Royalton Riviera Cancun

For a 5 star hotel and a 2 bedroom presidential suite I would have expected that the windows on the balcony would have been cleaned. The hotel looks nice but it is very tired and a lot of renovations are needed in order for this to be considered a 5-star hotel. Also the fact that you need to pay 30-200 USD (bottle service) just to ensure reservations at the restaurantes (especially the Japanese) is a but ridiculous. We spent about $20,000 for a week here for our family of 4. We travel to Mexico every year and we are even considering buying or renting a place in the Riviera Maya. We have been travelling to Mexico for the past 20 years. Out of all the places we have been to this was the most expensive and the most disappointing. [Details]

Do NOT recommend. Nothing "royal" about my experience at the Royalton Riviera Cancun. It was a TERRIBLE experience. 

- Accommodations: don't be fooled by the photos. The building is OLD, with lots of wear and tear. For example, TV/remote not working, rusty drawers that don't open, closet and bathroom doors got stuck, mirror with splotchy stains, electronic safe wasn't working, A/C was LOUD and finicky. NOT a functional room.
- Cleanliness problems: saw COCKROACHES in room, and dogs roaming hallway to eat leftovers from room service plates outside the rooms. Strong ODOUR in rooms, maybe from chemicals they used (like wet and MOULDY scent).
- Food: quality is hit or miss, but butler needs to reserve ahead of time, otherwise you're stuck. We had a MISHAP when the restaurant told our butler we didn't have a reservation. 
- Activities: not all available, and have to book in advance. Also depends on your room type because you can't attend them all. Staff didn't know about "cooking lessons" or "free non-motorized water sports." 
- Beach: lots of SEAWEED and dirty.
- Pools & cabana: there's NOT ENOUGH at all, so had to wake up at 6:30am just to get a spot. That is NOT a restful vacation.
- Spa/hydrotherapy: need to reserve, but it's too CROWDED and DISORGANIZED. 
- Management: TERRIBLE. There was a FLOOD in room above due to jacuzzi malfunction, so we had to deal with cleaning and packing up our things to move to another room at night. What ruined our stay was how Management handled this. We were a very understanding and respectful family, but were not treated as valued guests. Dealing with Management was DISGUSTING. 
- Service staff: the individuals who served us were hard working and friendly. From the butlers, wait staff, housekeeping - they were the ones who gave us positive moments. The service staff is really the only noteworthy and positive aspect of the resort.

Conclusion: don't WASTE YOUR MONEY at the Royalton Riviera Cancun. [Details]

Staff were very nice. A bit confusing information about what is and what isn't included. Expect to tip everywhere... which is typical. Shop the excursions... you can get a better deal if you shop it... Rooms a bit musty, and tired. Weird that the tub is in the middle of the room. No real closet space, so our clothes had to be on all the counters/tables and couches... but overall good experience. I just wish they would clean the beach... [Details]

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Royalton Riviera Cancun!

Firstly, our stay would not have been the same without the amazing help and service from the front desk staff, Alexis. We are so grateful for his kindness and excellent customer service! Thank you so much, Alexis!

Other great staff who went above and beyond include: Jose and Irma (servers at the Splash pool), Miguel (steakhouse), and Sol (housekeeping).

The food at the resort was great as well as the drinks. We really enjoyed, Agave and Hunter, and the breakfast buffet.

There was entertainment every night and a dedicated family night for the kids, which was excellent!

This is a great resort for families and having friendly and kind staff, made all the difference! [Details]

The resort is not what I expected at all. As soon as I arrived I was supposed to have rooms next to my friends but that was not set up and we had to pay a upgrade charge of $250 CAD to get room close to each other, and they were not even side to side. The staff was nice but not engaging I felt as if I was always unwanted or not welcomed. The food and drinks were good but they did not offer straws and the cups were always wet when receiving a drink. The rooms were nice and spacious and the housekeeping was very quick and good with the maintenance. The casino was very small, dark, and energetic, it did not feel like a fun environment. During the day the activities offered were okay but could easily be improved and more be more fun. Overall I rate my stay a 4.5/10, I truly would not return and do not recommend this resort. [Details]

