At the Royal Playa del Carmen Oct. 31 - Nov. 9

bigwally · 10-31-2008

OK, so we're here, finally. Forty-five minutes late out of LAX but only about 20 minutes late into Cancun. Big delays with immigration but quickly met by the attendant and driver contracted by FunJet (from Lomas Travel) once we'd exited the terminal. However, we first had to run the gauntlet of time-share hawkers and cab drivers. You really have to be quite firm indeed about not being interested in their wares. The private transportation was via a very swish Lincoln Navigator and arrival at the hotel was at just a hair past 6pm local time. Sadly, already dark by the time we arrived.

We were met by the bellman with a very cheery "Welcome Home!" and he guided us directly to the concierge desk, since we'd already checked in online. No suprises for us on the room assignment - 236 as we had preblocked. No interactions with the time share folks here at the Royal, as I had somewhat expected. In fact, within about 5 minutes we had checked in and were safely esconsed in our room.

The room is all I expected it to be and more, certainly with respect to the view - directly across the pool and to the beach. No craning of the neck or other contortions of the body needed. It even seems closer to the beach than all the photos I've seen. In fact, the whole complex seems more compact than I had expected it to be. Even the ocean view rooms above the lobby wouldn't have been as far back from the beach as I thought they might. None of the photos I've pulled off the web do this place justice.

The only dissapointment so far - we don't have ANY hot water. But you know what, this room is so awesome I'll take cold showers the whole week to keep it, if I have to!

We were a bit bushed tonight, so decided that a quick buffet at Spice would be the easiest food option. Now we aren't huge foodies, and aren't very picky, but we found the food to be just great. We also got to try some of the local red wine (from Guadalajara apparently) and found it to be very good also.

We did already encounter some negative alcohol fueled boisterous behavior in that one of the patrons in a group near our table decided it approprite to entertain the restaurant by removing her bra, right there in the restaurant! Now I'm not a prude or anything, but I've got to think that's just a bit tacky. It's like I told Naomi - just because you can drink all you want, doesn't mean that you should!

But anyway, two thumbs up for the food and service thus far.

After dinner we took a bit of a stroll around. Down to the beach via the pool and then a quick swing by Pelicanos to see if we could introduce ourselves to the cats. We saw a Moma cat sitting patiently waiting for a hand-out while two adorable kittens (presumably hers) ran around pouncing on shadows. Very, very, cute.

On the way back to our room, we stopped by the 24 hour hangout and libertated a bottle of champagne to take back to the room. You see, the mini-bar was a bit light when it came to wine. Actually there wasn't any. From pictures I had seen before, I had expected duplicate bottles for those in the bottle butler, along with at least one bottle of wine, placed by the coffee maker to the right of the min bar fridge. None of these things were evident. Well, if the mountain won't come to Mohammed.......

So it's 10:45pm local time right now and that means we've been on the go for close to 18 hours. Naomi is off in dream land already and I feel pretty much like I should do the same. So it's time for me to sign off for the night. Will try to catch up with you on tomorrow's adventures, well, tomorrow (perhaps even with pictures!)

Good night all!

mrcool138 · 11-01-2008

Bigwally,

We had the same problem with the hot water, try turning the shower knob the other direction and letting the water run for a looonnngg time!! Ours finally warmed up. Have a great time and look forward to the pictures!!

Dijo · 11-01-2008

time and keep us posted when you get a chance! Catch some rays for me.

TXMichelle · 11-01-2008

Awesome! Can't wait to hear more!

Mach II · 11-02-2008

4 more days, save me a beer or 2.

Mach II · 11-04-2008

Hey BigWally, we just checked in online, don't know why I was allowed to do it way before the 48 hour mark, lucky us, we are in Suite 238, looks like we are neighbors, woohoo !, see ya in a few days!!!!

bigwally · 11-04-2008

Hah! Not sure we need to go to the Beer Bucket then. We can just throw beers back and forth between the balconies (cans only though)!

