Ocean Maya Royale

Whoever has the guts to complain about this hotel is either incredibly picky and can’t appreciate the beauty of cancun.
Everything was amazing! We made a special request on food since one of us is celiac and they made sure the right food was ready at all times! You could see some wild animals every now and then but the stuff tries very hard to keep them away. It was just the Perfect spot to vacation. No kids around

We just left here after a week in Playa & we loved it. Definitely not the most luxurious resort on the strip I’m sure but we liked that it was a little more down to earth and not so grand that it took forever to walk to the pool or restaurants etc. Very friendly staff & efficient room service. They do play loud music/​performances till about 11:30 so if your room is near by to the main lobby area expect noise until then. Honestly, we spent most of our time exploring in and around Playa but when we were at the resort it was great to have everything included! Very relaxed vibe, they just want you to have a good time, just be smart about avoiding «welcome tours» when you arrive, trying to upsell the privilege package or time shares, unless you are into that.

We visited the Ocean Maya Royale in October 2015 with another couple. The food was great, the rooms were very nice. However, as a younger couple (early 30’s) we didn’t get as much attention/​respectful service as our older, retired counterparts did. Also, we were solicited for spa treatments multiple times a day. Overall, I would not come back, but it’s a nice, small cozy resort for older couples.

Just a heads up– I would like to say that this is a pretty long and detailed review so brace yourself. I spent 6 days and 5 nights at Ocean Maya Royale with my boyfriend and we had a very lovely time during our stay! For the price that it was, I would definitely recommend it. I have stayed at one other resort in Cancun a few years ago with more of a party crowd atmosphere and this particular resort was more of a couples atmosphere. I will detail our experience — both the pros and cons. We had the all inclusive package without any sort of privilege upgrade. We stayed on the 2^nd floor in Villa 32, which was a bit far from the main lobby as well as the pool/​beach area but we did not mind the walk. Upon arrival, we were greeted enthusiastically and very politely by the hotel staff. Because we arrived hours before our check in time of 3 pm, we had a good amount of time to check out the atmosphere and try out one of the food places, which I will go into detail about later. The staff was very accommodating and stored our luggage for us during this time. Our room was a good size and exactly what we expected. It was always kept very cool with the AC running which was definitely needed after a hot day at the pool/​beach. Our wifi connection was always great and pretty consistent throughout our stay. The hotel staff was very polite and always kept everything stocked. One complaint is that she left the door open while cleaning and let in quite a few mosquitoes so one suggestion is to maybe keep the door closed in the future. We were also disappointed about the «mini bar» that was supposedly included in our package deal which consisted of two beers, a few bottles of soda, and water. I felt the term «mini bar» was misleading. There are two pools near the beach, each with its own distinct vibe. One is the «quiet» pool where the older people will lounge and the other is the «party» pool that includes a swim-​up pool bar. There are also jacuzzi areas in that pool. Throughout the day, the entertainment crew hosted various activities around the pool area for people to do. Most of these were silly but pretty fun if you got into it! Some of these activities were yoga, water aerobics, dance lessons, archery, volleyball, etc. You could tell that the entire entertainment crew really gave their all to make sure the guests were having a good time — a big thank you to Cesar & Jenny! There is also a walking tour in the mornings, which is really a brief walk to a beautiful lagoon about 10 minutes away! Definitely make sure to check that out. As you have probably read from other reviews, if you want to stay at a resort with a nice beach area, Ocean Maya Royale is probably not for you. The beach area here is pretty gross and dirty — we mostly hung around the pool and lagoon area. As for the meals, there is a total of 5 restaurants: La Hacienda, El Charro, La Dolce Vita, Yokosomo, and Blue Moon. Overall, I would say the food here is decent and we were satisfied with what we paid for. If you are a food snob, you will most likely not be impressed. La Hacienda is the buffet place opened for breakfast, lunch and dinner. El Charro is more like a snack bar place by the pool area. It does have a smoothie bar that makes pretty tasty smoothies! I recommend the Light Camy or the Bonzana. La Dolce Vita is their newer Italian restaurant that was unfortunately our least favorite. To be honest, it was terrible! We could not sit indoors unless we had Privilege Status and because it was under a hot, humid gazebo type building, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes the entire time. The food was also very bland — the ravioli I ordered was below comparable to Chef Boyardee. The service was also the worst of anywhere else at the resort. If you only have a few days at the resort, I would say skip this place. Yokosomo is a pretty decent Japanese place and one of our favorite places! The seating is indoors (thank goodness). Last, Blue Moon was our favorite restaurant there and we even went twice during our stay. It is the only place with a dress code (men must wear closed-​toe shoes and pants, women must not wear plastic flip flops). I recommend the escargot for an appetizer. There was also Mike’s coffee that served coffee and tea along with bakery goods. My one complaint is that it didn’t open until 4 pm every day which did not seem to make sense to me. The night life at Ocean Maya Royale ends pretty early. There are performances every night around 9 pm. Unfortunately, because the resort is not anywhere near any bars/​happenings in Playa Del Carmen, there really isn’t anywhere to go. The bar in the lobby is 24 hrs but people usually disappear around 1 am. Again, this is not a party resort. All in all, we had a great time here and would recommend it to future guests!

