Royal Hideaway Playacar

We really enjoyed our stay at Royal Hideaway Playacar. We are already considering a second trip for our next anniversary.

We just returned from our 12th stay at The Royal HIdeaway. We have stayed at other resorts in Playa Del Carmen but the Hideaway is our oasis. We love this smaller resort with just 201 rooms. From the moment we step out of the transfer vehicle and are greeted by Marcos we feel special and like family! No matter which building you stay in you are always just a couple of minutes walk to the most beautiful beach in Mexico. The grounds are spectacular and well kept. The pathways and water features are clean and beautiful. Everything on the grounds are trimmed and neat. It looks like you've stepped into a magazine. Everyone is service oriented at this resort. Each building has about 16 rooms and also has a concierge assigned to that building. This trip we had Fernanda Chavez. She was so helpful with dinner reservations and helping with our return transfer to the airport. Also we could ask her about anything for our room and she made sure it was taken care of. The mini fridge is cold and always stocked. We also had great service and excellent attention from Ricky Rosas. He checked on us daily if not twice daily to make sure we were being taken care of and not in need of anything. He is a gem!! The rooms are beautiful and the AC was so cold we had to turn it off a couple of times. So we were more than comfortable at night or whenever we were in the room. The beds are the best we have ever slept in at any hotel. Wish we could get that bed in our suitcase! The rooms have double sinks and a jetted soaking tub. Also a walk in shower with rain head or hand held spray. We also love the walk in closet. Each room has a balcony with either an ocean view or a beautiful garden view. The balcony has seating if you want to relax there rather than go to one of the many pools scattered throughout the resort. Some of the small pools are just steps away from a few of the buildings. They also have a weight area and cardio area gym. It is well maintained, clean and cool. We received room maid service daily and they did an exceptional job with that. It's amazing how they remember us from year to year. We always feel like family at this resort. And we always meet new people there that become long distance friends for life. We used their transfer service from the airport and it was great! The resort is located within Playacar which is a gated community. There is a shopping area called 5th avenue that we love to go to at least once each trip. You can walk to it or pay for a 5 min taxi ride for around $10 each way. There are very nice higher end stores as well as barter type merchants. We feel very safe going into the shopping area. Most of the stores accept visa or USD. It is from here that you can take a ferry over to Cozemel. As with any resort there are a limited number of seats around the main pools. But we honestly have had little trouble with this as we enjoy rising early and watching the sunrise. Saving seats until 10 or 11 am is not something we think is acceptable. The staff does a good job with the seating arrangements at the pool. The infinity pool, which borders the beach, is our favorite. It's quiet in the morning and then around noon they begin activities like Aqua aerobics, bingo, music trivia etc. We love that before noon there is little to no noise except for the sound of the ocean waves and the wonderful breeze that is always present so close to the ocean. The attendants at the pool are courteous and quick. Javier, Genaro, Eduardo, Jorge, Luis, Henry and Raul are amazing. They tended to our every wish! Pampered is more like it! While seated at the pool you can order any number of wonderful snacks including guac and chips, pizza, chicken tenders wit frys and many more options. They will bring it to your lounger. It's wonderful. So relaxing and luxurious. Alexa and Marianna did such a great job with entertainment every day at the infinity pool. If you are looking for a loud and crazy party like atmosphere this is probably not your resort. We do not drink alcohol and so we appreciate that those who do are not falling down drunk (which we have seen at other resorts). When we order virgin drinks that is exactly what we get. In the many times we have stayed here I can count on one hand the times we have been given alcohol by mistake. They are very good that way. For breakfast they have a buffet style open air patio with many selections and a made to order omelet station. Or you can go upstairs and order your breakfast restaurant style. The breakfast is very good in our opinion. And it is right next to the infinity pool so you can get up, walk over to breakfast and right back to your cushioned lounger. There are 5 restaurants for dinner reservations. You can email ahead and get your first 2-3 nights reserved before you arrive. Our favorite is the Italian restaurant called Pallazo. Eduardo at Pallazo is so kind and gracious. He is a wonderful person and waiter. Azia is also a favorite especially if we are seated at the teppanaki table. Fernando, Ricardo and Claudio gave us amazing service there. Ventanas is the Mediterranean restaurant and the most challenging for us when it comes to ordering! But Manola was so helpful and made sure we had a lovely meal. The only downside to Ventanas was the piano playing which was much too loud. It was almost impossible to have a conversation as he was playing more like a concert rather than quiet background music. For a more casual atmosphere you can dine at Spices. Argenesis was our waiter at Spices and was also so helpful and kind. You will not be disappointed if you book a stay at the Hideaway. And if you are a beach person you will think you have died and arrived in heaven!

Great stay on the Riviera Maya at the Hideaway Playacar. The food was excellent, the service and friendliness of the staff made the stay even nicer. Despite the early arrival of the sargassum, we had a great time. Hotel was maintaining the beach impressively, and it is so large that you can enjoy the view and the sound without the annoyance of the sargassum. The decor is colonial elegant, and relaxing. The relaxed pools are so lovely, the atmosphere just melts the stress away. Rooms' bathroom need some TLC, but the rest is all so well kept.