Peeps, have part two of trip report almost ready to post. But am deep into vacation mode and have a touch of the Mañanas. Guess it goes with the territory, huh?

silvergirl · 11-04-2008

I love a live report!!

We stayed here in 2007.........twice actually. Very nice place indeed!

Mach II · 11-04-2008

BigWally, I have a quick question. Looking at other views I have found online. Is our balcony as large as the one your in ?. I can't make out the picture well enough to see if their is a hammock or not ?, the railing looks a bit angular also. since your there and only 2 rooms away. I thought I would ask. Thanks and see you soon !

bigwally · 11-05-2008

I'm afriad you are correct. 238 has a mini-balcony. Clamshell shaped with a pair of chairs and small table - no hammock.

The other thing I should probably tell you, thinking about it, is that the entire north facing side of the hotel is in the shade most of the day at this time of year.

You'll get some sun early in the morning, but by late morning the sun will be over the top of the building to the south. Great for us, because we don't like a whole bunch of sun, but if you want your room and balcony to be a sun trap you really want to be on the north side of the pool facing south!

bigwally · 11-05-2008

So here we are with day two, basically a day hanging around the hotel.

An unwelcome sleep interruption Friday night - the alarm in my laptop went off about an hour after I had fallen sound asleep (so that would have been midnight) and it took me a good while, staggering around a pitch black room, to figure out where all the noise was coming from (brain was not firing on all cylinders). Fortunately, due to complete exhaustion from travel, I was able to fall back to sleep pretty quickly and didn’t feel much of anything else until 8am Saturday morning.

It is also fortunate that we happen to like a hard bed. Because these beds are really hard! So be warned if you like something on the soft side…..it’s not going to happen. The multitude of pillows in the room, 6 in total, meant that I was able to find two soft enough to suit without calling for anything from the pillow menu applicable to the Royal category rooms.

So Saturday morning we had hot water. Coincidentally or not, a light that was out above the toilet was also working this morning. A small electrical problem in our block perhaps? So I took the very hot shower I’d been jonesing for big time the previous night.

Breakfast this morning was at Pelecanos. Naomi had the Tuna Artichoke omelette and I had the Hunter’s omelette. Good, but not great. Naomi’s was a bit dry and mine, which was supposed to be liver, was a bit grisly. Like there may have been heart and other assorted innards in there too.

Note that they don’t have filtered decaf in ANY of the restaurants, so be prepared to have instant decaf or settle for regular coffee. There are, however, decaf packs in your room for the mini coffee maker. So if you must have a decent cup of decaf to start your day, it might be the best option. It takes two of these packs for a full carafe of coffee of decent strength (and this is from a guy who likes fairly weak coffee!)

We made it down to the pool at around 11:30am. It seemed like it was going to be a nice day, but it was quite windy. First order of business was to check the pool water temperature, which was.…….ABSOLUTLEY FREEZING! Despite this, we chose a pair of in-pool lounges and decided to ease ourselves into the pool via the hot tub. Or should I say the warm tub, because it was about the temperature our pool normally is back at home. Still, it made the transition to the pool water much less of a shock to the system and once you’d been in the pool for a while it felt fine. However, our day at the pool was cut short by a torrential downpour, which only lasted about 10 minutes but sent everyone running back to their rooms. I can now see the advantage of a ground floor poolside room.

While we’re talking about our pool experience, I need to visit the question of real margaritas vs. what we make at home. I don’t like scratch made ones at all – far too bitter. Give me a shot of tequila with a dash of good ol’ margarita mix any day of the week. We switched to piña Coladas after the first drink and stayed that way the rest of the afternoon.

Once we got back to our room, even though the weather cleared up quickly and the sun came back out, we decided that would be it for the day for us. We spent some time on our balcony, drinking the bottle of champagne we pinched from the 24 hour hangout and watching the world go by; we spent some time napping; and we spent some time watching a movie on the DVD player. This conveniently took us to dinner time.

