Crown Paradise Club, Cancun Mexico

Crown Paradise Club
Cancun Mexico

Our family just got back from our winter vacation to Cancun Mexico. We traveled from February 7th-12th, 2008 with our three kids ages 6 1/2, 4, and 20 months. During this trip we stayed 5 nights at the Crown Paradise Club in the hotel zone in Cancun. We booked our trip online through Apple Vacations. The reason why we picked this resort is because it was the only hotel that we could find, at the time, were we could book 5 people in a standard room. It is a small struggle when you have a family of 5 and you are looking for hotel accomodations. Babies are considered "a person," even when they are small and sleep in a crib. Most times you can fib and say you have 4 people, but we were looking for an all inclusive resort and we wanted to make sure that all 5 of us could legally eat. Therefore, we chose the Crown Paradise Club for its 5 persons in a room policy, its all inclusive meal plan, and its family friendly atmosphere.

We ended up having a good time at the Crown Paradise Club, but it wasn't the best vacation resort we have ever stayed at. The Crown Paradise Club is definitely a value resort. That is the best way to describe it. The price we payed was very reasonable, but you get what you pay for. It is not a five star resort. If you are looking for luxury, pay the money to stay somewhere else. I would rate this hotel at 3 1/2 stars. The Crown Paradise Club is a family resort. Most of the guests there have kids. If you are a couple or honeymooner that doesn't want to be around a bunch of kids constantly, then stay somewhere else. We found that a lot of the things we read on all the mixed reviews on the Tripadvisor website were true. The reviews we read prior to our trip did prepare us well, so we were not surprised. Many of the negative aspects weren't a huge deal and it didn't ruin our stay.

There are pros and cons about this resort. When arriving at the Crown Paradise Club we found the looks of the hotel decent, but not glamourous. Probably the worst part of the hotel is the front desk. It seems to be a common problem that people are not able to check into their rooms right away. We arrived at 4:30pm and were told that we were assigned a room, but it wasn't ready yet. We were told it would be ready after 6pm. I found that to be extrememly late. When we went back to the front desk at 6pm, they were then searching for a room for us. I don't know if they gave our room away or they didn't have a room for us.

During our stay our room was always cleamed by 10am and it seemed that the housekeeping was always done quickly throughout the resort, so it was obvious something else was going on. It is also clear that the front desk overbooks it rooms, because there are complaints about people not getting there reserved room and being shuffled to another hotel. When we got into our room after 6pm, I was just relieved that we got a room with two beds. I had heard complaints of groups of 4 or 5 people that got a room with only one bed. Our hotel room was very basic. The room was entirely painted concrete with a tile floor. It felt weird and strange at first, but I quickly got over it. Everything in the resort is made of concrete and all the floors are tile, no carpet. You just have to realize that this place gets hits by hurricanes, and that is how things are built there. Everything has to be able to stand up to a hurricance and has to be repaired quickly, so I don't blame the building for how its are made. Our room seemed to be clean enough and the furniture was ok and the decorating was minimal. Almost all the rooms have a view of the ocean and a balcony. When walking into our room, it did have a strong musty smell. However, after the first day we didn't notice it anymore. You have to realize that many accomodations in tropical places gets that musty smell. It is just the damp air that makes it hard for things to dry out. On our first day, I was concerned that we only had 2 towels and 1 washcloth for the five of us. After that first day the towel situation did get better. The hotel seems to only have one set of towels for the whole hotel. The maid picks up the towels when she cleans the room in the morning. Then everyday about 4-5pm, there would be a knock on the door with a delivery of towels. It worked out, because we only showered about 5pm everyday after we were done swimming and getting ready for dinner. They only gave us 5 towels and basically no washclothes. We made do and it was ok. Like I said the room was fairly clean. There were some small ants on the balcony, but it wasn't a big issue. My kids did drink some of the water at the hotel and no one got sick. So the water must have been filtered well. The front desk at the resort is not very helpful. We tried to avoid it for the rest of our stay. We had some problems with our room keys that kept getting deactivated. We also asked for a key to the room safe, since the safe was not the usual punch code type, but needed an actual key. The front desk said they were out of keys. That was extremely odd. Even if they had a key for our safe, I am sure it wasn't very secure anyway, if they have multiple keys that can access multiple safes. There are two towers of rooms at the hotel. We were in the tower that was on the main side of the hotel where the front desk and main lobby was. There were 3 elevators on our side. The elevators were constantly running, but the wait was never extrememly long or agrivating. The second tower is a little farther away and supposedly isn't as updated and renovated as the tower we were in. In that tower there is a "second lobby," which looks like it might have been the main lobby some time ago. This second lobby is now filled with the representatives from all the travel companies like Apple, Expedia, and Funjet. We met our Apple representatives there a couple times and she was very helpful. The lobby of the hotel is basic. There is seating areas, a basic concrete water feature that runs through the lobby, and a bar. Several nights a week there are vendors that come and set up throughout the lobby to sell various stuff. There was nothing for us that was worth buying, but there was an interesting artist that created pictures with spray paint that was fun to watch. There were also roaming people with birds, little monkeys, and a dressed up burro that you could pay to get your picture taken with. We didn't do it, but the kids petted the animals. At night in the lobby there are also some musicans that play music and the little kids run around and dance. In the main lobby of the hotel there are some "information representatives" that try to get you to stop to talk to them. They try to tell you that they want to explain to you what is included in your hotel stay. We avoided them, because we were pretty sure they were time share representatives. We did stop at the conceires desk twice to check our departing flight information. She was helpful. The bellman at the hotel were also fairly quick with delivering our bags and coming to our room to pick them up on the day we left.

