Ocean Riviera Paradise

My husband and I visited April 17-22. The beach was unusable due to seaweed. We booked an excursion to be able to swim in the ocean. Luckily we had booked a swim-up room that really made all the difference. We didn't have to sit around the crowded noisy pools and get up early to book a lounger. The resort has a lot of amenities and is very nice. There are a la carte restaurants requiring a reservation, and many that are just first-come-first-serve without a reservation. The food was top notch. Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at this resort. Only unfortunate events were: (1) workers refinishing furniture on the balcony of the swim-up room beside us including spray painting which drifted through the air and landed on the pool water (yuck! what are they thinking!?) and a young couple playing ridiculously loud music on their own speaker with offensive language.

Just spent 7 days at this resort. My husband and I, (36 and 40) and we absolutely loved it! We decided last minute to upgrade to Privilege because we weren’t bringing our kids, and we’re so glad we did. Just having our butler to make all of our reservations for us was amazing (no standing in line or getting weird times on the app). The Privilege room was large but basic. A nice touch was the “pillow menu” they give you to choose from four different pillows. They were super quick to clean the rooms and frequently checked in to refill anything. The Privilege Lounge: this made all the difference in our vacation. We spent 6 days having breakfast here, and only once at the buffet because we loved it so much. The service there was amazing. You get in right away, have your own bar, and before you can even finish your mimosa or Caesar, the server has already brought you another one! You can either order off a menu or grab from the mini buffet they have as well, which usually consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, beans, assorted fruits, cheeses, etc. The menu has great options, including eggs Benedict, egg sandwiches, French toast, omelettes, etc. If you’re an early-morning coffee drinker, go there. The regular coffee shop, Mike’s Coffee, opens at 7:30 a.m., and there’s already a line outside the door at that time. I went the first day and waited 40 minutes to get a coffee, only to learn I could get coffee at the privilege lounge with zero wait time. Pools: because we didn’t bring our kids, we wanted some adult time, so we spent every day at the El Beso adults-only pool. The drink service was amazing. The waitress, Christina, did laps all day long making sure everyone was taken care of. There’s a section for Privelege at this pool that already has towels provided and never had an issue getting a seat. Some days we didn’t even show up until 11:00am. (It was a war on el beso side and Eden with people getting up at 7:00am) I just wish they had done more activities at the adults-only pool. The main pool at Eden is where all the action is, but we wanted to be with adults this time. There was still volleyball, one foam party, and a couple of other things, but it was mainly a chill vibe with music and socializing. Evening entertainment: we loved the layout. The lobby and outdoor entertainment area are all in one spot, and it’s lively with a singer or live music band every night. We were pleasantly surprised by the sports bar at night. Normally when we go to a bar or disco at a resort, it’s a ghost town with a few drunks. But three out of the nights we went, it was packed and people were having a great time!! The piano bar was another favourite spot where we enjoyed two nights of karaoke and one night of a quieter pianist. The food was awesome! Our favourites were the Privilege Lounge, Blue Moon, Route 66, Italian, and then hibachi. We only went to the buffet once for lunch and once for dinner, which were both great, but we just wanted to be served meals this week and feel pampered! Overall a fantastic vacation and our favourite to date!

The entertainment team was amazing especially William he really went out of his way to make our time there as fun and enjoyable as possible.

William was a wonderful entertainer!! He made my family all feel welcome

I am currently staying here and honestly this might be the worst “all-inclusive” experience I have ever had and I’ve only been here a day and a half. I’ll start with the minimal positives: The room is spacious. There are a few nice staff people (more on that in the bad) The shower water gets hot. There’s an ice cream parlor. Gym isn’t bad. The el beso pool is OK (despite the service) Multiple pool options for non el beso guests Ok I think that’s it. Now the bad: The food is awful. Like I’m probably going to lose weight awful. The room service food has left a lot to be desired. The order we placed with specifications was still made wrong. They said they were going to fix it in 10 -15 minutes and never came back. I’m not sure if it’s a quality issue, a taste issue, a presentation issue or all of the above. Just nothing is appetizing, looks good, or tastes good. I’m probably going to spend the rest of my time here rationing my airport snacks. There is a variety of cuisines but based on the menus on the app nothing says yes you should want to eat this. Also as a black American it seems as if the staff have been conditioned to ignore us. On more than one occasion I have been skipped or ignored where service staff have gone to a non black person first. It’s like we are not even seen and there are not many black people here to start with. So to be constantly ignored to the point where you have to flag down or go get someone to simply offer you a drink after you’ve been sitting for 30+ minutes and watched everyone around you get service. Like this is probably the most shocking thing to me because I’ve been to Mexico several times and this has never been the case. This is my first time at this particular resort so I’m starting to think this is an issue here. Now let’s talk about the animals. Like raccoons eating out the trash cans, these creepy looking furry large rat squirrel things and cats. And they are around and running out the bushes and picking up discarded food. It’s gross and scary. Cleanliness of shared spaces is very mid. Like if you know you have these animals that are attracted to trash, why are you not keeping the common spaces clean. And I do understand that a lot of people don’t clean up after themselves so it’s a huge task to take on, but again if you know you’ve got raccoons I’d be a a strict schedule to make sure trash and food is cleared away as often as possible. Also in the room it was clear that the tub was not cleaned so, if you like a bath in a tub you probably want to clean it yourself. I had zero plans to use the one in my room but I still think it should be clean. I’d like to end this by saying this place was not a pick of mine and that’s the only reason I’m here. I absolutely will not be back and will not look to stay at anything else owned by this brand. Also I’ve still got 2.5 more days left here so luckily I’m here with some of my most favorite people and that outweighs all of this. I’m sure I’ll write an additional review after this because mean I’ve got to try more restaurants and I still haven’t been to the beach. Hopefully I’ve at least found some type of meal that’s good.