Riviera Cancun
Worst trip ever!
Dec. 2022 • Family
lam at this resort right now paid around $9500 cad for a family of 3.Got diamond club(total rip-off) the resort is just too busy for any personal touch to your vacation.Very commercialized,staff is very hardworking and untrained.This isn't a 5 star resort, having 5 star amenities doesn't make you a 5 star resort...it's the service that matters and you wil never get that in such a big resort.I stayed here because my family picked this resort up,and they also hated the experience. Paid for ocean front room terrace jacuzzi but they gave me a pool front and didn't give us 2 queen beds,my daughter had to sleep on a sofa bed.After going to diamond club and arguing with them for giving us the room we paid they finally agreed to move us after 2 day's.
Please stay away from big resorts if you value your money and looking for service.
Thanks royalton for ruining my vacation,it isn't my fault if your freaking resort is busy. Even with the butler we couldn't get reservations for our specific restaurants we wanted,and everyone expects a tip even though they haven't done anything to deserve that tip!
Tip: It's a very busy resort lacks service and quality of a 5 star resort. [Details]

VERY family friendly; lots of kids running around. There was a great family night where there was face painting, bouncy castles, crafts, balloon animals, etc. We were in the Diamond club section, so stuck by that pool most of the time, but all pools were very clean and service was fantastic. Food wasn't as good as I had expected based on other reviews; not terrible, but not excellent. Seafood and Steakhouses were the biggest disappointment. [Details]

Friendly helpful staff. The showers are amazing and the beds are comfortable. Lovely pool area and great buffet food. Sadly I feel the buffet opens too late especially for the littles at 6:30. We had a wedding at the Royalton and were disappointed with the food and the condition of the venue including the cleanliness of the chairs. The Royalton offers lots of poolside activities and has teen club and kids club but seems to miss the mark for kids aged 8-12.
There are line ups at all restaurants as there are no reservations available. Lots of available bars but drinks inconsistent in mix and taste [Details]

We had a very enjoyable and much needed family vacation and The Royalton did not disappoint! Besides a slow-ish check in and our room not being ready on time, we can not fault the hotel in anyway. As a family we took advantage of The Diamond Club and what an experience that was - WOW! The Kids Club was excellent and we hardly saw our son because of it. It was so well organized and had great activities arranged to keep them busy all day. The food in each of the restaurants was great. The Italian was a little disappointing but there were plenty of other places we could eat at and enjoy. Holidaying at The Royalton will have you wanting to spend more time there. [Details]

We were 2 families staying at this hotel, 5 kids. In a nutshell if you are looking for a pool resort, you have many choices at this resort, but the beach it's awful, stinky and full of seaweeds. Definitely not a 5 stars resort. Management should have a strategy in place to deal with the seaweeds, employees who actually take care of the beach, clean well every morning, people who actually try to keep that beach clean, but no… in 7 days we saw a guy running the tractor 3 times in the am… and it was quickly done, few minutes only and that's it. No wonder you never get to have a clean beach, they keep the seaweeds there for days, gets stinky and disgusting. Furthermore, we had a swim out room- room was in a bad condition, the sofa bed had no matrice I had to literally get the manager at 9 PM the first night bring him to my room, show him that my kid has no where to sleep, get upset before someone does something and finds me a matrice for the sofa bed. We used the swim out pool and it's such in a bad condition that my daughter cut her foot in the edges of the stairs. Food is good, but I was not impressed. Entertainment was good, some nights were better then others. honestly ocean riviera paradise it's a much better resort and it's a 4.5 stars, riu, dreams you name it wayyyyyyyy better. I would not recommend this resort. It was our first time in this chaîne, will be our last time. [Details]

We have visited this resort several times and have grown to love it. However this time we were very disappointed. The diamond club comes with several perks, however we did not recieve most of the perks and were left questioning who our butler was on most days. had to track people down for basic beverages in the room and had to reserve our own restaurants. I believe the resort over sold diamond club and could not deliver the service [Details]

