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Cancun & Cozumel Hotel, Resort & Villa
Royal Hideaway 01/20/2003
Reviewers Rating:  Excellent
Just returned from a 1-week stay at the Royal Hideaway and it was our 3rd visit to this resort. My girlfriend and I are mid 30's.
I'll gear this review to both those who have been to the RH, are considering a return and are concerned about the service standards being maintained and to those who have not been and are considering a visit.
The RH is a AAA 4 diamond resort and is a member of 'The Luxury Alliance' and consisting of The World's Leading Hotels and, Relais & Chateaux and it is the best resort in the Playacar hotel zone and only real competition is the RIU Palace and Maroma (a smaller resort, up the coast and a member of the Orient Express Group) and Allegro (company that owns and runs the RH) was recently taken out by Occidental and this was a concern to us as a potential threat to service and quality standards and as I'll discuss, it turns out that the concern was unfounded. (the gen mgr of the RH is still Theresa Alfonso)
Specifics:
Location: the RH is in the middle of the Playacar Hotel Zone (a gated area south of Playa del Carmen) and it's about a 20 minute walk to 'downtown' Playa del Carmen, either by the main road or beach and we like the location a lot - if you have bad weather you aren't trapped at the resort - you can go into PDC
Grounds: very well manicured and maintained and they have planted additional palms throughout and generally the grounds have grown in nicely over the last 2 yrs and an artificial brook, with ponds runs the length of the resort
Rooms: the RH has 200 rooms situated in 2 and 3 floor villas and each villa has it's own concierge for dinner reservations, and a plethora of other services offered by the resort and we were in villa #30 with Ruben as our concierge and he was very professional but we didn't use him aside from dinner reservations....we have always had a top floor, garden view room - ocean view rooms are not worth the extra charge in my opinion b/c you have 2 pools and a line of palms between you and the water and the rooms are well appointed with small sitting area, decent size terrace, mini bar, (soft drinks & water only and must get room service for alcohol), marble floors and marble bathrooms and 2 sinks with whirlpool tub and separate shower and the hotel is 4-5 yrs old now and they should replace small things like, bedspreads, lampshades and by and large the rooms a quite nice and don't need any major work.
Beach/Pools: beach has powder white sand with clear freaky turquoise water and no sea weed with a sandy bottom - the beach is not huge relative to other much larger resorts in the area and I'd say 50-60 metres long and about 30-40 metres deep and plenty large enough for the resort and the beach along the entire hotel zone is larger this yr and last yr the beach had receded a lot and you couldn't walk very far toward PDC with some swimming involved - we had no trouble finding a good spot on the beach and you cannot reserve lounges, nor do you need to - they provide an almost unlimited supply of towels and beach service for drinks is very good and they used to have full food service on the beach, but that stopped last yr and you must now get off your backside and walk the 25 metres to the beach restaurant or Spices to have lunch. The resort has 2 main pools, 3 'relax' pools, which are scattered around the grounds and 1 hot tub and the pools are not a main feature of the resort and the main pools are right next to each other and are smallish we didn't use the pools, aside from the hot tub, opting for the beach and (our thinking is that you can sit by a pool anywhere but can't sit on one of the nicest beaches in the world too often) and the weather wasn't overly nice for us, so the relax pools weren't all that warm and weren't used much - on our first trip 2 yrs ago it was very hot and the relax pools were being used most days.
Social/Bars/Lounges: there is one bar/lounge, the Allegria and has a terrace next to the main pond and we spent some time here before dinner, several nights and this bar is new (used to be the old sports bar) and wasn't open last yr at this time and a good addition - was fairly busy most nights ...other bars are in the lobby, beside Ventanas and the beach club which closes at 6pm (Allegria opens at 6pm) and the service at these bars is very good and my drink was always full and ashtrays always being emptied (I smoke the odd cigar) and I'll talk more about service later.
The guests were a mix of Americans, Italians, Canadians, French and a few Germans and Spaniards and this yr the resort was probably 60% American but has been different in past years and the week before us there were a lot of guests from South America. Ages range from mid 20's to seniors, honeymooners and anniversary types, to the likes of us (want a mindless, relaxing service filled vacation) The RH is adults only but there were some children. Guests looked fairly affluent if dress is any indicator.
There is no nightlife at the RH and none whatsoever and if you want to party this is not your place and the tranquility of the resort is another main selling point..you must go into PDC the find the party and one of the cooler bars in PDC is in the Hotel Deseo
Food/Restaurants: the RH has 4 a la carte restaurants and its beach club for lunch and you must make reservations for the a la cartes, through your villa concierge or I believe reservations can be made in advance of your trip, by e-mail and we have never had a real problem with reservations but we have tended to eat later 8-8:30 and if you like to eat in prime time you may want to reserve in advance or make all reservations as soon as you arrive.
The food at all the restaurants, including the beach club is excellent (food quality is a major selling point for this resort) and I'm lucky enough in my job to be able to go to some very good restaurants and the a la cartes compare reasonably well to some of the better places I've been ( the white house wine was acceptable - Chilean and Santa Carolina chardonnay and cab was watery - we ordered a California Cab 2 yrs ago and extra charge and the list wasn't very good and they offer a better selection or liquors and can have Stoly Vodka or most higher end liquors and just ask) and the food ingredients are fresh, good quality and well prepared and they've changed the menus only slightly since our first trip and I thought the food was better this trip, than on our first 2 visits and I've never been to a Sandals but I think it would be difficult to find better food at an all inclusive than that at the RH.
Service: arguably the resort's strongest feature and the service is fantastic (and has gotten better) and from the waiters at the beach club to the bell staff to the wait staff in the restaurants, to the room service staff and everyone, is professional multi-lingual and friendly, but not intrusive and you never get the feeling that some one was hovering over you and this was large for us and really contributed to the overall experience - one point about the wait staff in the restaurants and small issues with language if you speak English only and I thought this group could be a little more professional.
Tipping: the resort is all inclusive but gratuities are exclusive of your fee and we tipped quite a bit this time and all waiters and housekeeping staff - not every time and only if the service was good and the service was always good but in some cases we were compelled to tip b/c the service really exceeded our expectations.
Negatives: we did have some negative issues and we sat in non-smoking sections in the a la cartes and twice there were smokers in these sections and the water in front of the resort seemed busier with seedoos, catamarans, and parasailing boats this yr - toward the end of the week a large group (120 people) came to the resort and we only had to experience them for one day, but they definitely upset the tranquility of the resort and if we had them the whole week it would have had quite a negative effect on our experience - they weren't unruly, but were rather loud everywhere, in the restaurants, on the beach (tough to read when some one is talking loudly about the ungoverned top speed of their Mercedes) and just walking on the grounds and people in this group liked to shout andthey didn't seem to care about the other guests, only the people in their group - in future we'll ask if a large group is booked the same time we're planning our trip
I didn't comment on any of the spa services b/c we haven't used them and they seemed to do a good business as there was a steady stream of people coming and going from that area. They do have a small gym that we've used in the past and they have several treadmills, some free weight and several machines.
It's clear that we're big fans of the RH. We're thinking about going back in the fall.
If you have any questions, fire away.
Craig
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