Not perfect but great experience at Royal Service
May 15, 2022 FrancoisLaj Montreal, Canada
We are a couple who stayed at the Royal Service section of the Paradisus Varadero from April 23-30. Resort was half full. For this type of vacation we are normally looking for 5* hotels offering good food and a quiet atmosphere.
OVERALL: We enjoyed very much our stay at this hotel, and although it didn’t check all the boxes, it met or exceeded…
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We are a couple who stayed at the Royal Service section of the Paradisus Varadero from April 23-30. Resort was half full. For this type of vacation we are normally looking for 5* hotels offering good food and a quiet atmosphere.
OVERALL: We enjoyed very much our stay at this hotel, and although it didn’t check all the boxes, it met or exceeded our main expectations. Considering it was much cheaper than other 5* hotels in Mexico or DR, we thought we had a very good value for our money. We would return at the right price.
Highlights that would make us return include:
- the spectacular beach, long and wide, with clear turquoise water
- the beautiful quiet adults-only Royal Service (RS) pool by the ocean
- exceptional and friendly service
- great live cuban music in our lobby by talented musicians
- Tennis lessons with their excellent and friendly tennis coach Miguel; in fact we would go back at this resort just to play again with Miguel.
Aspects on which we had to make compromises include:
- food in RS restaurant was reasonably good, but rarely great; no bad meal but -nothing wow. Room service was not the best;
- We experienced a few minor shortages of food in the RS restaurant (no eggs one morning, no sliced bread at breakfast but only small bread rolls, no potatoes, etc) or certain types of alcool (no red or white wine on certain days; plenty of beer and good rhum-based cocktails but no gin, vodka or tequila);
- The main section and Reserve were sometimes too loud to our taste, and look more like a 4* than a 5* hotel;
- Our RS room was nice but had a bit of minor wear and tear.
Those small defects didn’t really impact our experience, and were even expected in the circumstances, but depending on your expectations it might be otherwise.
Read on for a detailed review.
RESORT: the resort is clean and well maintained. We liked the layout of small bungalows spread out on a vast land. The main building is all open facing the beach and a great place for drinks, although the all-white decoration looks a bit clinical. A few buildings were in renovation but it was not noisy.
It is important to understand that the resort has 3 sections that offer very different experiences, which might explain the wide range of reviews on this site:
- main section had families and couples, including a good portion of local Cuban families; it feels more like a standard 4* than 5* hotel;
- The Reserve is for families and at the time of our stay hosted almost exclusively local Cuban families; the atmosphere was too loud to our taste but the kids pool looked fun;
- The Royal Service section is adults-only and much more upscale and quiet. It looked like it was much less affected by the shortages due to covid or the war than the other sections.
BEACH: spectacular, definitively a high point of this resort. It’s like diving into a page of a Conde Nast Travel magazine. Long and wide (much wider in front of the hotel than some neighbour hotels like the Royalton) with clean powdery sand. Water was clean with endless shades of blue, green and turquoise. We could walk for hours on the beach. Lots of available chairs and shade. At times the music on the beach was too loud but you can sit away from the noise.
POOLS: the main pool is very large and nice, right next to the beach, but had loud music in the afternoon. The RS pool was very beautiful, clean, quiet and next to a rocky section of the beach (a 5 min. walk to the swimmable section). Service at the RS pool was outstanding by Jorge, Camillo, Edel, and Yaneisy.
FOOD: we had all our meals at the RS restaurant, next to the RS pool. It has a nice outdoor terrace for breakfast and lunch. As mentioned, food ranged from good to sometimes very good, but never wow. There was lobster every night and the steak and pasta were surprisingly good. There were not enough local Cuban dishes.
SERVICE: was always great. The staff was always very professional, kind, friendly and hard working.
ROYAL SERVICE OR NOT? We normally don’t pay for upgrades within a resort (if we want to pay more we’d rather just go to a nicer resort) but, in this case, if you are not travelling with kids and want a quiet atmosphere I would strongly recommend upgrading to the RS section; it will transform your experience. There were some minor advertised perks that we didn’t get nor asked for (beach bag, bathrobe, slippers, etc) but the main benefits include access to the beautiful and quiet adults-only pool and à la carte restaurants every night. The RS restaurant is apparently the best of the resort which is why we ate there every night but we should probably have tried other a la carte restaurants for a change. Our butler Yadil was very professional and helpful; he took care of booking our dinners and tennis classes with Miguel, even changing our restaurant bookings to accommodate our activities. The lobby bar had great live music every night from 19h30-21h00 with musicians we would have actually paid for to hear at our local jazz fest. The room was nice and large with minor wear and tear, and the outdoor rain shower was great. No water issues.
SPORT ACTIVITIES: the gym is large and well equipped, and there were water activities on the ocean, but tennis steals the show here. The resort has 2 tennis courts and a great full-time tennis coach, Miguel, who was always available for lessons or just playing. Miguel is such a nice person and great coach, and is passionate about sharing his love for tennis. Playing with him ended up one of the highlights of our stay. The hotel provides a few rackets and balls but they were old and I suggest you bring your own. Lessons with Miguel were free but he deserved a nice tip.
COVID MEASURES: best in class. All staff wore masks inside and outside, and most guests wore a mask inside.
TIPPING: we never felt like we had to tip, but we usually did and it always seemed appreciated. Staff seemed to prefer to receive tips in euros, CAD or USD clean bills. They cannot use loonies or toonies at the bank, so you can either offer to change them for clean paper bills at the end of your stay or use pesos for small tips.
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