Marriott? Perhaps don't tell anyone you are!
I am just heading into the last night of a 7 day trip and unfortunately I would say the reviews are all over the map because the service is. Subjective as they be, I will share somethings to help you decide if this is the property for you.
Diamond Club
Check-in: The counter is 500 feet from the entrance. The lounge is nothing special. There were three staff doing check-ins and three more standing around. It was all self-serve and the refrigerator had not one bottle of water. Highly disorganized process and people arriving after were being checked in before. The main lobby check-in was orderly and seemed to move faster.
Lounge: Seriously just a waiting room. Not even any welcome music and definitely no servers offering any welcome water or drinks.
Rooms: The rooms are well stocked, but that is not consistent either. Some days you get 2 bottles of water and some days you don't. The premium rooms come stocked with bottles, but nothing like the ones advertised on their promo videos. The beds need to be replaced. I have attached some pictures to give you a better idea. The sofa beds are absolutely rubbish. You can truly feel the metal springs. Linens and pillows are nothing as described.
Swim Out Pools: They are nice and I would say we shared ours with 2 other rooms and we basically enjoyed it. Unlike the main pools, these ones are not heated and if in the shade, they are very cold. Depending on the building, they face the main pools anyways. Except building 4.
Room Service: There is nothing positive to say. They ask you to order on the tv screen. The breakfast menu is ok, but the all day menu is super limited and extremely disappointing. The peak and non-peak service is extremely delayed. Typically they say 30-45 mins and they take 60-75 mins. They often short the order and things are not what they appear. Check your food carefully to ensure your veggie food doesn't have chicken in it and your gluten free food isn't made with wheat. People with any allergies should stay away from this property as you can visually see the cross contamination in process!
Butler Service: The first butler was extremely unhelpful. He told us to order on the TV and the TV was not working. The sofa had recent staining and he said it was fine. The sofa bed had springs pushing through and he said they would double it up. We requested/demanded a swap out and our new butler was great. We didn't really use the service much, but when we got stuck he was there with reservations. I don't think this service is really needed and several of them were just passing time in the entry office where they wait.
Restaurants: We tried the Mexican restaurant, the Indian and the Italian. All of them were average at best. The Mexican restaurant was the worst with the food being cold. The Indian restaurant was surprisingly ok, but it was almost as though they were understaffed so everyone was being served in steps – everyone got their appetizer at the same time etc. The buffet was just like any other all inclusive.
Spa – They offer discounts in the walkways which are comparable to the 25% off that you get in the diamond club. However, the rates are very high for both US and Canadian standards. Probably the reason why they were not as busy as they could be. The Hydrotherapy is included for diamond members each day, however getting in for that is difficult. Again, something to try out, but nothing really special. The Spa attendants walk you around and get you to sit the pool in different areas and turn on and off jets. There is no free roaming so that you can sit in the steam or sit in the hot tub. It was nothing covid related, just not what they do. The staff inside the spa are nice enough but they are harping on you for feedback forms with tip lines. Its just not necessary. The Swedish massage was elbows and arms. No music anywhere in the spa, though one member of my party said they did have music in their room. I would recommend you book a massage when you get back home from your trip and long flight [Details]

L'hotel offre beaucoup d'activités et beaucoup de choix en terme de restauration. Le menus sont même adaptées pour pour les intolérances au lactose et au gluten. Le buffet est vaste, varié. Il y a un restaurant Italien, Caraïbes, Mexicain, Indien, Japonais et un café/patisserie/crèmerie qui fait des expresso avec lait régulier, soya, amande ou sans lactose!
Les activités sont nombreuses. Il y a une dizaine de cours de fitness par jour (beach yoga, yoga duet, yoga flow, Bootcamp, HIIT, TRX, beach TRX, aqua fitness, etc). Le centre de conditionnement physique en offre pour tous les goûts et il y a 3 terrains de tennis.Il y a même une piscine de 40m de long avec vue sur l'ocean ou il est possible de faire de la natation (plusieurs personnes le font tous les matins). Il organisent plusieurs fois par semaine des tournois de ping pong, soccer de place, volleyball de place ou dans la piscine. Ils organisent aussi des ballon party et des foam party!
La piscine possède 7 piscine: une adulte seulement, une piscine au Diamond club qui est plus tranquille, une piscine centrale ou plusieurs activités se déroulent, 2 piscines faites en longueur avec vue sur le mer et une section familiale (3 portions) avec des jeux d'eau, des glissages, un portion plus profonde pour que les enfants puissent nager mais toucher dans le fond a partir de 7-8 ans et une portion pleine profondeur avec bar.
Evidemment, ils ont manqués d'investissement dans les 2 dernières années et nous avons vu plusieurs peintre à l'oeuvre donc je présume que les mise en niveau sont en cour. [Details]

It has such a great entertainment team and fitness team who entertain all ages. Thank you Vibeteam! [Details]

My family and I just returned from the Royalton Riviera Cancun, and I just want to say upfront that despite some of the complaints which I'll list below, we still absolutely loved our trip. I feel like many/most of our complaints are almost certainly related to what feels simply like staffing issues overall, which I've heard is an issue with a lot of resorts in Riviera Maya right now.