The pool areas at the Crown Paradise Club was nice. We have been to more fabulous hotel pools before, but the pools were fine and we had a good time. Our goals of this trip were to just relax and hangout by the pool everyday. We didn't want to drag our little kids on a bunch of tours and excursions, so we spent most of our time in the pool area. There are several pool areas at the Crown Paradise Club. We spent the majority of our time at the activity pool, which was the largest of the pools. The activity pool has a shallow area with lounge chairs in it, then steps that go into the pool. The end of the pool has a wall that overlooks the beach and ocean and makes an illusion that the pool blends into the ocean. There are several guys that direct the activities around this pool. They play music constantly and there are continuous activities in and around the pool that you can participate in. They have various contests for adults and kids and have activities such as water polo, water aerobics and water basketball. If you do not want to be around the noise, music, and flury of activity, there is an adult pool on the other side of the resort. There is a second pool that is next to the activity pool that you can still hear the activity director and music, but it is a little more relaxed. There is a large crescent shaped pool and a kiddie pool that lookes like it might have been a large jacuzzi some time ago. However, as the day goes by, this pool looses its sun quicker due to the fact that the sun goes behind the tower of rooms on that side. This pool is a little chilly, due to the lack of constant sun exposure. Behind the tower of rooms that we stayed in there is also a set of two waterslides. It is supposed to be for teens, but everybody uses it. There is not a life guard on duty, but there really isn't a need. The longer of the two waterslides was extremely slow. Due to the slow slide and the fact that you could see the people through the green tube of the slide, it was quite humourous to watch. This waterslide areas also looses its sun quickly, due to the sun disappearing behing the tower. It can get chilly and windy here, so use the slide early in the day. Inside the hotel near the lobby is an indoor pool. It has a "A" line roof over it to give it some protection from the sun or rain. It is actually a good sized pool. Also in this area is a kids club. You have to fill out a form for each kid the first time you go in. They check the kids in and out, so you can leave your kids there in the supervised area if you want to. We went in with our kids for a while on one day. Our kids do not like us leaving them, which is fine with us. Inside the kids club there is a section with a pirate ship and many little waterslides. It looked nice. Our two older kids went down a few of the slides. My 6 1/2 year old said that the bottom of the slides were a little too shallow for her and she hurt her butt each time she slid down. Again, everything is made of concrete. There were not any rubber mat protection at the bottom of the slides. Adults can stand in the water near the pirate ship area, but can't go in the other area to stand near the bottom of the other slides. I don't know why. Also in the kids club area there was a trampoline, face painting and art projects, a TV area, and basketball. There is a separate babysitting area for babies and young children. You can check your young child in there for babysitting, for an additional cost. There were toys to play with, ride on toys, and an inflatable bounce house, and a small shallow pool with a baby slide.

When checking into the hotel they give you a towel card. You have to turn the card in to receive beach towels. Once again, the hotel is short on towels so you have to go early to get some. Some times we would take the towels back to our room to dry them out and reuse them. They carefully check that you return all your towels. If you loose your towel card they will charge you for it. The front desk wants you to return your keys, towel cards, and not loose your wristbands or they will charge you. The hotel states that saving chairs by the pool is not allowed. Everyone still does it though. People already have their seats saved early in the morning. We saw seats saved all day where no one ever showed up. There were people at the pool that layed in the same spot in the same lounge chair every single day. We didn't save seats, but usually found a chair by the pool. We would just claim one chair for our family, since we never really sat there. We were too busy chasing our kids around.

