Paradisus Palma Real Golf & Spa Resort

Our favorite place. We love coming here. The staff is amazing. I was feeling under the weather and everyone was making sure I was okay. Thanks D for the vicks vapor rub because that always fixes everything. The Celsius bar staff Luis, Jonathan, George. Joel plus Raul. Luis from Kanna, Kelvin, Luis from the plaza kicks bar. All were just amazing.

Buckle up, this is going to be a bit long but I want to give the experienced traveler a heads up to the Paradisus on The Reserve side of the resort. The positives 1. The rooms are very, very clean. Our bed was quite comfortable. We were in the building closest to the beach, 2nd floor, ocean view(not ocean front) directly above the beachside adult only rectangular Reserve pool(there are 3 adult only pools). Our room was cleaned every day between 10-11 am. All excellent except they did not replenish my face wash cloth after the first day( I had to use a hand towel to wash off my cleanser) 2. Kelvin was our personal concierge. He checked in every morning, arranged our dinner reservations, golf for the guys and spa services for the ladies(shout out to Gladys at the spa. She was amazing). He met us every evening(with the exception of once...we were early though) at our restaurant reservation and checked in with us. It was a nice personal touch. Upon departure, he met us at the lobby and bid us a farewell. He was friendly and attentive. I know he could have done more for us, but we are chill, low key, unassuming travelers so we didn't feel the need to bother him much. I know that he would have delivered on pretty much anything for us though with his quick responsiveness to our simple requests. I was thankful for his assistance. 3. There are ample, EXTREMELY comfortable chairs/beds on the beach. They rank up completely with the Ritz' that we have stayed at. Seriously the BEST. 4. There are plenty of beach towels for guests, with no limit on how many you can take. Something to note though, if you wait and don't get down to the pool /beach until around 11...there may not be any and you'll have to hunt some down. They are constantly replenished at the counters/stands but I did see a pattern of people coming down closer to 11 and I did have a few people ask me where to get towels because there weren't any at the huts. I must have a welcoming look because it happens to me often with travel. haha. 5. The big freeform Reserve pool has plenty of chairs open throughout the day so we set up there on our pool days. I appreciated not having to rush down at 7 am and "save" spots. I would head down around 9:30-10 and get my prime sunny spot without issue. 6. The resort is very clean everywhere. No bugs, landscaping meticulously maintained, public bathrooms super clean. 7. Restaurants: Some are good, some are decent, some are awful. Here is my opinion and what my husband, son and his girlfriend thought. Blue Agave-Mexican: 3 star. Decent food, limited menu, small portions, average drinks Mina-Steakhouse: 3 star. Decent food(do not get the chicken. It is super dry) decent portions and good drinks. Sante-Mediterranean(for Reserve guests only): 4 star. Excellent steak, above average food. I was pleasantly surprised by it. We had an AMAZING waiter there, I wish I would have gotten his name but he made the experience excellent. He was truly a gem. We tipped him $20usd...he was THAT attentive. We did NOT receive that attentiveness, not even CLOSE anywhere else...well, maybe a close second was at Flora but that was only after my son who is very fluent in Spanish started speaking it and joking around to the waitress and she finally warmed up and didn't act like we were a complete inconvenience to her. Flora-Dominican:3.5 star Decent food, good drinks, decent portions Mazcalzone Italian: 1 star. HORRIBLE FOOD I couldn't believe how awful it was. Waitress was nice though as in, she smiled and didn't act like we were an inconvenience...minuet interaction with her like most places. Banna-Japanese teppanyaki: 4 star for the teppanyaki, 1 star for the sushi appetizer. I love rolls and these were disgustingly bad. Drinks decent 3 star, portion size was HUGE, your typical teppanyaki. Buffet restaurant...I don't even know how to rate it. It was just beyond bad. My husband who eats everything and is not a picky eater even said how bad it was. If you want to eat breakfast, just get room service. Lunch...good luck...we ended up mostly ordering room service to eat around 9 am and just waited to eat for dinnertime. Which rolls me into the negatives on the resort...... 1. The service(other than Kelvin and the bartenders at the freeform pool and waiter at Sante which were outstanding) was abysmal. The lack of service was overwhelmingly bad and totally tainted our experience. The coffee shop upstairs by the lobby was terrible and the attitude of the girls working behind the bar was something to behold. They treated us with actual disgust. All I literally said to the one was, I'd like a macchiato please. I got the biggest eyeroll, sigh, and she said...What? So I repeated myself. This was day 3. She turned away, grabbed the metal pitcher that was on the counter and poured it into my cup. hahahahahahaha! She literally didn't make what I asked for and had the audacity to roll her eyes. It was coffee with cream in it. I just had to laugh at the absurdity of it. I then sent my husband the rest of the trip when we didn't get room service coffee. And, let me tell you, the coffee at the lobby was CRAP. I read reviews and everyone said it's good...It is NOT good and the service is even worse. The majority of the "wait staff", (and I use the term wait staff loosely), was utter laziness