Specifically, I wanted to give MAXIMUM praise to the following staff who made our stay particularly enjoyable:
- Mauricio the pool butler at the diamond pool. This man went above and beyond every single day, helping people find beds and cabanas all day long and dealing with the many conflicts that arose
- Esther, part of the entertainment staff at the diamond pool was an absolute gem. She had a little trivia game every day, to give folks a little mini-entertainment before telling them about the events of the day, and she was so friendly and lovely. My wife had a wonderful chat with her one day for quite some time.
- Arturo, Edgar and Erik at the diamond pool bar. Those men worked their butts off slinging drinks with some often-rowdy crowds, and were often super entertaining to boot.
- The poolside drink server, whose name we didn't catch, who had to work the entire large pool by herself. God help that poor woman!

ONE TIP: if you're staying in the Diamond section and you want a cabana? You absolutely need to get there by 6:30am at the *absolute latest*. If you just want regular sun beds, you can probably still get some as last as 7:30am, but by 8am pretty much all of the best locations/umbrellas are gone. If you're hoping to stroll into the pool area at 10:30 and get a place to plant your family, forget about it. The beach looked a bit better, but we never went there. And yes, Royalton officially has a "no reserving beds" rule but it's impossible to enforce when literally everybody at the resort is doing it.

Rather than a dense list of paragraphs, I'm just going to do a pros and cons list to make it easier to consume for anybody that's curious about our experience. We stayed in a 1 bed presidential suite in the Diamond club section, from Feb 19-26.

Pros:
- Check-in in the separate Diamond Club lounge was pretty quick and efficient, better than standing in line in the lobby for sure.
- Room was beautiful and spacious. Bed in the master bedroom was *extremely* comfortable. Two mini-fridges was a great benefit
- Very quiet at night, which was a huge plus. There were a lot of weddings at the resort but we never heard anything from any of them after 10pm
- Food at the a la carte restaurants was AMAZING. We ate at the following restaurants and loved all of them:
- Zen (Japanese, we didn't have the Teppanyaki)
- Agave (Mexican)
- Hunter (steakhouse, which seemed to be the most in demand)
- Caribbean
- Grazie (Italian)
- Taj (Indian)
- Armadillo (tex-mex a la carte lunch restaurant in the Diamond pool area)
- Buffet food from the on-demand stations (eggs/crepes in the morning, burgers/pasta/etc for lunch and dinner) was pretty excellent as well
- All staff was extremely friendly and accommodating
- Public areas all felt very well cleaned and tended to
- Masking rules for indoor areas were (for the most part) enforced pretty strongly. We saw several people turned away from restaurants for not having masks, which was good to see.

And now, unfortunately, the cons:
- Our primary complaint is that overall, the entire resort felt severely understaffed:
- At the a-la carte restaurants (all except for the tex mex lunch place), we felt both rushed *and* like our service was slow. Servers had so many tables that they rarely had time to check back in to see how the table was doing with the food, or to get drink refills
- Our room came with butler service, and honestly aside from them getting us our restaurant reservations (which they didn't do a *particularly* great job with, any way), there was very little value add provided there. Our primary method of getting in touch with them was via whatsapp, and one butler's phone broke so we couldn't get in touch with her at all from the middle of the week, and the other took a day off and simply didn't respond to any of our messages that day, we only found out the next day that he had been off (his replacement never got in touch with us). Yes, this is very much a luxury complaint, but Royalton charges significantly more for the privilege of getting access to this service and it very much was not worth the money, at least in our experience.
- Royalton advertises poolside drink service in the Diamond section, but only had 1 server for the whole large pool area. It was *absolutely* not her fault, but service was definitely slower because it was only her working by herself
- Our room wasn't serviced for 2 days in the middle of the week for some reason. Normally not a big deal but we ran out of toilet paper and shampoo and had to call in for more, and we also had gotten breakfast via room service so we had several plates with food on them that didn't get cleaned up (I put them out in the hall).
- Our wine fridge was broken when we arrived, and our butler assured us that she would get it fixed. Sure enough, somebody showed up and took it from our room the day after we arrived. Then we didn't hear back about it until roughly 9pm, the night before we left, asking if it was now working. Since it hadn't been returned to our room, obviously we had no idea. This definitely feels like an understaffing problem as well, just not enough people to keep on top of maintenance.

