Intro

Apologies for the length of this review – It’s more like one of the old Expert Hotel Reviews (RIP). Hopefully this gives anyone staying in the next couple of months a comprehensive view of the hotel.

With the Hyatt acquisition of Playa, this Hotel may not be flagged as a Hilton by the end of the year but for now, I have included relevant Hilton Honors notes.

Some context:

I usually travel on leisure holidays with my kids (currently 4 and 7) and my wife. This time however my wife and I were in Mexico to attend a four-day wedding event on the island of Holbox. We decided to tack on 5 nights in Play Del Carmen after the wedding before returning to the cold and rain of the UK. This was our first trip of more than one night without children together since our eldest was born and we were making the most of it!

We have been to Playa’s other Hilton properties as well in the past few years and were impressed, especially with La Romana and this time, travelling without kids, the opportunity to try out the adults-only Hilton Playa Del Carmen was too good to miss!

I booked entirely with points (at 100k per night, 5th Night Free)

The resort uses a web-based app to show everything; restaurant opening times, fitness schedule, rules etc.

The link is here: https://hpdc.hiltonbyplaya.com/?utm_...#/property-hub

Check-in

We were greeted out of our transfer vehicle and, after giving my name, escorted to the Hilton Honors dedicated check-in area. Check in was smooth but, despite it being 14.35, it seems they don’t let anyone into rooms early. We were told to return at 15.00. We went to the lobby bar for a drink and returned, as did everyone else who had been told to wait until then, meaning a crowded Honors area of people just waiting to pick up key cards.

Honors Benefits

I have attached the current image of what benefits are offered to each Honors level within the spoiler below.

We had been upgraded to a pool view room in a prime location (more on that later) – essentially one category as is usual. There was an amenity waiting in the room and a Diamond banner on the door. We were given a diamond wristband which allowed us access to the other Diamond benefits listed in the image.

I did book a tour through the tour desk and received the Diamond 10% discount which actually made the tour very competitively priced compared to booking direct or shopping around.

This included the Diamond-area beach cabanas. In reality this was not well policed and you could see, via wristbands that these were being used by non-diamond members. Luckily, when we wanted to use one, there was at least one free in the sun for us so this didn’t directly affect us. It does diminish the ‘benefit’ however if not policed.

Room

It’s been noted on this thread before but every ‘normal’ room here regardless of category is a large, spacious junior suite. Every one has a two-person hot-tub within the room. The actual suites are the only ones with a larger footprint.

Our upgraded ‘prime location’ was actually really decent – ground floor with a deck which opened up to the end of the pool area but far enough away from the bar end that the music wasn’t too loud. It captured the sun beautifully in the morning until about 14.00.

Every suite appeared to have chairs and either a swing-seat or hammock on their veranda/balcony. Our hammock was beautifully placed to soak in the sun and then run to the pool for a quick dip to cool off. As is often the case with these ground floor rooms, you cannot lock the door from the outside.

The room was large and clean, toiletries were by Persea in large bottles but with individual hand soaps. Bathrobes were provided but no slippers. The wardrobe has the usual safe/iron/ironing board and there was separate cupboard/drawer area with mini-bar and filter coffee machine. Each room had a room-service cubby to avoid the need for placing used trays outside the door.

I stupidly forgot to take any pictures of the room but my wife handily took a video of the entire room while we were waiting for a short rainstorm to pass.
Resort

The resort itself, directly on the beachfront and only one block away from ‘5th Avenue’ in the heart of downtown had to be compact compared to say La Romana, which has a much larger footprint. This meant that everything was easily accessible within a couple of minutes. It still boasts a number of restaurants and bars as well as a café.

The two pools were a decent size and included two large ‘hot’ tubs – one which was usually empty being pool temperature and one which was actually warm which was often packed from mid-morning on. There were plenty of loungers and we never had a problem finding one despite never ‘reserving’ one early etc. Beach/pool towels were provided whenever you needed at the towel desk.

The beach directly outside the hotel has a rocky bottom which makes it difficult to go straight in and I’m pretty sure that the red flag is all the lifeguards ever use, based on its state of disrepair! That said, all you need to do is walk along the beach to the very edge of the Hilton’s footprint, where the Grand Hyatt begins and access to the sea is rock-free soft sand. Slightly further along there is a dedicated swimming area.

Hilton has its own cabanas and loungers on the beach but the beach itself is federal property. There are security guards at each access point to the hotel grounds who were vigilant in stopping people with no wrist-bands, at least while I was watching.