In general, the staff is either naturally friendly or well trained to be friendly. Personally I liked many of their personalities.
I’ve learned, from this, I’m not a fan of staying at an all inclusive resort.
First day we arrived, we were notified the resort was full and that we would be offered to stay at another resort of the H10 group 15 minutes south on the highway, The Ocean Coral and Turquesa.
Naturally, this was not ideal because between 1pm when we tried to check in originally, told it was full, drove to the alternate resort, waited in line to check in, checked in, and finally made it to our room, it was 4pm. Now, they say check in is 3 pm so I guess that’s just one hour of our time they were responsible for wasting and not 3.
Don’t forget the next morming we had to recollect our luggage, check out by noon… drive 15 minutes back up to our real booked resort, get in line, check in, and get our room.
We were fortunate enough to get a room near the beach, maybe it was their way of making it up to us, I dont know.
The other thing they did for us was upgrade us to «Privilege* status. Apparently this is a $ 40 extra per night package. They told us they would do do this for us because of the inconvenience to us, and they did.
What they didn’t tell us was that we were upgraded to a «quasi-​privilege status» in other words, we weren’t getting all the benefits of the «Privilege» package because we hadn’t paid for it. What we did get was being able to drink their premuim liquor from the resort bars, which simply means we could drink stuff that wasn’t total crap. Whatevers.
Without a doubt, hands down, no question about it, positively, absolutely, this has been the worst food I have ever had anywhere. My elementary school cafeteria served better, tastier, fresher food. Other than things like fruit, sunny side up eggs, beef which they sliced in front of you, almost everything tasted processed, stale, previously frozen and tasteless.
The restaurants at this place are a complete sham.
The workers, although slow due to severe understaffing through no fault if their own, have been trained to give decent service at their restaurants, even at their «best» restaurants Blue Moon and Dolce Vita. The food is still horrendous. It is not good, not even decent, hardly edible. My girlfriend and I left so many leftovers we could have fed a starving family of four in a village in Africa for 2 weeks. It was THAT bad. They even managed to serve shitty pizza topped with partially melted dollops of cheese partially covering the pizza and used what tasted like canned tomato sauce. How can you serve disgustingly shitty pizza? How? Please tell me how!
Luckily, for me, they had good fresh and cut pineapple and papaya. You can’t fuck up papaya or pineapple as long as they’re ripe! Thank goodness they had good ripe juicy sweet pineapple and papaya at their shitty buffets or their food would have sucked 100%
Their food now only completely sucks 99%
The workers are pretty cool and I got along and had nice chats with several of them being that I am of Mexican descent and speak Spanish with a Mexican accent well.
DO NOT COME HERE FOR YOUR HONEYMOON. DO NOT COME HERE IF YOU WANT TO IMPRESS YOUR GIRL. DO NOT COME HERE FOR CRYSTAL CLEAR BEACH WATERS. DO NOT COME HERE FOR THE FOOD.
If you have any other reason to come here then be my guest. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
I don’t get places like this. What’s the point to spending a vacation In a crappy place like this that cuts every single corner it comes across and takes the fire hydrants and pedestrians along as well. For prices like this, just get a nice hotel room without the resort ammenities for less $$ a night and then go out and do your own thing in town.
Here’s a list of words to describe this place:
Stupid
Crappy
Plastic
Fake
Halfass
Twilight Zone (ok so that’s 2 words)
Touristy
Trap
Cheap
Bland
Tasteless
Pointless
Unmexican
Gringos
Inedible
Undrinkable
Etc etc etc
Stay away… Don’t come here… run!
NEVER AGAIN!

Went there to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Problem was they don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo at all! Instead ended up celebrating Montezuma’s Revenge the whole time I was there, which cleared up as soon as we got on the plane and left Mexico!