- We paid extra for an "ocean view" room thinking that it was "ocean front", turns out that no, that just means "facing the pool, but the ocean is visible off to the side". I guess there are mangrove view rooms somewhere on the back of the hotel, in the Diamond section? But this felt extremely misleading.
- Royalton *absolutely* needs to figure out some way to organize the beds in the Diamond pool section better. Cabanas are free, but as mentioned above you need to be there by 6:30am at the absolute latest in order to get one. And even if you *do* get one, if you leave for longer than 10 minutes there's a very good chance that somebody will try to move your stuff and take your bed. We were very conscientious about making use of ours on the days that we got one, but one day we left for 45 minutes for lunch and when we returned, a French Canadian family had moved all our belongings and taken it for themselves. Thankfully Mauricio and I were good friends at that point and he resolved the conflict despite the very rude family's attempts to defend their thievery. And overall, it feels like there simply are not enough beds around the pool to meet demand in the Diamond area. This is a problem at many/most resorts but I've never been somewhere that you had to get up *quite* this early to win the seating hunger games. Thankfully, the pool staff (again, kudos to Mauricio!) seemed to be pretty good at recognizing when people dropped their stuff at 7am and then didn't return till after lunch time, clearing the beds for others to use.
- Overall, Royalton's "Diamond Club" doesn't seem like a particularly good value, at least with current staffing levels. Diamond Club visitors are supposedly able to just walk up to restaurants and get seating without reservations, and while this may TECHNICALLY be true, what that actually meant in practice was "Yes, you can have a table in 2 hours". Definitely not great for families with young kids. Butler service is available with some room classes in Diamond, but again they are so overwhelmed with requests that either they don't get to them at all, or they fulfill them incorrectly. We were lucky and got a tremendous deal on our Diamond Club room, but seeing how much more expensive those rooms apparently *normally* go for when they're not on sale, I would have been extremely disappointed to have paid that much money for very little return.
- after reading so many rave reviews about the buffet's food, I was very underwhelmed by everything that wasn't made fresh in front of you. There were several occasions where some food had been left out in the trays for too long (again, almost certainly due to understaffing), and the only thing I can think of is that many of the other reviewers were just visiting their first 5 star in Riviera Maya, because the food was otherwise absolutely average in both quality and variety. Nothing wrong with that, it *is* just the buffet after all, but it was very surprising just how average it was considering other reviews

So again: we LOVED our trip! And at full staffing levels, I suspect it would have earned a full 5 stars. But at least *right now*, in late-Feb/early-Mar 2022, when the resort seems to be at or near full capacity without having the staff to keep up? The max I could give it was a 4. And looking at the prices to go back in a couple months ($2000 more than what we paid, currently, for a smaller room without butler service) it would have been a MUCH lower rating. [Details]

Very much enjoyed our 2 family - 2 week stay at the Royalton. Very clean and Modern hotel with a great staff and facilities. Shout out to Goretti of the VIBE TEAM - as well the housekeeping staff for doing a great job!! Would strongly recommend to anyone looking for good value in a Mexican vacation !! [Details]

Everything was great, lots of wonderful food options, kids had a great time. Ended with several children at the resort getting HAND FOOT & MOUTH DISEASE from the pool. If you look this up the resort has had multiple outbreaks of this (2016 & 2020) We met other couples that stayed at the resort and they all reported the same thing with their kids! [Details]