There is a beach in the front of the resort and the water was nice with some stronger waves. You could walk all the way down the beach in front of all the hotels if you wanted to. The beach isn't very wide between the resort and ocean, but it is fine. There are lounge chairs on the beach for free and plenty of sand to play in. There are some life guards from the hotel watching the beach. My daughter cut her hand one day and the lifeguard was helpful cleaning it and bandaging it. There are local people walking up and down the beach selling items or wanting to braid hair. We did not find them troublesome and a quick nod of your head "no" will keep them walking away. There is a fresh water shower provided, to rinse all the sand off.

The Crown Paradise Club is all inclusive, which is very nice. It is great to be able to get food whenever you want and not have to pay for everything at each meal or each time you want a snack. In the middle of the resort, by the pool area, is the buffet area. It is open everyday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It closes briefly between each meal time. It is closed from 5-6pm each day before dinner. The breakfasts were good. My favorite was the omelttes from the made to order egg station and the french toast with lots of cinnamon that you could sprinkle on top of it. At breakfast they also always had ceareal, waffles, pancakes, some mexican food like tamales and tostadas, smoothies, fruit, toast, breads, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, vaious milks, juices, and coffee. At lunch and dinner you could always count on the buffet having sandwiches, desserts, stir-fry in the evenings, mexican tostadas, soft tacos, ice cream, breads, pizza, hamburgers, spagehetti in the evening, fruit, and a salad bar. There was also jucies, milk, and soda. At the buffet you can eat inside or outside. The tables and chairs are plastic. There is an adult only section. We usually got a table fairly easily. If we had to wait is was only about 5 minutes. Sometimes we grabbed a table and had to flag someone down to clear and clean it. There were high chairs and were most of the time easy to claim. The buffet was convenient. You will spend time jumping up and down to go get food, especially if you have kids. Getting food and waiting in line for certain food items were not to bad. The ice cream line is usually the longest wait. The ice cream was good, but it was hard ice cream which took each person longer to scoop themselves. The food at the buffet was pretty good. By the end of the trip you do get a little sick of the same food, but it is not too bad. The buffet is a cafeteria, so everything is mass produced and isn't displayed in a beaufiful presentation. So do not expect beauftiful presented gourmet meals. During the day there was pleny of food options by the pool. Next to the pool there is a station that is constantly grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken wings, and has tortilla chips. There is also a great Japanesse place right by the activity pool. It opens at lunchtime and closes at 5pm. They had awesome Japanesse food like stir-fry, fried rice, and tempura. They also had great susi. I loved the fried shrimp and the fried rice. There are two bar areas by the pool for getting drinks. They had daquaris, mixed drinks, beer, soda, and water. We drank many non-alcholci strawberry daquaris and miami vices. Much of the food at the resort is a little watered down, but not the alcholic drinks. They do give you very small cups, so you will have to refill your drinks a lot. Some people bring bigger cups of their own and they will fill them up for you. When we first arrived at the resort I was a little worried that the hotel would be full of a lot of drunks with the all inclusive drinking. When we were waiting in line to check in to the hotel, there was a drunk older lady behind us in line that kept trying to talk to us. It ended up fine and there was not a huge problem with intoxicated people walking around. I only saw one other girl in the elevator that was obviously hammered. The resort is mostly filled with families and they don't allow the "spring breaker type," so it wasn't a huge issue. There are a good number of restuarants that are open for dinner in the resort. You must call during the day to make reservations, if you want to eat in one of the restaurants. We didn't have trouble getting through on the phone like some people said they did. Not all restaurants are opened everynight, so you have to ask. One thing that is noticed by all is that they do not fill up the restuarants. They will say that the restuarant is booked full, but they only fill about 1/4 to half of the restuarnt. I think they do this to try to get as many people to eat dinner at the buffet as they can. At one restuarant my husband looked at the reservation sheet on the hostest desk and he saw that they only had 5 reservations for each time slot. At the Crown Paradise there is a Mexican, seafood, Italian, French, and a steakhouse. We ate at the Italian restaurant and the steakhouse called Wayne's Boots. The atomsophere at the Italian restuarant was nice. The atmospere at Wayne's Boots wasn't as great, but they had a mechanical bull that people could ride on. When we were there they only had 5 people try to ride the bull and then they closed it down. They probably only do it in small shifts. My husband won the bull riding contest and stayed on for one minute. The food at Wayne's Boots was horrible, but we enjoyed watching Daddy ride the bull. The food at the Italian restuarant wasn't the greatest either. My husband was convinced that they take the same food off the buffet and serve it at the resutarants. Later at night, after dinner, they serve late night snack food in the lobby. They have hamburgers, chicken strips, tortilla chips and stuff. Overall the food was decent. We definietly ate a lot. I noticed my shorts feeling a little tighter and at one point my stomach looked like it was 6 months pregnant. EEEK! It is funny that you see people at the resort at the beginning of your vactation. When you see them a few days later they look visibly swollen from eating and drinking so much.

