We went to the Crown Paradise several years ago and it was great for our three children, so great that we spent the $4500 to get 20 locked in weeks. The location is close to the airport, the staff are friendly, the place is clean and there are many varieties of foods to suit all tastes.

After several years away, we used a week to visit the Crown Paradise again this June (2008) and it was great. I will say that the heavy smell of sewage coming from somewhere near the LaPalapa fruit and salad bar made us pass on the fruits and vegetables almost every day. It was strong enough to gag. Not sure what is going on there that they would allow that to continue, but it needs to be addressed.

Also, I made the mistake of using the hotel phone for just one call under 10 minutes cost $42 once I got my credit card bill back (over $4.00 a minute... you could make a cheaper call from the middle of the artic). It is robbery in the first degree and they mislead you by saying that they don't charge a fee. This seems to be unethical and no doubt, I can't be the only one to complain. Apparently, they just don't care. NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, DON'T USE THE PHONE. Get a phone card from the gift shop, and use the pay phone.

We will go again. It's worth it... but will definitely call ahead to make sure the raw sewage smell is taken care of.

I spent two weeks, last week of February and first week of March at the Crown Paradise. I had spent numerous weeks at this hotel with my children and grand children in the past and always enjoyed myself. One of the reasons I returned this year was because I had read about the slow deterioration of the hotel, bugs crawling around and poor plumbing were the main complaints and I wanted to find out for myself if this was true. My wife and I found the hotel to continue to be an excellent resort. In the two weeks I do not remember seeing a single bug crawling around. There were a few flies but I only remember seeing one or two twice during our entire stay. The rooms were kept clean and the maids were very friendly. As a matter of fact all the staff including maintenance staff always had a smile of greeting. I know since I would go for an early morning swim while one of the maintenance men would be vacuuming the pool. We were always able to work around one another. I’m not going to say the food is gourmet but it is very good, presented very nicely, and the portion sizes are adequate. If you want more you can always ask for more. The all inclusive price is worth every penny. The restaurant that is open all day for breakfast lunch and dinner always has a large variety of selections. There are five other specialty restaurants that you can select from for your evening meals. The waiters at all of them are equally friendly and helpful. My wife is unable to eat any dairy products and they went out of their way to make whatever she ordered did not contain dairy products. We did encounter two problems. The first was that this was the first time we went without any children, we were unable to get them out of school, and we felt lonely. This is defiantly a family resort with all kinds of activities for children and this is why we went there. The entire hotel seems to revolve around making sure children have a good time. The second is a change at the airport. We use to walk out of the airport and get mobbed by taxi drivers. They all had the same price to wherever you went. The price was kept low because of the competition. Now there is only one taxi service and I feel like I got ripped off with the price they charged. I might have missed something that caused the price to be much higher. Neither of these problems will deter us. We will be able to fix these two problems and plan on returning.

My friend and I stayed at Crown Paradise in Cancun the first week in Feb. for a girlfriend's getaway. Prior to coming I was really worried about the choice I made (I booked through my timeshare/RCI), secondary to all the negative reviews I read prior to arrival. We were pleasantly surprised! After a horrific flight on American Airlines that arrived a whole day late, we arrived at Crown Paradise and check in was a breeze! our accommodations were fine. The rooms were immaculate and comfortable. Beds were a little hard but no big deal. A minor problem with the A/C was resolved quickly and we asked for extra bath towels which were sent up within minutes. The maid service was excellent. She added many thoughtful little touches that made us feel special. After checking out our room(s) we proceeded to find someplace to eat and stopped in the first restaurant we saw (Fisherman's). It was only5pm and without reservations, we couldn't just be seated but we were offered 8:15 reservations and accepted. We went back to the rooms to unpack and ordered room service to to ty us over till 8:15. The Avacodo stuffed wth shrimp was just right to quiet our hunger till dinner. Dinner was great! If you can be somewhat flexible with the reservations, you should have no trouble getting them. However, do make sure you make reservations each day or even a day or two in advance. We managed to try each restaurant. We like them all. The French was our favorite, Wayne's Boots second, Fishermans, Italian and Mexican (in that order). Our favorte lunch place was the Japanese place. I had sushi every day! It was great! The staff are terrific and really go out of their way to please you. Occasional (small) tips were very much appreciated but NOT expected. Lines at the bar moved quickly, so the wait was never very long. Top shelf booze availble if you ask for it. All in all, the food was very good and plentiful, not gourmet, but GOOD. Certainly good value for what you pay in A.I.Fees. One of my concerns was that i was there for a girlfriend's getaway and the place is very kid friendly. Not a problem. Easy to get away from them if you want to. The main pool is very loud with constant activities but also easy to get away from that as well. That said, it seemed like a great place for families with lots of nice activities for kids and a great looking kid's pool/water park/playground. My friend and I stayed mostly at the beach and adult pool. The only issue we had were with pool towels. The system they have is terrible and really doesn't work. There's never enough towels to get a clean one daily. Probably because of all the greedy people who frequently turn in their towel for a fresh one if it gets just a little damp. In addition, my friend/s towel was stolen the first day and the pool towel attendant tried to tell her she had to pay the $30. In the end she didn't. However, that particular pool towel attendent was rather nasty and had an attitude. He was the only person I could complain about all week. If we had known pool towels were an issue we would have brought our own! The buses in Cancun are great and easy to use. We took the bus to the Ferry to Isla Mujeres and had a great time.What a fun place! All in all I would rate the place 3.5 stars (not 5). We had a great time. The service and food were good for what we paid and the place is very clean and well maintained. I would definitly recommend it to others.

We traveled to Crown Paradise thru RCI. Our normal timeshare is a gold crown in Orlando.
Here are some tips if its your first time...
Take the shuttle from the airport and book your round trip right away or go one way to the resort and take the taxi back.
Bring an air mattress for your bed. They were very hard but it sounds like thats how most are in Mexico.
Things not to loose: Room key, towels or towel card($35). safe key($80) wrist band ($50)
Take the water shuttle from the light house on the north end to Isla Mures(bad spelling). $6.50 each for the boat. Then do the snorkeling, clear water beautiful fish...
The surf was red flag most days, it's pretty agressive.
The city bus was fun, .50 cents each one way to shopping or downtown.
The bars like senior frogs and margarettaville are expensive, especially for drinks.

The property was very well groomed. It was aparent the property was a little dated and still showed some minor damage from Wilma but the maintenance staff was working on small projects here and there almost every day.
The Italian resturant was a little slow, the western place(waynes boots) was fun with mechanical bull and pretty good steaks. The mexican place was one of the best as you would expect. We dod not eat at the seafood place but others said the blackened fish was worth a second helping. We also skipped the french place, all we had was jeans. We ate pleanty at the buffet. The breakfast was really good with waffles, pankakes, bacon, smoothies, fresh fruit and made to order omlets. The poolside snack bar always had hamburgers, hotdogs, wings and chips. The sushi place had stirfry that was very good.
Our room was nice and the daily maid service did a great job keeping clean. The a/c was ice cold, the showers were very hot but a little slow draining but not bad enough to call about.
This resort is a 7 out of ten for what is available along the hotel strip, we did walk thru some others.
The poolside staff was fun to watch, entertaining.
Overall we would go back and would recommend this resort to others. It may not be equal to a gold crown in the U.S. but was better than the Hollywood Beach Tower in Fl.