My husband and I stayed at the Royal Haciendas for the first time 1/28/12-2/4/12. This is a timeshare property for those that aren't aware. We own a week at the Royal Sands in Cancun but had only visited for the day prior to this stay. We rented our 1 bedroom suite, master bedroom, kitchen/living room,directly from an owner via TUG-2. The resort is spacious but very easy to navigate. We loved the huge bedroom, bathroom, and deck with a jacuzzi. The weather was a little rainy so we spent more time in our unit than we planned so it was great to have the extra space. Check in was a breeze but we had an evening flight and came in after the rush. Everything was spotlessly clean and you constantly see staff cleaning outside. We purchased staples for breakfast to eat in our room at the onsite market. Prices are a little high but it's very convenient. There were many senior adults vacationing with their adult children and grandchildren. Some couples in the 40-50 age range. Overall, quieter than what we see in Cancun during our summer stays. Happy hour is held daily from 3-6pm at the pool bars. Drinks and beer are half price and free chips and salsa but make sure to get the menu to see what drinks are included. We ordered pizza twice in our room on rainy evenings when we didn't feel like venturing out and it was fast and hot. We ate a number of times at the pool grill and liked all the food we tried. We ate at La Palapa del Sol, largest restaurant on property, twice for dinner and lunch once for breakfast buffet. Service was great at every meal. Servers very personable. The breakfast buffet was priced well but could use a little better variety of foods. Lunch has a daily special that included salad bar, soup and desserts or you could order off the menu. This was a good value if you liked the entree special. Dinner had a themed buffet or again order off the menu. We aren't big buffet people so we ordered off the menu twice and food was good but basic. The resort offers free shuttles into Playa del Carmen but they fill up quickly so we only managed to use it once when someone cancelled. A round trip cab trip cost around $25 so we only ate out off property twice due to the cost and the weather not being great. The beach is nice and walkable in either direction. This isn't a great swimming beach but wasn't a big factor for us in January. People were saving beach palapas and lounge chairs at the pool but we still managed to find them most times without doing the saving game ourselves. Wifi is available but was really slow in our villa. We had better luck at the pool with our IPhones so that was fine with us. We did meet with a timeshare rep to see what was available but weren't pressured to do so. We did not buy and there were no hard feelings on either side. We didn't use the on resort travel services for any excursions because it was easy to use public transportation to get to whatever sites we wanted to see. I would definitely return to this resort in the future. I think our 19 & 21 y/o sons would prefer Cancun to this resort but for a quiet adult trip we loved it.
- Royal Haciendas Hotel
- Royal Haciendas Playa Del Carmen
