This review is overdue. We honeymooned last summer at this time at El Dorado Royale. We loved the Riviera Maya area, away from the bustle of Cancun but certainly amazing. The taxi ride from the airport was about 30 minutes or so (it's been awhile!) and our driver was waiting with our last name on a sign. We had private transfers which made it nice.

There is champagnge upon arrival. It took a little while to get into our room, but once we did the amazing week began. We didn't have a huge, upgraded presidential suite or anything, but we didn't need it. For what we paid, we were very happy. Our jetted hot tub and large 4 post bed were quite nice. Our oceanfront view was spectacular.

We frequented all of the restaurants and loved all of them. My husband had some bad seafood one night that managed to get him quite sick at our "dinner on the beach." This dinner is free for honeymooners and consists of a fondue montage. Despite this, we finished strong.

The pools were beautiful with views of the ocean. The swim up bar was so fun! There are tons of specialty drinks as well. Then there is the martini bar... yum! There are cabanas for your use. In the ocean, there are large breakers so the waves don't crash in like on other beaches we have been to. There are free kayaks and such.

In the evenings the staff provide different shows. Sometimes there are activities or games. During the day there is a free bus trip to downtown Playa del Carmen - you stay for about 4 hours and then meet the bus to come back. This was awesome and gave us a chance to get a little more culture.

Basically we loved our honeymoon and recommend this place to everyone!

We stayed at EDR from August 8-13, 2008. The hotel resort was nice and cozy. The grounds were really well kept. At night, there's lighting throughout and many couples walk about at night to enjoy the breeze and the different bars. We had an ocean front Jacuzzi suite (paid $488/night for 2 adults) that indeed offered a wonderful view. Room Positives: clean, nice bed canopy, plenty of towels provided, mini bar refilled daily. Room negatives: very hard bed, smelly water, one sink in the bathroom, limited tv channels. For dinner, the restaurants require casual dress-up for men and women, i.e. dockers/pants, nice shirts and closed toe shoes for men and casual dresses and dressy or strappy shoes for women. Favorite dinner restaurant was the D'Italia (Italian cuisine). We didn't like the food at the oriental cuisine restaurant. The other restaurants were good. Breakfast is buffet style at the restaurants. Room service is free; however, the menu is limited. Staff was all very friendly and helpful. They all very much appreciated tips. Oh keep in mind that there is no ATM in the hotel (we also learned no one takes Discover). There were various activities held at the hotel to accommodate everyone. We took the hotel shuttle to/from Playa del Carmen (book this in advance) where we did most of our souvenir shopping. The beach was fabulous - tranquil and lovely to enjoy! Depending on your room location, there can certainly be a long walk to the lobby but you can always wait for the hotel shuttle, which comes around every 20-25 minutes or start walking and ask for a ride of any of the golf carts passing by.

We went on two tours arranged by Lomas Travel (an agent is located onsite at the hotel): one to Chichen Itza & Ik Kil for $99/person and one to Xcaret for $125/person. Both tour packages included roundtrip transportation and a meal. Snorkeling gear, life jacket, towels, and locker were also provided with the Xcaret tour package. The price for Xcaret at the door is $69/person. The Chichen Itza & Ik Kil tour also included free continental breakfast, bottled water, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks, sun umbrella (if needed), and guided tour at Chichen Itza. We enjoyed the underground river swimming at Xcaret, as well as the spectacular show from 7-9 pm. Unfortunately, we got sick from the food at Xcaret (those notorious buffets!) and spent the next day in bed miserable with nausea, vomiting, fever, etc. Room service at EDR was gracious to make us (off the menu) rice soup and send us toast, plenty of sprite and water as we needed - thank goodness for their hospitality! This we very much appreciated.

Our luggage had arrived damaged (the entire zipper was gone! THANKS DELTA!!!) and did not arrive back from being repaired in time for our departure date, so we had to extend our stay at the hotel by one night. We transferred to a less expensive room ($386/night) and wouldn't you know...we had an ocean view, the bed was comfortable, the water wasn't smelly, and the bathroom was nicer too - separate toilet area, door for shower, two sinks.

Overall, a nice hotel.

The hotel is huge, it takes several minutes to walk from your room to any of the restaurants. This isn't bad if you are prepared for it. If you are not prepared for the size, it is a shocker. There is a dress code enforced at the restaurants, even the ones on the "beach". So you always have to think ahead about your attire and if you will be able to get into the restaurant with what you have on or will you need to take a hike back to your room to get the proper attire.

