The rest are bagged by people parking books, flotation devices or any other bits and pieces they can lay their hands on to make sure there’s somewhere comfortable to sit. This, in my opinion, is because the beach chairs, of which there are plenty, are so uncomfortable. Such a shame because the beach is beautiful and the hotel does a great job of keeping the sargassum down. Make those chairs more attractive and problem solved! On the whole, we found the stay excellent value for money and would love to come back but the issue of the chairs, and to some extent the noisy guests, could be the things that decide us against.

This hotel is in a great location and provides top-notch service for its guests. The site is well maintained and has an excellent sandy beach which is maintained daily. The resort is smaller than some which is mostly a benefit. However, it also comes with a negative, and that is that the breakfast and lunch buffets offer minimal variety and are basically the same every day. The food is good but needs variety. The food in the restaurants in the evening is excellent. Also be prepared to experience sexual discrimination in the restaurants. Men are not allowed in with open-toed sandals, but it is perfectly fine for women's sandals to expose almost their entire foot. Although this may seem minor, it is still discrimination and should be challenged. The argument that it is just the rule is unacceptable. Would a defence of separate facilities for Blacks in the American south because it was the rule have been an acceptable argument?