Crown Paradise Club - All Inclusive

the golf all inclusive at Pok-ta-pok was not what was described - the cart fee of $70 per person was all that the course was worth to play and the staff there was unfriendly. golf course itself was your average municipal course, there was no food service available. Hotel staff was not helpful at all, lost one of our bookings to start with. dinner reservations were impossible to make so ended up dining out in town. never been to an all inclusive where you had to pay for water. the gym was poor, out of 6 cardio machines 4 were broken and the weight equipment was poor. would not recommend this hotel to anyone.

We recently stayed at the Crown Paaradise Club - a simple trip with a few friends, that should have been great. Little did we know, we had picked the worst hotel any of us would ever stay in... Check-in took more than an hour, only to find that our room wasn't ready (2+ hours after the previous traveler's check out). When our room was finally ready, we found a dirty, hot mess with no A/C - we of course asked to be moved. The second room wasn't any better, resulting in us "upgrading" to a suite at our expense - another room with hardly any A/C, though it was marginally cleaner. We thought this would be the worst of it, but it was nothing compared to what the week had in store for us - Major Construction (jackhammers in the morning/afternoon/evening), Pool Closure, Restaurants Closed, No Internet Access (we paid extra for this), Poor Drinks, Wet Paint, Dangerously Chipped Tile Debris (pool), Wet Floors With No Signage, Sub-Par Food.... The list goes on and on. It took us several days to arrange our early return, with no help from Orbitz - We finally had to call Frontier directly, which should have been our first move. They got us on a plane ASAP and back to the States - something Orbitz couldn't handle. Our Recommendation? Skip this resort, it's not what you might think you're signing up for. We don't think we'd go back if it was free...

We arrived to check in and were told that Orbitz had not charged us correctly and that we could not check in unless we paid more money for our children who are 13 and 14. We refused and asked for the manager to please call Orbitz. He walked away instructed the staff to not approach us and he did not return for 45 minutes. When we did finally check in they gave us a stinky smelly room that over looked an air conditioning unit and all rooms are supposted to be ocean view. The pool does not have enough chairs so people have to sit on the ground. Other than an one hour nightly show there is nothing to do at this resort in the evening.

We booked a vacation package on Orbitz for Cancun's Crown Paradise Club. Upon arrival, we were told we had to pay $80/day more for our 15 year old son ($640 total) to stay at the hotel. Admittedly, there was confusion and discrepancies in the wording of the Orbitz deal regarding kids and number of kids in a room. Prior to booking, I modified my search from 2 adults and 2 kids (11 and 15) to 3 adults and 1 child (age 11) and came up with the same price. I also did a search with 2 adults, 2 kids in 2 rooms and got a price $100 more than we were paying. So, I assumed the pricing was correct. I tried to explain all this to the hotel clerk at check in and he didn't seem to care. He didn't want to see the Orbitz documentation, repeatedly saying we had to pay or couldn't have the room. I asked him to contact Orbitz and was refused. Upon discovering our cell phones weren't working, I asked to use a phone to call Orbitz and was refused. I asked if we could pay for one night and then contact Orbitz to clear up the issue and was told we could only have the room if we paid the additional money for all eight nights of our stay. I mentioned leaving and was told we would be classified as a no-show and charged for the room as planned. With each question I asked, the clerk went to his manager and then came back with the same answer - pay the additional money or no room. Talk about feeling stuck - we were in a foreign country without access to a phone, had 2 hungry boys, and it was getting late. With little options, we paid the additional funds and contacted Orbitz from our room. The customer service people at Orbitz were very helpful. They admitted there was an issue with their programming resulting in errors. They worked with the hotel management to get a refund and helped relocate us to another hotel. (We were given the option of remaining in the hotel with some additional fees but didn't want to give the hotel our business.) While checking out, I spoke with the hotel manager. He said they run into problems like ours frequently and have developed a policy to deal with it. He said they adhere to their policies strictly and acknowledged they don't allow check-in staff or potential customers to make phone calls. While I understand the fault lies with Orbitz, I fail to understand the attitude of the hotel staff and their policies. Without question, their policies and attitude impacted how we felt about the situation. It would have been very easy for them to nicely explain the frequent booking problems and suggest we contact Orbitz immediately or after our trip. With a small amount of courtesy, they could have let Orbitz own their mistake, maintained us as customers, and remained a neutral party. Bottom line, it didn't seem like it mattered to them what we thought - they were getting our money and didn't care how it impacted us. While our exposure was limited, the hotel seemed fair. It is a multi-story building with rooms opening to an excessively noisy lobby. The food was ok and other staff members seemed friendly. The rooms were clean, nothing special but certainly comfortable enough. Could you go to Crown Paradise and have a good vacation? Probably. However, before you book your stay there, you might want to ask yourself if you can absolutely guarantee they won't find a reason to charge you more and that they will be courteous, communicate and provide good customer service. Personally, I prefer giving my business to those who care how their customers are treated.

The hotel managers and staff were very rude and unfriendly from the minute we arrived until we left. The process to get checked in took over two hours and they only gave us one key, which did not even work. They kept telling us to go back each morning to get the right keys but they never had them the entire week. The managers did not offer to show us around the hotel so we lost out o seeing everything there was to do. The restraunts need to be booke BEFOR you even get to Mexico because they only seat three to four families per hour! So it really is not all inclusive because they tell you that you can't get into half the restraunts the entire time you are there. The hotel also hires vendors to come and sell their stuff in the lobby so you are harrassed even on your own resort! This was not a good experience and this hotel is one of the wrost I have been at in my years of traveling.