The resort has a large open-air lobby with a bar. This is used for entertainment in the evening. Around this, you can find the dining booking desk, tour desk, 24hour lounge (like an executive lounge but with a 24hour happy-hour) and a gift shop.

There is also a tranquil quiet pool set away from the noise of the main pool and beach, although the sun in this area is more limited.

The spa is located in one wing off the lobby but I did not partake, having had a much-much cheaper Mayan massage on the beach in Holbox a few days prior ($170 USD at the Hilton vs $25 USD on the beach!)

Fitness

Whilst I didn’t use the spa, I did use the gym, which was well-equipped with machines and free-weights. Cold normal and flavoured water, along with some fruit and nutrition snacks were available. Towels were provided.

There are also plenty of outdoor, mostly pool-based exercise classes available which I did not do but looked good. The downside is, if you are doing aquafit in the middle of the main pool, everyone can watch you working out!

Food & Drink

There is the ‘Spice’ buffet for breakfast and lunch, but not dinner. Booking in advance is advised unless you don’t mind eating late. We were happy to eat late to maximise our days and booked on the day or one day ahead with times available at 20.30 (once) and always 21.00, 21.30 and 22.00 were available.

In the evening, the food in the Maria Petrona (traditional Mexican) was fine, Kalamata (Mediterranean) was good and Asiana (Asian fusion) was really tasty and good quality. We also tried the Rincon Mexican, which is only available for lunch and, even though this was simple Mexican classics, I rated this really highly.

We also tried Barefoot and the café for snacks and had a light breakfast of fruit and pastries from the café on our terrace one morning. The selection in the café was always decent and everything was freshly baked/prepared in both.

Overall we were pleasantly surprised with how good we found the food, having read middling reviews of FT and other sites.

The bars were efficient so there was never a long line and a good selection of spirits was available. There is a pool bar and a separate swim-up bar as well as waiters taking orders round the pool/ on the beach cabanas. There was also a tequila bar, the lobby bar and a couple of others serving different areas.

The minibar was stocked daily with 2xCoca Cola 2x Diet Coke 2xMexican Beer 1x Sprite 2x Water. I did my usual of leaving a note asking for only diet coke rather than coca cola and everyday that is what they provided. Chips and Cereal bars were also provided daily.

We didn’t try room service but it is available 24hours.

The current menus for all the bars and restaurants are available at the link in my introduction.

Entertainment

There is a full entertainment schedule both during the day on the pool deck and during the evening, mainly cantered in the lobby bar. We didn’t really join in with the entertainment or watch much of it. What I will say is that the entertainment was not so overwhelming that it ruined sitting by the pool while it was happening, as long as you weren’t right next to it. It was not as in-your-face and inescapable as our experience at Rose Hall in Jamaica.

The list of entertainment is published weekly onto the app so see the link in the intro for examples of what you could expect.

Location

For me the location is one of the best things about this resort. When looking at options for our short post-wedding break, I wanted to avoid Cancun’s Zona Hotelera. A strip of just hotels and tourist shops just doesn’t appeal to me. The resorts on the beachfront of Play Del Carmen offer the ability to walk out of the hotel into the hustle and bustle of a real city and indeed was a two minute walk from Playa’s famous Quinta Avenida (5th Avenue).

My wife and I love exploring and the proximity of PDC to Tulum, Chichen Itza was great. We took a tour to the ruins in Tulum and most of the people on our bus were staying in Cancun and had been on the bus for an hour and 15 minutes before they even picked us up from PDC! For us, it was just 35 minutes to Tulum. CUN airport took less than an hour to get back to at the end. PDC also has direct fast ferries to Cozumel if you are interested in diving the reefs. We were able to get a 20min taxi to Akumal to see the turtles on the beach there.

Ultimately, being halfway down the Mayan Riviera meant you were well placed for everything.

Conclusion

We had a great, relaxing child-free stay at this resort. I can’t unfortunately see a point in the near-medium future where we would be in Mexico without kids again but if I was, I would happily come back here to stay. The most disappointing part was that they make you cut off your wristband at the end. They actually treated us like criminals and wouldn’t let us even leave the lobby until we agreed to this. I won’t go into full detail but it meant we left on a very sour note for something which could have been resolved in a much better way very easily.

The food was good, the hard product was good and the service was, up until the last 15minutes, excellent.

Pictures are included within the spoiler below.