The resort also has a miniature golf course, where our kids played twice. The course is made of concrete and not extremely decorated, but they liked it. On the roof of the hotel, next to Wayne's Boots, there are also basketball courts.

Each night there is a different show in the theatre at the Crown Paradise Club. I wasn't expecting that much and was figuring the shows probably wouldn't be that great. We have seen bad local talent on other vacations before and was figuring that the shows at this resort would be the same. I was pleasantly surprised and the shows were pretty good. My 6 year old daughter and I went to the show everynight and enjoyed it. The hotel's activitiy directors work really hard during the day directing the activities and contests by the pool and monitoring the kids club and then they perform everynight in the show. They have a different show for each night of the week. Then on some nights a bus comes to the resort at 10:30 at night to take guests to places like the CoCo Bongo nightclub and Senor Frogs. The activity director staff goes on those outings too. The guys and girls work hard and are always happy and entertaining. We saw the show Crown Paradise Idol which they did performed Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, and Cher. We also saw the Fantasy Show where they performed Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Shrek, Barney, Beauty and the Beast, Speedy Gonzallas, Little Mermaid, Tarzan, and various other characters. The costumes in this show were great. The kids really liked it. The next night we saw the Circus Show. It had a Cirque de Soile theme and had acrobats, performing dogs, a girl that spun on a hoop in the air, a bendable flexible guy that did tricks and put his whole body in a little box, and a girl that spun tons of hula hoops all over her body. The last night they performed Grease (in Spanish it was called Vaselina.) The shows were well produced and rehearsed, the dancing was good, the costumes were nice, and the shows were entertaining and fun. All the singing was lip synced, but it was still great. The shows start at 9pm or 8pm for the more kid orientated shows. Before each show they have some sort of contest with audience participation, which is usually pretty funny.

We stayed at the resort and hung by the pool everday, except one day we took a bus down the hotel zone. The public bus was cheap and picked us up near the front of the hotel. The bus was safe. When taking the bus, sit in your seat quickly and have your kids hold on because they drive pretty fast. When you get on the bus tell the driver where you are going. There isn't designated bus stops, so they stop wherever. Sit near the front and keep reminding the driver where you are going, because sometimes they forget. We went to the La Isla mall. It was a nice mall and looked fairly new. It had many stores and restaurants. We don't enjoy shopping that much in Mexico. Even in the mall there was people trying to talk to you to sell you something or to get you to go into their store. We went to La Isla mall to go to the Interactive Aquarium there, so that the kids could participate in a dolphin program. The aquairum is small and we got there way to early before our scheduled time for the dolpin program. There are fish displays to look at, a shark and turtle tank where you can pet a nurse shark, some starfish to look at, dolpins to look at, and a shark exhibit. My 6 1/2 year old daughter, 4 year old son, and myself did the educational program with the dolphins. Our kids were too young to do the swim with the dolphins program, so we did the educational program that consisted of one dolphin that we got in the water with. We got to pet the dolphin, did hand signals to make it perform, learned some facts about dolphins, and had the dolphin kiss our cheek. It was fine and the kids liked it.

We had good weather while visiting Mexico in February. Most days it was 80 degrees. On the day we went to the mall and did the dolphin program, it grew cooler and cloudy in the later afternoon. The next day happened to be cooler, windy and cloudy. There was one short downpour of rain that sent everyone running from the pool area. On that day our two older kids and Daddy painted pottery at the hotel. There are people by the pool that set up an area where you can choose a piece of pottery and pay to paint it. They then spray it with a clear sealer and you can pick up your creation in an hour.

Our family had a nice, well needed vacation in Cancun. We had a good time. We did like Mexico better this time than when we went there 8 years ago. We did notice that Cancun looked a little more cleaned up than when we were there previously. The airport was also nicely renovated and organized much better. We had a good time at the Crown Paradise Club, although we would probably choose to try another resort next time we go to Cancun. The Crown Paradise is good if you are looking for value and if you want a family orientated, all inclusive resort.

http://www.crownparadise.com/