Overall, we truly loved our time at the Royalton Riviera Cancun. The staff were always pleasant and treating the costumers with a genuine friendly, respectful and professional manner which we all appreciated.
The only issue we had was that because we did not get the chance to upgrade to Dimond Club it was very difficult to book reservations in the a la carte restaurants as they have a police "first come, first serve" and when I went to the Mexican restaurant, Agave, a few times hoping to get a reservation, the lady always told me that the earliest time was 9 pm. I went to Agave at different times hoping to get an earlier time but the lady's response was always the same, "sorry we are very busy, the earliest is 9 pm" This part was very disappointing. I believe that next time we will book Diamond club as they get priority treatment while booking at the restaurants.
The food was truly amazing, the facility clean, I love the Disco, Casino, bars etc. You have everything in the resort so you do not really need to leave the resort if you do not want to do it.
Every morning I went for my smoothie and the lady who works there was always pleasant and helpful. Thank you!!
The 24 hours room service is included! and we love the royal treatment 100%
Thank you so much for everything and we cant hardly wait to come back! [Details]

Enjoyable surprise and extra comfort [Details]

All in all our trip was great! The food was good and plentiful, the hotel had everything that we needed, the staff was pleasant (always masked), our swim up room was awesome and the entertainment during the day poolside, and especially at night was great. This hotel spends money on the entertainment. Professional all the way. We had to do a PCR Covid test for our return to Canada and Guest Services made it very simple. They called the company that does the tests, the company rep came to our room on the day and time requested, performed the test, and within 24hrs we had our results. The fee was $70US per person. The one complaint that we had was that the hotel was not as clean as it should be. We have stayed at other Royalton hotels and found that they were much cleaner. When we first got to our rooms, it didn't seem that they were sanitized as promised. Dresser tops were dusty, floor had some remnants from the prior guests and bed skirt was dirty.. I did however notice the cleaning that occurred in the rooms when other guests left. It seemed quite extensive, and you could smell the cleaning products being used. Maybe we just got a lazy maid on the day we arrived. The room was kept quite clean the rest of our stay. We also noticed that the main buffet restaurant was not quite a clean as it should be. In the morning, we would still see remnants of the partying from the night before around the grounds of the hotel. At previous Royalton stays, the properties were spotless at all times. [Details]

This was our second time to this hotel and I regret to say that we will likely not come back. It took a long time to check in because there were no rooms available in our category. An upgrade should have been automatically provided instead of having us sit around for over 30 minutes.

There were far too many staff standing around trying to sell the memberships.

It was useless to have Diamond Club other than having the butler make the dinner reservations. Butlers were nowhere to be seen because they had to service the entire floor, so it's not their fault.

Premium alcohol was difficult to find and the bar staff in the lobby bar kept telling me that it was an upcharge for me despite being Diamond Club.

Diamond club pools were far busier than the regular pools and loungers were frequently saved from early in the morning to late afternoon with no one in sight.

Drink service was rarely available at the pools and when you did order a drink, it took over 45 minutes to come.

Place is beautiful but service is lacking. it was obvious that the resort was cheaping out on food items as shrimp and lobster and sausages used to be available at the buffet. [Details]

If you are considering this resort please read my review,to the end. the good, bad & scam.

I will start with the positive.The resort is very nice. No seaweed on beach. Water smells.The food at buffet was well done. Great kids area at buffet. Our room was nice and bed was very comfortable. The entertainment was good we really enjoyed the afternoon music at the Diamond club pool. Rooms smell good and not moldy.

HERE IS THE NEGATIVE.
The public bathrooms are not well kept.That's big for me.The food handling at the Diamond Club barbeque was extremely scary, handling food after handling raw meat. Hard to get reservations at the al a cart restaurants so forget the Diamond Club.We were Diamond Club it is not worth the money. Most of the staff seemed unhappy and can be rude unless you are handing over money $$$ constantly or buying what their selling.They ask constantly about the spa package, It is relentless. However I do not want to be unfair to the people who did really try to make you feel welcome. If they offer you the beach bag be careful they want you to go to a time share breakfast presentation.
I do not mind tipping bit, but make sure you have lots of money $$$ for tipping or the service is bad even if you upgrade to Diamond Club . We had over $ 500.00 USA. We forgot to leave a tip one day and they never cleaned our suit again for 2 days.