We had decided to visit the Grand Porto for dinner. At first we thought we were going to have Mexican at Maria’s, but weren’t really crazy about the menu choices. We ended up at the Italian place, Il Pescatore. Naomi had the Caprese Salad – Tomato with mozzarella cheese and asparagus dressed with pesto – followed by the Putanesca salmon fillet – poached salmon in white wine, pomodoro sauce, anchovies, and cream. I had the lobster bisque followed by the Romana pork scallops with linguine and tomato sauce. All was very good indeed!

While the AI experience includes most beverages, what you’re going to find when it comes to wine is that the only ones you’ll have access to without paying a premium are a limited selection of “house wines”. At the Royal this gives you a few fairly decent Spanish wines. But at the Gran Porto the wines seemed to be of a slightly lesser quality and, as a result, we were a little disappointed with the red that night. Drinkable, but we’d preferred the selections at the Royal better, particularly a red by Canals and Nubiola.

After dinner we took in the hotels “Las Vegas” show, a valiant attempt at a dance review by an enthusiastic but somewhat inexperienced entertainment team. While there is no doubt that there are some very talented dancers in the crew, it was definitely a sub-cruise ship quality presentation. If you have time to kill, take these 9pm shows in. But I wouldn’t build my night around it.

mrcool138 · 11-05-2008

Bigwally,

Thanks for the updates.. we really enjoyed the Italian place at the GPR as well. The really only acceptable magaritas I found were from the tequila bar and made with Don Julio. Although the frozen melon margaritas were a good way to get the day started on the beach. Have a great rest of your trip.

bigwally · 11-05-2008

Mach, are you a smoker? Hope you're not allergic - the arrivals in 238 from Monday are (smokers that is), in this supposedly non-smoking section of the hotel. So are their buddies in 237. Hopefully, if you are moving into 238 that means that both those rooms could be vacating within the next couple of days.

Unfortunately it's something I'm seeing a lot in this hotel. If, as I inquired of Mr. Cool, the pool side of the Tulum block is non-smoking now, I've seen people smoking all over the place on that side.

I mean, if I'm going to a place that allows smoking (or in this case a section of the hotel) then I'd expect people would want to light up and it wouldn't bother me. If it did bother me that much, I'd plan otherwise. However, I'm now deprived use of my balcony and leaving the door open to the sea breezes through no fault of my own.

Mach II · 11-05-2008

Yes Wally, My wife and I are both smokers. I was wondering if they allowed smoking on the balconies since we booked the no smoking section. Only reason we booked 238 was because of location to the pool area. We won't smoke in the room ever though. Just don't like the smell and well we are in a non smoking area. if you could do it again, would you have booked the ground level on the sunny side or would you have stayed where you are ?. and 1 more question, did you book your transportation from Cancun to the Royal thru the Hotel ?, we are traveling with "Best Day shuttle" how was it if thats who you used ? Long wait ?, crowded ?

Suite #238 was the only room we could book that wasn't a ground level, everything else that is available is ground level only.

I am sure you had a direct flight from LAX to Cancun as in we have to fly from Fresno to Phoenix then to Cancun. not much of a lay-over, maybe an hour in Phoenix.

We are still just a bit bummed we couldn't snag a room with a larger balcony though. and a hammock!

bigwally · 11-05-2008

Two of the Pelcanos cats. There is another kitten, not pictured. Then we've seen another cat who seems to live at the Gran Porto by Maria's (under parked cars mostly!). He's orange, very much like the kitten pictured here, but a wee bit older. Daddy cat perhaps?

Naomi and the view from 236. She doesn't look very happy about being on vacation, does she!

The pool may be freezing, but I'm going in anyway damnit!

