Just returned from a wonderful week at El Dorado Royale November 4th -11th. We are a couple ages 49 and 50. We had booked last minute in to a Gardenview room with the intentions of upgrading upon arrival.
When we arrived we were told by the front desk rep that there were no Casitas available as the hotel was at 87% occupancy. We were also told by the following week it would be at almost 100% occupancy. We were given an opportunity to view an Oceanfront Suite on the second floor in block 3 ($80 per night upgrade), a Junior Suite Swim up in block 52 ($130 per night upgrade) and the Gardenview Suite 5218 which was on the second floor over a Junior Suite Swim up. After viewing all three suites we decided on staying with the Gardenview room as it had the best view of all and was in one of the newest buildings on the property. It had a beautiful view of the lazy river(not really a lazy river), Fuentes pool and the beautiful gardens surrounding the pool. As well, it had a slight oceanview off to the right of our balcony. It’s a corner suite and the balcony was nicely shaded most of the day. If you are planning on staying in a Gardenview suite, I would recommend avoiding Blocks 44, 45 and 46 due to a small area of construction beside Fuentes restaurant. It didn’t appear to be noisy but just not a pretty view. These suites appeared to look right in to the construction. We had prebooked 3 nights for dinner reservations at 6:30 pm, by emailing the resort ahead and had no trouble booking the rest on the day of arrival. We were able to book at 7:00 pm for the remainder of the week. Our concierge was Giselle whom we never did meet. She usually started working later in the day so we always seemed to miss each other. We were assisted by Gaby and received excellent service. We were never asked about timesharing other than to receive a couple of notes that were left in our room which we just ignored. The first day, our housekeeper Karlha arrived to clean the room at about 5:00 pm just as we were returning to our room to shower and get ready for dinner. We politely asked if she would be able to come in earlier in the day. Unfortunately Karlha didn’t understand our request due to a language barrier so we called down to the Concierge desk and Gaby translated our request. For the rest of the week our room was always cleaned at about 10:00 am. Every time we saw Karlha she would smile and say “10 o’clock okay”. She was very kind and always left beautiful flowers and lovely towel art. On the second day “the fridge stocker” (not sure of his name) came to fill up the fridge with more water, pop, beer etc. As a casual joke, my husband asked if there was any chance of getting some wine put in the fridge. Within five minutes he returned with a bottle of champagne and a bottle of wine and said that it was a gift for us. We were shocked (keep in mind that we were in Gardenview and not Casitas). The poolside bar server who walks around and services the junior swim ups delivered two wine glasses to our room. We have stayed in many 5 star resorts before but never have we received such personal service. We found all of the restaurants to have excellent service and food quality. (The only ones we didn’t try were Fondue and Fuentes). Our favorite for lunch was El Dorado’s best kept secret. A little open air mexican restaurant off to the side of Fuentes restaurant. I never saw it advertised anywhere and still don’t know if it had a name. When we ate there, there was only 1 or 2 other couples having lunch or a quiet drink. Food was great and even better than La Carretta (the Mexican dinner restaurant). We usually skipped breakfast (too much food!!) but we did try Cocotal on our last day as we had heard great reviews on their breakfast buffet. Great selection but not something that we would have wanted to do every day. We used the gym at the spa. Only have one treadmill operational at this time. They also have 2 elipiticals, 2 bikes and 1 stepmaster. The gym is currently being expanded and lots of nice new equipment just sitting waiting to be unwrapped. It will be incredible once they are finished. Not sure of the expected completion date.
There are 11 pools on the property and we swam in each one including all of the Casita pools. Met some nice people who were staying at the Casita section and they were very hospitable. They were happy to share their towels and chairs (just hide your green striped towels lol). Doesn’t matter whether you are Casita or Gardenview.....everyone is friendly and appeared to be having a great time. Just our opinion but we thought Fuentes had the best pool and swim up bar. Main pool was a little too busy. Casita pools were nice but a little too small and some were deserted.
The main difference that we saw between Casita and Gardenview was the outdoor shower, larger room and DVD player in the Casita rooms. If the upgrade had been available, we may have taken it but not sure it would have been worth the extra $$ and don’t think it would have made a difference to our holiday. Although we had no issues with dinner reservations, I did hear of others who did not get great times and were not happy with their late or very early times.
Can’t comment on any of the tours as we didn’t take any. It was the first time away without the kids in many years so we were looking for R & R. We did take the shuttles to Cancun and Playa Del Carmen for a few hours but that was the only time we left the resort.
The beach is not great for walking or swimming but nice beach beds for relaxing. I wouldn’t let the beach scare you away from this amazing property.
My only negative comment is with regards to the music played at Fuentes pool and main pool. It was very repetitive and not all that great. Not a big issue but you may want to bring an IPOD if you are relaxing around the pool for any length of time.
With regards to tipping......we tipped for everything because the service was so great but I noticed many people did not and the level of service did not change.
I know this review has become VERY lengthy but I used this site and the forums prior to leaving and found them to be extremely helpful. Thanks to all the regulars....you know who you are.
Just one more thing..........
One night there was a tarantula spider (a very big one) in the garden near our room. I regret not taking a picture but didn’t want to get too close. However, we noticed a few hours later that he had been run over by a golf cart. Never saw another one. We asked the shuttle driver about them and he said that they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. We’ve been to Mexico a few times but it’s first time that we have come across one. Hope you have a great time at EDR!!! Don't hesitate to go!