At first we thought the hotel looked very nice, that is until we walked in and saw children everywhere. The room was nice, clean, and had a great veiw until you looked to your left and saw an abandoned resort. Its a real eye sore in all of the pictures. Then there is the fact that the resort is located VERY close to a sewage plant. The smell was so bad that we were unable to enjoy the belcony or open our patio door which made the room very humid. The pools on the main floor were beautiful, until the MC started to entertain the millions of children. Really hard to relax and enjoy a book when bingo, guess what in this box, and water ballon fights are going on. There however was an adult pool, where we did end up spending the majority of our time. Defenately not the scenenary of the main pools, you could see and smell the sewage plant. We did really enjoy the fact that this resort offered so many dining selections. We really really enjoyed the seafood and french restaurants. Both had fantastic service and food. The steak, italian, and mexican restaurants are a different story. First we had gone to the italian resaurant. We recived horrible service. Our server never got us drinks. We actually poured wine for ourselves and to other tables around us. Our food tasted like chlorine, and all we wanted was tiramasu. We were unable to get that because a water pipe burst and we had to leave after not being able to stomach our dinners. The next night we went to the steak restauant. We went with another couple and between the four of us we ordered one of every main dish and could only eat the baked potatoes. This was so disappointing because we heard really good reveiws from other guests that we had met. The real fun happened at the mexican restaurant. We had awesome service, and we were really excited because this was the only place you could find gaucamole at this resort. Then came the main dishes. I had ordered chicken fajitas, consumed one, the decided to cut up the chicken and veggies and was horrified to find that the center of the chicken was pink. One day later ended up very ill with food poisoning. The entertainment at the resort was fine. There are two bars that are chill relaxing kind of places and then there is a disco, which consists of a man playing a keyboard and a women singing. It really reminded me of that Saturday night live skit. No one EVER was in there. We checked every night. Also a tidbit that we really were unhappy with was that there was no bottled water in the room. In order to get bottled water you had to order it through room service. It came to your room room temperature and did not taste right. We did do alot of research looking at reviews before we booked, and never did we see anything about the mass quantity of children or about the horrible smell. Overall, this resort was dissappointing and not at all worth the money we had spent to go.

[...] The rooms were musty due to the items in the room (blanket on bed, decorative pillows, and bed pillows) and a lot of other guests were complaining. The mattresses are old and hard, no sign of luxury or comfort there. I asked the housekeeper not to put the pillows and blanket on the bed and she did anyway. I had the privacy tag on my door and they still entered my room.Some of the staff, namely the concierge, was rude and not helpful, not at all what I expected from my past experiences in Cancun. I couldn't use the "global" calling card/voucher [...] at the hotel. None of the payphones took that "global" card, I had to walk to the street to use a payphone there to call back home. I cut my toe at the pool and asked the medical doctor's assistant if I could have some band aids. She gave me two; I asked for more and she shook her head no and said "only two". I was not impressed with the food at all. I ordered a steak sandwich and the meat was so tough I ate the bread instead. I did enjoy the adult pool and the staff at the pool. Sad to say I couldn't wait to leave. The only positive I found was the view of the Caribbean from my room.

We paid for an all inclusive stay at this resort. The food at the "specialty restaurants" (evening dining) was terrible! Think Chef Boyardee. In addition, you had to wake up by 8:00 am on vacation and dial the restaurant reservation line repeatedly (as if calling a radio station for a contest) in order to get through to make a reservation for the next evening before reservations were full. We watched as people were turned away at the host station who could not get reservations even though the restaurant was half empty. We had to split my 4 person family up into 2 parties to get reservations before 9:15pm; even then, the only restaurant available was one we already ate at! Also, the alcohol was terrible! They gave you these tiny little cups for your drinks. We had to take a bus to Walmart to purchase cups and alcohol so we wouldn't get ill driking their low grade drinks. All inclusive doesn't mean much if the food and alcohol is terrible, and you can't even get reservations when you want them and where you want them to eat the terrible food.

Hotel was very clean. The room and view (5th floor) were very nice. Staff was nice and most of the time helpful. Everyone was very friendly. Maid service was prompt and good. The food was not very good at all. Christmas Eve, the food was the best in the main food lobby. Ate at all the hotel's restaurants. Only the Mexican food was fairly good. The Italian was horrible. Room service was decent (food) but timeliness was lacking (took an average of 1 hour). The Chinese food next to the pool area was very good but you had to wait about 20-30 minutes. The inclusive golf course was perhaps the worst course I played on. Half of the fairways were partially flooded (poor drainage). The bunkers were almost solid rocks and shells or flooded. Overall, fairly disappointed for the price, but the employees were nice and the hotal was clean and in great shape. Hotel was good for families, but if you are a single adult this is not the hotel for you.

I selected one star because I couldn't select zero or half a star. This hotel shouldn't even exist in Cancun Hotel Zone. Not sure where to start but will keep it brief... The Kids Club turns into a Discotheque at night. The food is disgusting but that didn't faze me because generally all food in Mexico is bad but this was on a whole new level of bad. The Entertainment Team is virtually non existant. The night shows are horrible. We were only able to get in to 2 a la cart restaurants because they claim sold out although, like other reviews you've probably read by now, the restaurants are not sold out and in fact only a few tables were taken - The Fisherman and Wayne's Boot are both good compared with the buffet but doesn't compare with anything remotely close to being good food. The hotel is quite far from all the other hotels in the strip. And is a 15 minute drive from the market and main attractions, nightlife in Cancun. If you want to have a good time in Cancun avoid this hotel!