OUR EXPERIENCE TURNS BAD This wrecked our vacation. At all resorts we get up early, get our chairs.This resort they are selling the pool chairs.YES? SELLING POOL CHAIRS! Then they put reserved on them or bogus books. No where is this on the website.We were told it is on the website by Elvis the pool manager. Then they retracted that after I confronted the lie.
I payed for Diamond Club, I expect to get a lounge chair if I get up early. "I have pics of the chairs with reserved on them. I watched as pool staff took guests items off the chairs and reserve them for other guests for $$$ under the table. The guest would come back less then 30mins later and everything was moved. Many people were upset that they could not get a chair because of the pay for chair scam. If you go to this resort take a picture and time stamp it & your belongings. I have never ever seen this at any resort ever. This was shocking. People told us they were asked "You pay me senor , I keep chair for you". So Good Luck getting a chair ..... so be aware in high season you will NOT get a pool or beach chair unless you pay extra or get a chair before 7am and do NOT leave even going in pool is risky if they see your chair is empty for long. This promoted guests to argue with guests.The Diamond Club pool area is monitored by pool staff, they bring towels to your chairs for you, don't let this make you feel special because you are Diamond Club.They are trolling for tips and money. It's sad actually that you pay so much for a "5star" and you can't get a chair by 7am because the staff save chairs for guest who pay big $$$ under the table.

On our second last day we got up early to get our chairs at the pool. As we were sitting there we were approached by a guest that told us we had to move. She told us she paid for 8 pool chairs. We said no one pays for pool chairs and we refused to move. She went and retrieved the pool staff.They told us we had to move and tried to remove our things, started to intimidate us. Again we refused and felt very under attack . We had arrived first and NO ITEMS WERE PLACED ON CHAIRS they were empty. We only needed 4 chairs. This turned into drama I do not need at 62 years old. We have done the same thing we have done at all the resorts. Get up early, get our chairs.You may say so what? Get over it. Ask yourself ,do you want your personal items taken/ touched and removed, being accused of being gone to long when you know you have not. Or being asked to leave a chair you know you got up early to get.Getting into a fight with another guest. I do not go to fight for a chair that I paid for up front in the price. All guests should be special and treated as such. Im not saying don't go to this resort, just telling you what we personally experienced. I'm sure I will get so sorry for your experience. The resort needs to stop this practice by the pool staff . I do not want to be watched by the 3 amigos at pool to see if I leave my chair. So many resorts to go to.So if you want to be lorded over go. If you want to pay constantly go. This is off my list.
I want to enjoy, relax and not be harrassed over a darn chair. [Details]

Overall a wonderful, memorable experience; as with most resorts this size there always are areas of excellence and areas in need of improvement.
Where it matters most - our day to day comfort, food, ambiance, service, cleanliness, etc. - the resort Staff was friendly, always ready to assist, and available.
We were impressed starting with the smooth and friendly check in, the quality and condition of our room and its amenities. The Buffet including the eating area is huge and well maintained. The staff running this busy area are efficient and friendly. Food is bountiful, fresh and tasty; large variety of food to please most palates. At times food items are labelled incorrectly, although this was a minor inconvenience.
All the pool areas were well maintained, had a more than adequate supply of cabanas and loungers. For once we didn't have to get up early to reserve our spots - they don't allow this in any case.
Although the beach itself was not the best that we have seen, due to seaweed being washed up, the beach staff does an admirable job to clean up excessive buildup. Lovely soft white sand! Again plenty of loungers for all.
The area that we found the resort lacking in was in the Restaurants. Service was slow and the food was average except at the Zen (Japanese) where it was very good, and the Taj (Indian) where it was terrible and the Caribbean which we were warned by many guests to stay away from due to it being the slowest to serve food and lack lustre service.
The others were average and could most certainly improve in quality of food and service.
The alcoholic drinks were plentiful, however, the quality could have been better. Can't expect premium drinks with an all inclusive, but could be better than what we had.
A wonderful vacation thanks to all the people at Royalton! [Details]

My husband, my 8-month-old son and I stayed at the Diamond Club section at Royalton the week of November 22nd. I originally intended to post my horrible experience with this dreadful resort but had to make revisions to my post to comply with trip advisors guidelines so I am only now reposting.

