The Caribbean Paradise SCAM - Dag Cato. Date of travel: Feb 2008
I don't write reviews very often and sorry if you seen this review on other sites, but I feel a strong urge to share my unacceptable stay at Caribbean Paradise Hotel. I was in Playa del Carmen for a wedding, with many friends staying in Caribbean Paradise and at Cielo. Anyways, upon arriving, the hotel was overbooked (they found my prepaid Internet reservation though). However, they "happened" to have another hotel with rooms that they shipped us to. The other hotel (Magic Express) was far off and not what we paid for (room ok though). After one night, we finally got a room at Caribbean Paradise. I know this can happen occasionally on flights and in hotels so story over right ? Well no, because it was evident Caribbean Paradise put this into system - they book as much as they can and then "spill" clients when necessary to ME. Same thing happened to a friend of mine and other guests. At ME they confirmed that Caribbean Paradise often sent them guests when overbooked. The rooms vary A LOT ! They range from bunker to unbarably noisy to dreams... I checked seaview (duh !) when asked for it during my internet reservation. The room I got was finally a bunker (no windows). Some friends got the very noisy room (had to change after one night) and some others got the dream (nicely situated over the plaza on one side and the pool on the other - one terrace on each side... even a small stripe of seaview). I would have asked for a better room had I spent more time there and if the personnel weren't constantly handling unsatisfied customers who wanted to change rooms (those that had rooms this time...). If I would have been more picky, the room could seriously have affected the overall experience in Playa del Carmen negatively. Having people coming from all over the world just to rip them off like this is no less than a SCAM (like there isn't enough already in Playa del Carmen... The Americans don't seem to mind though ;-) ). The personnel is nice and speaks English, but is of course unable to do anything about the impossible situation the management puts them in. They seemed quite uneasy about it. The good point has to be the restaurant. Very nicely situated with good and priceworthy lunch food (bagels and salads). The hotel is well situated, close to the beach (very crowded and with a doubtful water quality with all the boats around). If you want to spend time under a palm tree on a perfect, empty and clean beach, head to Tulum instead (but the nightlife and so on is of course inexistant in Tulum). Overall, avoid Caribbean Paradise. The friends staying at Cielo had no such problems and the price was the same. Even nastier water in front of Cielo though.