This is one of the good wines. Actually really good for the price

Naomi's salad from Il Pescatore. All the food has been really good, save for that one marginal breakfast at Pelecanos:

10-31-2008	#1 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	At the Royal Playa del Carmen Oct. 31 - Nov. 9 OK, so we're here, finally. Forty-five minutes late out of LAX but only about 20 minutes late into Cancun. Big delays with immigration but quickly met by the attendant and driver contracted by FunJet (from Lomas Travel) once we'd exited the terminal. However, we first had to run the gauntlet of time-share hawkers and cab drivers. You really have to be quite firm indeed about not being interested in their wares. The private transportation was via a very swish Lincoln Navigator and arrival at the hotel was at just a hair past 6pm local time. Sadly, already dark by the time we arrived. We were met by the bellman with a very cheery "Welcome Home!" and he guided us directly to the concierge desk, since we'd already checked in online. No suprises for us on the room assignment - 236 as we had preblocked. No interactions with the time share folks here at the Royal, as I had somewhat expected. In fact, within about 5 minutes we had checked in and were safely esconsed in our room. The room is all I expected it to be and more, certainly with respect to the view - directly across the pool and to the beach. No craning of the neck or other contortions of the body needed. It even seems closer to the beach than all the photos I've seen. In fact, the whole complex seems more compact than I had expected it to be. Even the ocean view rooms above the lobby wouldn't have been as far back from the beach as I thought they might. None of the photos I've pulled off the web do this place justice. The only dissapointment so far - we don't have ANY hot water. But you know what, this room is so awesome I'll take cold showers the whole week to keep it, if I have to! We were a bit bushed tonight, so decided that a quick buffet at Spice would be the easiest food option. Now we aren't huge foodies, and aren't very picky, but we found the food to be just great. We also got to try some of the local red wine (from Guadalajara apparently) and found it to be very good also. We did already encounter some negative alcohol fueled boisterous behavior in that one of the patrons in a group near our table decided it approprite to entertain the restaurant by removing her bra, right there in the restaurant! Now I'm not a prude or anything, but I've got to think that's just a bit tacky. It's like I told Naomi - just because you can drink all you want, doesn't mean that you should! But anyway, two thumbs up for the food and service thus far. After dinner we took a bit of a stroll around. Down to the beach via the pool and then a quick swing by Pelicanos to see if we could introduce ourselves to the cats. We saw a Moma cat sitting patiently waiting for a hand-out while two adorable kittens (presumably hers) ran around pouncing on shadows. Very, very, cute. On the way back to our room, we stopped by the 24 hour hangout and libertated a bottle of champagne to take back to the room. You see, the mini-bar was a bit light when it came to wine. Actually there wasn't any. From pictures I had seen before, I had expected duplicate bottles for those in the bottle butler, along with at least one bottle of wine, placed by the coffee maker to the right of the min bar fridge. None of these things were evident. Well, if the mountain won't come to Mohammed....... So it's 10:45pm local time right now and that means we've been on the go for close to 18 hours. Naomi is off in dream land already and I feel pretty much like I should do the same. So it's time for me to sign off for the night. Will try to catch up with you on tomorrow's adventures, well, tomorrow (perhaps even with pictures!) Good night all! __________________

11-01-2008	#3 (permalink)
Dijo añejo Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Southwestern Ontario Posts: 1,811	Have a great time and keep us posted when you get a chance! Catch some rays for me.

11-05-2008	#10 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	I'm afriad you are correct. 238 has a mini-balcony. Clamshell shaped with a pair of chairs and small table - no hammock. The other thing I should probably tell you, thinking about it, is that the entire north facing side of the hotel is in the shade most of the day at this time of year. You'll get some sun early in the morning, but by late morning the sun will be over the top of the building to the south. Great for us, because we don't like a whole bunch of sun, but if you want your room and balcony to be a sun trap you really want to be on the north side of the pool facing south! Last edited by bigwally; 11-05-2008 at 11:09 AM..

11-05-2008	#14 (permalink)
Mach II way into it Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Left Coast Posts: 196	Yes Wally, My wife and I are both smokers. I was wondering if they allowed smoking on the balconies since we booked the no smoking section. Only reason we booked 238 was because of location to the pool area. We won't smoke in the room ever though. Just don't like the smell and well we are in a non smoking area. if you could do it again, would you have booked the ground level on the sunny side or would you have stayed where you are ?. and 1 more question, did you book your transportation from Cancun to the Royal thru the Hotel ?, we are traveling with "Best Day shuttle" how was it if thats who you used ? Long wait ?, crowded ? Suite #238 was the only room we could book that wasn't a ground level, everything else that is available is ground level only. I am sure you had a direct flight from LAX to Cancun as in we have to fly from Fresno to Phoenix then to Cancun. not much of a lay-over, maybe an hour in Phoenix. We are still just a bit bummed we couldn't snag a room with a larger balcony though. and a hammock! Last edited by Mach II; 11-05-2008 at 11:46 AM..