and dismissiveness. You had to hunt everything down. Good luck getting your water glass filled. Seriously. If they hate the vacationers that are their LIVELYHOOD so much why work at a resort???? I would rate the overall staff that we encountered other than the aforementioned, as 2 star at best. It was just sooooooooo bad. 2. The food. Well, I rated everything above but man, that is being generous on a lot of it. Maybe it's because most of the Americans are overweight(we are not) they feel that they can serve bland, flavorless, poor quality food because they'll eat whatever is given. I don't know but wow, I was never so happy to eat a Wendy's cheeseburger(which I normally never eat) at the airport prior to boarding my flight home. 3. The drinks. Well, if you are a beer drinker, my husband and adult son were complaining about the 8 oz cans. They felt like they were constantly running back and forth to the bar. I will say this. It definitely discourages overindulging when you are getting up every 45 minutes to get another drink if you so choose IF you don't want to be in the water in front of the swim up bar all day long. I am not a beer drinker and do prefer tequila( which they did have Don Julio) but their mixers are sadly lacking. There were several days of my 8 day stay that I just did not drink anything other than water. I one million percent did not get my value from the all inclusive at this resort. Also, know that even though they will come around and collect the empty cups and cans occasionally they will NOT offer to bring you another drink....EVER. We made the mistake of tipping the guy $10 usd (we do this in Mexico all of the time and they are ON IT with stellar service) the first day at the pool thinking maybe he'd get the hint and come back around but we never saw him again on our side of the adult only freeform area. 4. The umbrellas poolside at the freeform Reserve pool are too small in circumference and too tall to provide really any shade. The base's are extremely heavy concrete, so to move them around is difficult and you have to be super careful to not get your toes or hurt your back. I did want to try to sit at one of the 2 smaller rectangular pools on the Reserve side for the cabanas but all of the old people got up super early and snagged those by 8-8:15 am. It was irritating but honestly, the freeform gigantic Reserve pool was so quiet and the bartenders at the swim up bar were super nice and fun that I didn't really care. It would be cool though with how massive the pool deck area is for them to invest in about 10 cabanas in that area as well. 5. The vendors on the beach are NONSTOP harassing. We spent 2 1/2 days out there and it was so disappointing to be bothered over and over and over again. I finally gave up and spent the rest of my time pool side, which was sad because I LOVE the Caribbean beach sand and the view. Also, next door at the Melia, the music starts around 11 and it is a constant thumping beat all day. 6. This may be nit picky but it happened and it wasn't handled well on the adult only side that we paid MORE money to stay at. One afternoon at around 2 pm a woman in her early 30's came into the pool with another friend and an approximately 2 year old child. They proceeded to get into the pool. The small child began playing, splashing and squealing. Typical toddler behavior, which is perfectly fine ON the OTHER SIDE OF THE RESORT. The woman started hushing the child which only egged the child on. There were MULTIPLE staff around setting up for the dinner that evening for the Riser convention going on. I took a picture of them and was getting ready after about 15 minutes to send it to Kelvin to handle it since no one seemed to care. Finally an employee walked over to the woman and asked her to leave. The woman started arguing with her and WOULD NOT LEAVE. After about 2 minutes of the exchange the employee just walked away!!! LIKE.....WHAT THE ACTUAL!!!!!?????!!!!! I looked at my husband and said, I'm watching the clock and if she doesn't leave in the next 5 minutes I AM calling our concierge. Well, 3 minutes later, 2 men and a woman, official looking started walking toward them and all of a sudden they got up out of the pool and walked away. Unfortunately the official looking staff didn't follow them which I felt was ridiculous. Especially since to stay on the Reserve side you do pay quite a bit more for the kid free experience. So, overall after all of these things, I would not recommend Paradisus. I will not return. There are so many other places to try and maybe one of them would be better. It did not enamor me to the DR that is for certain. I've been to Cayman, Turks, St Lucia, Jamaica x 5, Puerto Rico, Aruba, Maldives, Mexico (multiple locations x 20), Hawaii x 7, Florida various locations x 32. I would return to every one of those locations and resorts off of US soil without hesitation. DR, not so much. Good Luck!

The views were spectacular and the people top notch. Our guy Alam was amazing he provided us with everything we asked for!! We will be back and bringing friends with us.

Resort was very good but our concierge Eriol really made things excellent for us. He went above and beyond to check in multiple times a day, make sure we had the reservations we needed, fix maintenance issues in our room. He even filled our snacks and minibar when it was missed a couple days. Eriol was exceptional and ensured our vacation was wonderful

My family and I had a wonderful stay at Paradisus. It is clean, the staff is friendly and helpful, and there are plenty of activities to keep anyone entertained!! Special shoutout to Eriol, our concierge, who helped us with anything we needed!