Hiding Away With Mexican Elegance
The EmptyNesters decided to try something outside of their comfort zone – an All Inclusive! After selling our home and living in a rental for six months, a short getaway was needed at the end of the winter and rather last minute – for us! And we decided to climb onboard the all inclusive train in the Mexican Riviera.
We researched many sites in hopes of finding the best adult only luxury at the best price. We settled on Costco which allowed us to pick our room, upgrade if we liked, include transportation and fly on our airline of choice to get the miles! We could not move too much out of our comfort zone, so we looked for a small boutique style resort. We chose the Royal Hideaway Playacar which fit all our requirements and traveled there in early April.
The Royal Hideaway Playacar Resort is a 201 room boutique style resort, a member of the prestigious Leading Hotels of the World collection and is nestled in the upscale area of Playacar within Playa del Carmen. A direct early flight and a quick private 40 minute ride with driver brought us to the upscale oasis of the Royal Hideaway Playacar. The refreshing towel and glass of champagne put my fears at ease, as the luxury removed any doubts about Mexico and an adult all inclusive.
We stayed in hideaway pool view room on the second/top floor of our villa group. We had a large room with Mexican colonial style décor and thoroughly modern amenities. We had a large private balcony with two cushioned chairs with ottomans and end tables, with a view over the palms to a secret pool. Our room had a king size bed with a pillow menu, ceiling fan, desk and chair, lounge chair and ottoman and a lovely table to have room service served on. The bathroom was well equipped with a nice closet with robes and a safe. Double sinks, a jet tub, separate water closet and shower finished the bathroom. The jet tub took up a lot of room (truthfully, I am not a bath person so would have preferred the extra space for the shower area). The separate water closet was nice, as was the separate shower stall, but both had windows which could be seen as lacking privacy especially for female travelers.
The resort has two beautiful pools overlooking the beach and the ocean, while the resort has a handful of smaller, private “hideaway pools”. Sitting under an umbrella at the pool while enjoying the ocean view with the ever present hues of blue … we never tired of the view! White sand, aquamarine water color, the pale banana yellow color buildings with the Mexican colonial architecture, we never needed a filter to enhance the colors of the Royal Hideaway Playacar!
The resort has meticulous landscaping. Trimming of palms and removal of coconuts from the palm trees and scrubbing of the little canals among the property, all was done in clandestine style. Little noise or interference of your vacation was brought on by the gardeners.
There are six diverse restaurants which gave us many options of dinner. Expansive wine lists, which we would recommend, as we did not really care for the house white wines. The sommelier, Gabriella, helped us chose a Mexican white wine one night. She thanked us for choosing a Mexican wine, as she said they were an emerging wine region and had difficulty finding markets. The wine she suggested was wonderful and we had it the next nights as well. Gabriella told us she would meet us at any restaurant to help us chose a wine.
We enjoyed excellent turn down service each night with a bottle of wine we ordered on ice upon returning from dinner. The villa concierge was very helpful setting up reservations for one of the six restaurants for our entire stay. We especially enjoyed the Palazzo and Spices restaurants. Breakfast brought an unexpected cornucopia of choices: cheese, pastries, yogurt, breads, 5 different types of eggs, beans and of course open bar and coffees. And on our final morning, we had a glorious room service breakfast spread out on time in our room. Each night, we would venture to the Allegra bar to have an aperitif before dinner.
All of this can be summed up in the number one attraction of the Royal Hideway Playacar Resort – service. No needs or wants were beyond the staff, from pool staff inflating a client’s raft to the attentive waiters refilling of guests’ drinks around the pool. Courteousness and professionalism of the staff (from training) was the best we have seen in all our travels. Managers with daily meetings with the wait-staff prior to pool day/restaurant openings. Many of the wait-staff came to know our names and refer to us personally each morning! The hostesses, our waiter, Angel, all so personable and professional.
We loved our quick out of our zone getaway so much, we hope to return at the same time next year. The Royal Hideaway Playacar is an oasis among the crowds and fast paced culture of Cancun and the Riviera Maya. We left the Hideaway with warm thoughts and smiles in hopes to return to the secret place we found and now call our “perfect Mexican paradise”.