11-01-2008	#2 (permalink)
mrcool138 beachaholic Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: indiana Posts: 251	Bigwally, We had the same problem with the hot water, try turning the shower knob the other direction and letting the water run for a looonnngg time!! Ours finally warmed up. Have a great time and look forward to the pictures!!

11-01-2008	#4 (permalink)
TXMichelle reposado Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Texas Posts: 1,481	Awesome! Can't wait to hear more!

11-02-2008	#5 (permalink)
Mach II way into it Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Left Coast Posts: 196	4 more days, save me a beer or 2.

11-04-2008	#6 (permalink)
Mach II way into it Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Left Coast Posts: 196	Hey BigWally, we just checked in online, don't know why I was allowed to do it way before the 48 hour mark, lucky us, we are in Suite 238, looks like we are neighbors, woohoo !, see ya in a few days!!!!

11-04-2008	#7 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	Hah! Not sure we need to go to the Beer Bucket then. We can just throw beers back and forth between the balconies (cans only though)! Peeps, have part two of trip report almost ready to post. But am deep into vacation mode and have a touch of the Mañanas. Guess it goes with the territory, huh?

11-04-2008	#8 (permalink)
silvergirl añejo Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 4,948	I love a live report!! We stayed here in 2007.........twice actually. Very nice place indeed!

11-04-2008	#9 (permalink)
Mach II way into it Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Left Coast Posts: 196	BigWally, I have a quick question. Looking at other views I have found online. Is our balcony as large as the one your in ?. I can't make out the picture well enough to see if their is a hammock or not ?, the railing looks a bit angular also. since your there and only 2 rooms away. I thought I would ask. Thanks and see you soon !