The hotel overall is average nothing special. We are frequent flyers and would rate this resort at a modest 3*. It is not a 5* star resort. You get more staying at a non-chain resort (they simply try harder which makes the experience nicer). The resort is poorly managed and the managers are useless and have you going back and forth to waste your time so they do not have to deal with it. For example, when we got to the Royalton we watched the bell boy break our Uppababy stroller the second we got off the bus I advised our resort rep what had happened and when he spoke to the bell boy he started lying - fortunately for us my husband speaks Spanish so was able to call him out on it. Long story short the hotel gave us 2 options - the first was to have their maintenance guy fix our stroller (big no no I will not have an unauthorized maintenance guy mess with my baby's stroller – the piece that was broken was off the main frame can you imagine if he messed with it and didn't tie a screw properly and the stroller just collapsed with my baby? Absolutely no! I would not take that chance) the second they offered us a hotel stroller? I was not very interested in putting my 8 month into a used stroller. We declined their options and advised that they could either replace our Uppababy stroller or contact an uppababy retailer to arrange for them to fix it at the resort cost. The resort stayed mute and did not respond. I guess the manager (who was pregnant – you think she would get it as a mother she was nothing but negligent) and was too busy socializing rather then dealing with the actual issue. We had absolutely no more energy to fight with this useless manager and travelled home with a broken stroller. I purchased a brand new uppababy stroller the moment I returned to Toronto.

In addition to the stroller issue, the mini bars are not restocked daily and I had to call room service 6 times and yell at them to simply get a couple bottle of waters for my baby and our safe was also messed with around (same error message etc). I would highly recommend that parents stay far far away from this resort. The sad part is, the Royalton is owned by a Canadian…. [Details]

This was our third time in four years. We booked in July the same room category as our visit in 16, ocean view roof top 4 plus person jacuzzi and were surprised to be given a ov terrace maybe 2 person jacuzzi. When questioned were told "upon availability" which I said 'we booked in July not last minute". This did not sit well to say the least. Bigger problems were soon to arise. The pool with the swim-up bar by the children's activity pool became inundated with "floatables" for very young children and people sitting at the pool bar for great lengths of time. Hence warm water by the bar. At the heated pool near the main pool I witnessed a man with an infant remove its' soiled diaper and throw it onto the pool deck area; which I brought to the attention of our server. The resort has become popular with Europeans which I might say some need a course in proper etiquette, remember the diaper. European preteens were left at one pool while parents were at another. I had to communicate with a foursome of preteens regarding safety concerns with toys being thrown with no consideration for those nearby. Lastly, throughout our 14 days there were numerous attempts to open or see if we had accidentally left our safe unlocked. I discovered this one day when I happened to notice the closet door was not how I left it, so every day I monitored/recorded the situation. Security was called and through their investigation discovered it was more than one maid in our room. Therefore I believe this was happening throughout the resort and probably occurs at all other resorts. *** Never leave anything of value unattended. LOCK UP YOUR VALUABLES.
I did not leave a gratuity to the maid service. Instead I left a letter saying security/we knew of the attempts, (8), and stated "I will not reward bad behaviour"!!
* Note* Customer services asked us to call before our next visit to adjust for the room category problem. I may take them up on that. [Details]

The hotel had wonderful staff, amenities and entertainment. We enjoyed our time relaxing around the pool and at the beach. [Details]

We had a great experience at the Royalton. We were given the room we requested and it was beautiful with an amazing view. Thank you Alfonso Lopez, sorry we didn't get to meet. Staff was friendly and did a great job. The food was very good, no issues there. The pools were lovely and enjoyed the wait service we received. The beach was also very nice, soft white sand but did have a lot of seaweed. It was cleaned up daily. Would recommend this resort to anyone. Only thing I wish is that one of the Main pools was Adult only. We didn't stay on the Adult only side but we did visit but didn't find it appealing to us. Thank you Royalton [Details]

Best advice , do your research before hand!
Lots of quantity in regards to food and drink, lacks in quality.

Rooms overlooking the mangroves , do have a musty stench to them.
Beach is not great, plenty of seaweed every single day and water is a murky brown.
Just do your own research before hand. [Details]

from the moment we walked off the bus to the moment we left we had an amazing experience. I couldn't fault anything if I really nit picked restaurants typically had a 1 hour wait but the food was always incredible, and the odd panel around the resort you could see uneven paint colours, Like I said I really had to nitpick because it really didn't bother me even a little bit. We will 100% be back again and certainly the other royalton resorts. [Details]

Going Back can be considered again!!!!!!!!!!! [Details]