PS Congratulations Moxy!

Generally my wife and I tend to vacation off the beaten path and like more eco-tourism kind of vacations so we were a little apprehensive about going to an AI resort. However, Im glad to say that we are very pleased with our stay for 5 nights.
In general:
Food: Excellent i have to say. Gourmet in each and every restaurant except the La Cabana pizza place. We ate there once but that was the only restaurant we didnt like. The pizza was on a thin crust and Im sure lots of people will like it but it wasnt for us.
We loved (!!!) Kampai. Excellent excellent food. We ate there twice for dinner and once for lunch. El Cocotal was also very very nice inside. Very modern sorroundings and great ambience. I highly recommend this place for breakfast also. Jojos is great for lunch as well as dinner. I think we ate 3 lunches there; its right by the beach and pool so lots of activity going on. We ate breakfast at La Isla twice and I also highly recommend this place for breakfast. We had breakfast at Fuentes once and it was not good. I dont recommend this place and I also heard the dinner (show) was not that good at all.
We were in a junior suite so yes, it was hard to get good reservations. Most of the reservations we were offered were either very early (around 6 pm) or very late around 9 PM. All I can suggest is just try to have a rapport with your concierge and they will 'hook you up'. We tipped our concierge on our first visit and she got us mostly 9pm and 1 8:30 PM reservation. Yes, the concierges do try to get you to a timeshare presentation for 2 hrs but we avoided that. Just ignore them and they are not too pushy. We got offered $150 to attend a sessions but we ignored them and no one bothered us.

Oh yes.. the health bar close to the saltwater pool is awesome. They have great juices and the guacamole is to die for. I also have to say i ate the most and freshest amount of seafood in my life the days we were there so if you like seafood you will not be disappointed. Try the ceviche. Every restaurant has a variation of it.

Car: We had a car because we thought we would go see some of the sites (I heard from friends as well as read reviews that its better to have your own car than to book tours because its much cheaper and also because the tours waste a lot of time filling up the bus from several hotels). We ended up deciding not to go to too many places since being at the resort was so nice and relaxing but we did go to Xel-Ha; we highly recommend this place. Altough it is a 'tourist trap' kind of place we liked it greatly because everything was developed keeping an eye on trying to keep it looking as natural as possible. Also its only an hour from El Dorado Royale so didnt take too long to go there. I recommend leaving around noon (after lunch offcourse :-) ) and spend 4 - 5 hrs there and come back in time for dinner (wouldnt want to miss any of those gourmet meals) We bought the day pass and didnt get the all day all inclusive which I heard is a waste of money because (a) EL DOrado already provides meals (b) the meals at xel-ha didnt look for good. We also used the car to go to Puerto Morelos. We rented a fishing boat to take us out to the coral reef and for 50$ for 2 people we snorkelled on the reef for 2 hrs witha guide whol swam with us and found us a sea turtle and numerous fish to look at. We rented the car from www.kayak.com and ended up renting a hertz car for $80 for 6 days. If you do this, turn down all the insurance they try to make you buy. If you use VISA to rent, the credit card already provides the insurnace. We wanted to go to Tulum using the car but the first few days we were there it was raining so we just enjoyed hanging out at the resort.
(c) Take an umbrella. The rains come suddenly since its a tropical climate and can last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. We had one and it was very helpful. During the day it doesnt matter anyways since we were in our swimsuits and you can hide in a palapa, bar or under the beach umbrella.
(d) Do get the free snorkels and snorkel in the area close to the saltwater fish. I saw a lot of beautiful multi colored fish there
(e) Hunting for shells is fun. We found some huge shells but you have to look hard in the water.
(f) Nightlife we found was most active at Gucayama bar. Cool crowd but it takes a little while to get the crowd warmed up; DJ needs to do a better job. We thought of going to cancun because we had a car then decided, why bother. the party aint to bad right here.
(g) Tipping: we tipped everywhere we went. we tipped about $2 for breakfast $3 for lunch $3 - 5 for dinner $2 for room service daily $5 to the concierge and $1 for round of drinks or for every other round. I think I spent about $12 - 15 a day on tips; I took $50 in 1$ bills and these helped. These guys worked really hard to keep us happy and we felt honored that we could pay them back with a few tips here and there.
(h) Rooms are very luxurious. we enjoyed the hot tub and hammock. Only complaint is that there are too few TV channels but who watches TV on vacation anyways.
All in all.. Highly recommend. All ae groups were there and were all getting along. Great food. Great rooms. Great service.
We will be back !!!!!

Sheena and I [flipflop man] had the pleasure of staying at EDR between 24th September and 7th October this year.

We are lucky enough to be regular travellers to the Caribbean and would like to think we know what is good and what is bad. When I came across the Karisma Group and EDR last year when researching this year’s trips I was amazed at the amount of good reviews the resort received and the defence it gets on the forum pages. It was only in the last few weeks leading up to our holiday that a few negative ones have began to appear on Trip Adviser.

Could the resort really be that good or had the bubble burst?- I can safely say that the good reviews have it – this resort is one of the best we have ever stayed at and compares very favourably with some Sandals Resorts we have stayed at. It scores a well deserved 86% on our 360 holiday scoring system. Yes, it has some downsides, the beach is not the best I have walked on and the “sand bags” which form an offshore water break are very unsightly. However, people need to remember that this part of Mexico and EDR took a direct hit by Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 and they are still trying to get the beach back to what it was.

The choice variety of restaurants and bars is excellent and the overall quality and presentation of the food is exceptional. When we were there, and remember this was the low season, we had the choice of four venues for breakfast and six for lunch. We ate in all the restaurants apart from the Fondue and the pool side pizza – not our sort of thing.

What I would advise people to do is to explore and find out what is open – nowhere does it tell you that the Kampia [Oriental] is open for breakfast and lunch, but it is. Also, there is an excellent open air Mexican snack bar which is open for lunch – this is situated behind the Fuentes Restaurant.

I could easily wax lyrically about EDR for hours and from those who are familiar with the forum pages it must seem as though I do – I think of it as more of a hobby and that apart someone has to compete with the newly engaged Moxy.

However, let’s just point out a few things that people often do not mention in reviews:

# Cleanliness – this resort is the permanent state of being cleaned and groomed. Nowhere else have we seen such constant tiding up, pressure washing paths, gardening and watering
# Attention to detail – this resort not only knows how to cook food but they know how to present it – some dishes are a work of art
# Toilets – sometimes such things as toilets in public areas are not very nice places to go into - again Karisma scores 10/10 here. Not only were the ones we visited clean but they were very well decked out – visit the ones in the Kampai and you will see what I mean
# Piped Music – the sound of frogs and water is a nice touch
# Hugo & Ricardo – these two guys walk up and down the Casita section all day – starting with papers first thing in the morning, followed up by chilled fruit, then sandwiches, then cookies and water, magazines and games – even sun tan lotion. Then mid afternoon ice cream is on offer.

We stayed in Casita 2819 which was a great suite. We were well looked after and did not encounter any of the problems some people have said they had with booking restaurants. We booked three before we went and just kept topping them up. Maid service was excellent [twice a day] and we had no problems with the odd bit of maintenance work which was going on – some of it is even done at night to avoid disturbing people during the day.

As I mentioned in one of the postings - were we glad we upgraded – Yes. Was it worth the extra dosh – probably not. Would we do it again - Yes

Could things have been better – four minor things:

# The beach – as I said earlier not the best I have been on. You have to laugh at the beach guys – gather up all the seaweed and flotsam, dig a big hole and bury it. No point in wheeling it miles in a wheelbarrow
# Chairs outside Jo Jo’s at night – these need to be cleaned now and again as they can mark your clothing if you are not careful
# La Cocotal – would not really recommend this for breakfast as it is a bit cafeteria’ish. At night time it is transformed with subtle lighting and the variation in the menu is great
# Fuentes [Culinary Theatre] – great concept but not very well executed, perhaps we are spoilt here in the UK by having the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein, etc who show real passion when they demonstrate cooking.

Would we go back – oh yes, in a minute. Quite fancied giving Azul Blue a go until we realised it was not Adults Only.

We spent 2 weeks at EDR from 10th October. On getting there we really couldn't believe how fantastic the place looked. This was our honeymoon, the only part of the wedding experience I was allowed sole control over and at last I got something right!

We stayed in an ocean front room, but despite requesting high floor ended up with a ground floor room. Still the view was good, wherever you are your near a pool and the weather just couldn't be beaten for pool side lounging!

Our one gripe would be eating... i have heard this said many times of the EDR but booking restaurants in so far in advance (as you need to in order to get a table in the restaurants you like) really did get a bit annoying, and despite saying I was a vegetarian the concept didn't fully translate properly and they tried getting me to agree to fish as' it wasn't really meat'. When they did agree to do a vegetarian meal they brought out the same dish three nights in a row, so if you do need vege food make sure you know exactly what they plan before it comes out to you, otherwise you'll be on pasta all the time!

Entertainment was great. maids were friendly and rooms were fantastic. mini bar was limited, but only a problem for exceptionally lazy people like me.

All in all we'd definitely go again and recommend to anyone, watch out for the occasional con-man flying around though, there are many who will try to take your money.

We'd definitely recommend the coba jungle tour, was a great day out.