11-05-2008	#11 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	So here we are with day two, basically a day hanging around the hotel. An unwelcome sleep interruption Friday night - the alarm in my laptop went off about an hour after I had fallen sound asleep (so that would have been midnight) and it took me a good while, staggering around a pitch black room, to figure out where all the noise was coming from (brain was not firing on all cylinders). Fortunately, due to complete exhaustion from travel, I was able to fall back to sleep pretty quickly and didn’t feel much of anything else until 8am Saturday morning. It is also fortunate that we happen to like a hard bed. Because these beds are really hard! So be warned if you like something on the soft side…..it’s not going to happen. The multitude of pillows in the room, 6 in total, meant that I was able to find two soft enough to suit without calling for anything from the pillow menu applicable to the Royal category rooms. So Saturday morning we had hot water. Coincidentally or not, a light that was out above the toilet was also working this morning. A small electrical problem in our block perhaps? So I took the very hot shower I’d been jonesing for big time the previous night. Breakfast this morning was at Pelecanos. Naomi had the Tuna Artichoke omelette and I had the Hunter’s omelette. Good, but not great. Naomi’s was a bit dry and mine, which was supposed to be liver, was a bit grisly. Like there may have been heart and other assorted innards in there too. Note that they don’t have filtered decaf in ANY of the restaurants, so be prepared to have instant decaf or settle for regular coffee. There are, however, decaf packs in your room for the mini coffee maker. So if you must have a decent cup of decaf to start your day, it might be the best option. It takes two of these packs for a full carafe of coffee of decent strength (and this is from a guy who likes fairly weak coffee!) We made it down to the pool at around 11:30am. It seemed like it was going to be a nice day, but it was quite windy. First order of business was to check the pool water temperature, which was.…….ABSOLUTLEY FREEZING! Despite this, we chose a pair of in-pool lounges and decided to ease ourselves into the pool via the hot tub. Or should I say the warm tub, because it was about the temperature our pool normally is back at home. Still, it made the transition to the pool water much less of a shock to the system and once you’d been in the pool for a while it felt fine. However, our day at the pool was cut short by a torrential downpour, which only lasted about 10 minutes but sent everyone running back to their rooms. I can now see the advantage of a ground floor poolside room. While we’re talking about our pool experience, I need to visit the question of real margaritas vs. what we make at home. I don’t like scratch made ones at all – far too bitter. Give me a shot of tequila with a dash of good ol’ margarita mix any day of the week. We switched to piña Coladas after the first drink and stayed that way the rest of the afternoon. Once we got back to our room, even though the weather cleared up quickly and the sun came back out, we decided that would be it for the day for us. We spent some time on our balcony, drinking the bottle of champagne we pinched from the 24 hour hangout and watching the world go by; we spent some time napping; and we spent some time watching a movie on the DVD player. This conveniently took us to dinner time. We had decided to visit the Grand Porto for dinner. At first we thought we were going to have Mexican at Maria’s, but weren’t really crazy about the menu choices. We ended up at the Italian place, Il Pescatore. Naomi had the Caprese Salad – Tomato with mozzarella cheese and asparagus dressed with pesto – followed by the Putanesca salmon fillet – poached salmon in white wine, pomodoro sauce, anchovies, and cream. I had the lobster bisque followed by the Romana pork scallops with linguine and tomato sauce. All was very good indeed! While the AI experience includes most beverages, what you’re going to find when it comes to wine is that the only ones you’ll have access to without paying a premium are a limited selection of “house wines”. At the Royal this gives you a few fairly decent Spanish wines. But at the Gran Porto the wines seemed to be of a slightly lesser quality and, as a result, we were a little disappointed with the red that night. Drinkable, but we’d preferred the selections at the Royal better, particularly a red by Canals and Nubiola. After dinner we took in the hotels “Las Vegas” show, a valiant attempt at a dance review by an enthusiastic but somewhat inexperienced entertainment team. While there is no doubt that there are some very talented dancers in the crew, it was definitely a sub-cruise ship quality presentation. If you have time to kill, take these 9pm shows in. But I wouldn’t build my night around it.

11-05-2008	#12 (permalink)
mrcool138 beachaholic Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: indiana Posts: 251	Bigwally, Thanks for the updates.. we really enjoyed the Italian place at the GPR as well. The really only acceptable magaritas I found were from the tequila bar and made with Don Julio. Although the frozen melon margaritas were a good way to get the day started on the beach. Have a great rest of your trip.

11-05-2008	#13 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	Mach, are you a smoker? Hope you're not allergic - the arrivals in 238 from Monday are (smokers that is), in this supposedly non-smoking section of the hotel. So are their buddies in 237. Hopefully, if you are moving into 238 that means that both those rooms could be vacating within the next couple of days. Unfortunately it's something I'm seeing a lot in this hotel. If, as I inquired of Mr. Cool, the pool side of the Tulum block is non-smoking now, I've seen people smoking all over the place on that side. I mean, if I'm going to a place that allows smoking (or in this case a section of the hotel) then I'd expect people would want to light up and it wouldn't bother me. If it did bother me that much, I'd plan otherwise. However, I'm now deprived use of my balcony and leaving the door open to the sea breezes through no fault of my own.

register to remove these adverts

11-05-2008	#15 (permalink)
bigwally beachaholic Join Date: May 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 327	Two of the Pelcanos cats. There is another kitten, not pictured. Then we've seen another cat who seems to live at the Gran Porto by Maria's (under parked cars mostly!). He's orange, very much like the kitten pictured here, but a wee bit older. Daddy cat perhaps? Naomi and the view from 236. She doesn't look very happy about being on vacation, does she! The pool may be freezing, but I'm going in anyway damnit! This is one of the good wines. Actually really good for the price Naomi's salad from Il Pescatore. All the food has been really good, save for that one marginal breakfast at Pelecanos: