Royal Hideaway Playacar All-Inclusive Adults Only Resort

The room was great. TThe food washe beach and location were spot on.

The food was a disappointment. The Italian restaurant had some good dishes. The grill had a mediocre breakfast. The steak at dinner was the worst I've ever had. It was not edible.

Loved the staff! Helpful and friendly! The drinks were plentiful! Overall the food was good. The beach was clean and nice. Security was visible. Plenty of chairs by the pool and beach!

It is an older facility, so the AC wasn’t quite what I am use to back home, but we made it work.

The staff was wonderful ! This was our second time at Royal Hideaway. It is such a great spot on the beach. Restaurants and room services were great. I love that they have breakfast and lunch buffet with an ocean view. We had the best Massages at the spa. We met a lot of the conciergiers from the different buildings. They are all so helpful. We will be back next year!

Our room really needed better air conditioning. I feel that when we asked about it, they were aware of the issue already . When we met other couples that was the biggest complaint. The restaurants needed better air conditioning.

The location is great. It’s quiet and has a very pleasant mellow atmosphere. I heard ppl complain about not having a night life — that’s exactly what I loved about it. It’s not for everyone; if you want to party into the night, this is not the place for you. The staff is lovely and most of them are capable. Clean rooms, good beds.

The lack of functioning ACs is a massive problem. Only a small portion of their 170 some rooms have functioning ACs. Most rooms are at about 80 degrees. The hotel doesn’t fix them when they send in their techs — the units are simply old needing (part) replacement. The restaurants also lack ACs. You’ll sweat inside. The quality of the food is a disappointment as well. It’s def not a 5*. It used to be so much better. (How do they not know how to make an espresso??)

This resort has the friendliest staff who are engaging and willing to meet your every need. The entertainment staff bring high energy for fun daytime activities from beach volleyball to aqua aerobics The food was excellent with 5 unique restaurants with wonderful service

Everything was outstanding but the furnishing are a bit dated and worn

Never got a change to get a beach chair. People would claim chairs early and only use them for a few hours but horde them for the entire day

The food was very good. Service and people were nice. Best Dinner was Italian. Breakfast is available in 2 restaurants (the Deck and Spices and you always have the option of 24-hour room service.) I found out after getting to the resort that most people made dinner reservations a week before they arrived. That left us with some late night (9:00 pm) reservations. We kept checking back with the concierge and did get some earlier reservations. Call the concierge to make reservations before your trip, NO NOT email. Now that I know this this will not be an issue if we go back.

This was annoying. There are approximately 100 loungers around the 2 pools. Not enough for all guests. Beach loungers are available also if you get there early. At least 26 choice chairs at the pool had signs reserving them for the week. I asked about this, "can I pay more and get this service?" The employees in the main lobby acted really surprised about the reserved loungers, with actual reserved signs, claiming to know nothing about this. But promised to get back to me, they never did. The remaining 74 chairs do not all have umbrellas. If you want a lounger set your alarm for 5:30am - 6:00 am (and earlier) so you can put personal items on loungers, at 8:00 am all loungers are usually gone. I do not like getting up so early on vacation. Getting up early to reserve loungers seems very low class to me and I asked myself, am I really doing this? Should I just pay more and go somewhere else. I saw choice loungers, with umbrellas, reserved, that no one used all day. Guests were out on full day excursions with chairs reserved that went unused all day! Chairs should be available to all guests if they are not being used. Also, each pair of loungers should have a working umbrella. Other resorts work this out. Barcellos is one of the largest chains in the world, they could work this out. There should be no reason that some guests get preferential treatment and others who have to get up in the dark in order to get loungers or go all day without. You should see the frustrated look on some of the guests faces when they come down after 8:00 am and have no loungers. This was no doubt the worst part of the resort, mentioned by many guests. Lastly, just one suggestion to Barcellos, why not set up a small coffee shop where people could get coffee, shakes, smoothies and pastry during the day. I have seen this at many other resorts and guests really seem to enjoy this as a place to relax out of the sun.

The property and the room were very nice.

Charming all-inclusive hotel but if you did not make a reservation for dinner on time, you are out of luck and need to get out of the hotel for dinner or order room service. I was out of the hotel property every day and was back to the hotel afternoon or later (late to reserve a table). I try a number of times to reserve a table for dinner at two restaurants, first, at Spices, they told me after checking, then calling to the manager, as few couples were waiting that they are fully booked (few people were in), I check and try to see if the Azia has a space, they also were fully booked without reviewing if any table is open (the restaurant at 9:30 PM was empty), I checked in the front desk, the very not nice person in the front desk told me, all are booked and again without checking. Overall, a very clear message, if you did not make a reservation, do not stop by our restaurant because we are not going to get you a table. Very disappointed.