Beach, pool and grounds The beach at this hotel is absolutely stunning and probably one of the best we’ve had on a holiday. It is wide with white sand and beautiful blue water. Yes, the sargassum was an issue some days but the hotel can’t be blamed for this and they worked constantly to keep the beach clean. You could still access the sea even on days there was more seaweed. There were almost always beds available on the beach and there was waiter service, however we found this to be much slower than at the pool. The vendors did get a bit annoying at times but were easy enough to ignore. The infinity pool was our favourite place during the day, however we did have to get up early to reserve beds. As many other people have mentioned, a large amount of beds are reserved for people who hold a time share or are repeat visitors, but a lot of these people either never appeared at the pool or wouldn’t appear until midday, making it unfair on other guests. Waiter service was usually quick. We found the temperature of the infinity pool to be fine, but the other pool to be like a bath. The relaxation pools are also nice if you want a quiet few hours but there is no waiter service. The grounds of this hotel are truly beautiful and excellently maintained by their staff. People describe the hotel to be ‘dated’ however we thought it was quite refreshing seeing all the traditional, colonial designs they have kept such as the paintings and carpets, compared to some of the bland, overly-modern hotels you see now. Room While the rooms are slightly outdated, they fit in with the general decor of the hotel and it did not bother us at all as we were barely there. The housekeeping team were great, cleaning the room once or sometimes twice a day to a high standard. The king size bed was also very comfortable. The only slight issue we had was the waterfall shower wasn’t working on the night we arrived, but it was fixed the next morning. Food and drink Our favourite meal of the day on holiday is breakfast and the Deck did not disappoint. We were both huge fans of the bacon (proper American bacon that we can almost never find at home in Scotland), French toast and omelette station. They also had a great spread of yoghurts, pastries and fresh fruit. We always ate lunch at the Deck or ordered the food to our beds which we enjoyed, particularly the crispy chicken and the quesadillas. Now, probably my biggest complaint about the hotel would be despite their food quality, the size of the Deck. It is their main restaurant, where the majority of guests eat breakfast and lunch and there simply is not enough seats. Unless you eat breakfast early and have a late lunch, you almost always have to wait 10-15 minutes for a table. I would recommend extending the restaurant as people don’t want to wait to eat on holiday. We found dinner at the hotel to be quite hit or miss. The best restaurants for us were Ventanas (Mediterranean) and Azia (Oriental), and the other restaurants didn’t even come close. The picaña, lamb shank and brownie at Ventanas were to die for, and our favourites at Azia were the yakimeshi, pad thai, green curry and teppanyaki. We ate at these two twice during our stay, and only once at all the others. We actually went out for dinner one night to avoid having to eat elsewhere in the hotel. Palazzo (Italian) was mediocre. When it comes to Spices and the Grill - don’t waste your time. Our main course was good at Spices however my birria tacos to start were chunks of fat inside a soggy tortilla. The hotel is aware of the issues at the Grill, and it became the common opinion among guests that it was the worst place to eat. We had to send our steaks back due to how they had been cooked and considered leaving before they were brought back out due to the quality of the meat. I don’t understand this though as the steak in the other restaurants is great quality. A shame as we both thought the steak house would be our favourite. We found the wine to be drinkable and there were good spirits on offer but the stand out were definitely the frozen cocktails, including pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris. Entertainment We actually considered changing our hotel a few weeks before arriving as we read other reviews saying there is no entertainment and the hotel is like a ‘retirement home’. We found it to be anything but. Yes, the hotel is absolutely relaxing and not your wild environment you’d expect to see at the Riu and Hard Rock hotels etc, however there was a great amount of entertainment on offer. Everyday, there was a quiz or bingo, aqua gym and another activity. At night, there were several different activities including casino night, live music, silent disco and theatre shows but our absolute favourite was karaoke (which the other guests learned quickly about us 😂). We met some fantastic people at the hotel from England, the US and Canada who probably all played a big part in our experience at the hotel. We were definitely two of the youngest people there but we had a great time and did not get bored once. Marianna and Alexa on the entertainment team were great. Staff We learned very quickly that Mexican people are a very friendly bunch and this included the vast majority of hotel staff. I wish I could remember names however the concierge staff were very helpful with any small problems we had and great for booking excursions. As mentioned above, the entertainment team and housekeepers were also great. We found the service at the Grill to be poor but other than that, all the bar and restaurant staff were helpful and friendly. Things to do We would highly recommend a trip to Tulum, cenotes and snorkelling with turtles, as well as a trip to Xcaret park. Our excursions were our two favourite days of the trip and they are easy to book with the concierge or excursion rep. Overall, we had a great 10 day trip and met some lovely people at this hotel. While the hotel felt like more of a 4 star due to a few small things letting it down, we definitely made it a 5 star experience and might return in future.

We had a wonderful week-long stay at Royal Hideaway and couldn’t have been more pleased with the experience. From the moment we arrived, the service stood out—attentive, professional, and consistently friendly. Big thank you to Lorena. Every request was handled quickly and with a smile. The food was another highlight of our stay. There was a great variety across the restaurants, with high-quality ingredients and well-prepared dishes that made each meal something to look forward to. The facility itself is beautiful and well maintained. The grounds are clean, elegant, and relaxing, creating a perfect atmosphere for unwinding. Rooms and common areas were comfortable and very convenient. Alexsa and Marianna bring a lot of fun with water gym and beach activities. Overall, Royal Hideaway delivered a truly excellent experience. Great service, good food, and a lovely facility made for a memorable and relaxing week. We would absolutely return and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a refined and enjoyable stay.