The beach you ask? It is pretty much non-existent and what is there, it is in terrible shape. There are HUGE sandbags trying to protect the beach that is left. Even when we ask to move to their sister hotel El Dorado Maroma, they wanted to charge us $400 more and were not really interested in helping with the move.

If you stay in a "junior suite" and not the casitas, they encourage you to use the pools in your area. So they advertise like 11 pools, but in reality you have access to only 2 or 3 for the "junior suite" takers. And these pools are full and hard to get the beds next to the pool.

The staff is great, very friendly, we loved them. The food and bar quality is good. If you like lounging in the pool, this would be a good fit. If you want to walk on miles of beautiful beach, this is NOT the place for you.

The rooms need to be renovated, but are adequate. Lots of noise in the rooms.

We have just returned from a 10 night holiday to El Dorado Royale and all we can say is fantastic. We travelled with another couple and we were both very impressed. We fail to see what anyone could find to complain about.

We found the beach to be perfect - just in front of Jo Jo's restaurant and along towards the Casita section we found to be the best location. You have a long stretch of white sand and the sea is beautiful - very warm. Yes there are sandbags, but what we have learned from friends who stayed at least 4 miles up the coast is that these sand bags continue for a very long way. Personally we did not find them ugly, they have been there so long they look natural and attract a variety of fish large and small which will swim round your ankles and you can feed them bread if you want. We never had a problem getting a sunbed and most of the time were lucky enough to get two beds in a little straw covered gazebo type thing which provided lovely shade. The breeze on the beach is very welcoming and allowed us to sit on the beach all day. Waiters were on hand on the beach to bring you cold drinks (no charge). Hats off to the young beach boy who arrives around three o' clock everyday and starts lining up the sunbeds and carrying them on his head to put them back neatly in line. He works his socks off! We did go for a walk along the beach one day and in our opinion the stretch of sand in front of the casitas is not as nice.

Our room was a standard garden view room and was fantastic! It was cleaned to a very high standard and the mini bar is stocked daily. We left a little note on top of the bar asking for only coke (no diet) and our request was granted.

The only complaint we could possibly say is that our patio door lock broke whilst we were there. We reported it and were told it would be fixed that afternoon. Unfortunatley it was not. We were on a high floor and all our valubles were locked in the safe, no one could have got in at night unless they knew it was unlocked and climbed a tree! so we never reported it again - maybe if we had persisted it would have been done (if we had had a ground floor room we would have).

The restaurants were all excellent with the exception of Las Fuentes - this was not our cup of tea but I see in their brochure it is described as a culinary theatre and it was this that we did not like. It was the only restaurant with theatre type entertainment and it was too loud to enjoy a nice quiet meal. Consequently we never ate there again and all the other restaurants were out of this world. We never had to wait for a table for our evening meal even when we turned up at 7.45 one night - which I have to say is the latest we ever tried to dine. We had to wait one lunchtime when we returned from a trip and didn't go for lunch until 2.15. We were told we would have to wait about 20 minuites and indeed we waited no longer. Jo Jo's is a fantastic restaurant and lovely to go to at lunchtime. It is covered, but right by the sea, it has no sides but plenty of shade. So you can sit and eat and watch the waves roll in. Look out for Juilio and Humberto two classic waiters! We never felt we were treated as second class. Sometimes we tipped (usually about $1 a head) sometimes we didn't and we were never treated any different. We also left a dollar tip for the maid and bar in our room but not every day. Sometimes it was not even taken from our room. You cannot book a table unless you are staying in the Casitas but we never had a problem getting a table.

Personally we were more than happy with the location of our garden view room and were gald we were not in the Casitas. These are at the far end of the resort and quite a walk to anywhere. You would need to hop on a golf buggy if you were staying in one of these.

It truly is a fantastic resort and the staff cannot do enough to try and please you. They do work on Mexican time though (slow) but you are on holiday! Once your meal is ordered you will not have to wait long.

We would be struggling to find any complaints - as I said maybe they could have mended our lock (maybe we should have persisted) and our personal concierge did not contact us until three days before we were due to leave! But then we knew where they were and we didn't need their services. (Apparently they are meant to contact you in the first few days) Once they had made contact they asked me if we were on our honeymoon I said no but three out of four of us were celebrating "a special" birthday. The next day we returned to our rooms to find it had been flowered, decorated with balloons and swan towels and a bottle of champagne with the compliments of our personal concierge - a very thoughtful touch that made things even more special.

We will definitely return and we rarely say that as there are so many places out there to see. But if you want a relaxing, luxury break and peace and quiet then we would thoroughly recommend.