Hôtel Iberostar Selection Paraíso Maya 5

We booked our rooms 6 months ago, and family trip of 15 of us from SW Michigan. We've spent days looking online at reviews, options and other properties, and this seemed to fit the best. So disappointed. The staff experience that we had at check in, was decent for 1 of our 4 families. This is the end of day 1, of a 6 night graduation, birthday, vacation for us all. I understand that there will be some concessions to deal with due to the climate and location. Taking that out of the equation however, this place falls flat on its face. The only 2 decent restaurants on property, have 0 opportunities for reservations in 6 days to either of them via the app. And no, we weren't thinking we would get 15 of us, this was for groups of 3. You literally can't get 3 people in for a reservation in the span of a week, to EITHER of the decent dining locations. First day consisted of middle school lunch fries and hot dogs at the beach with weak and watered down drinks, followed by an abysmal buffet trip. We aren't expecting 5 star cuisine by any stretch of the imagination, but flavorless , undercooked food? A homeless shelter would be embarrassed to serve this. We have heard the secret to getting a reservation is to go to your buildings concierge, and tip them. We had a concierge at our building for 5 minutes today that I saw. The rooms for the timeshare owners, staffed quite a bit more, with 2 for most of the day. They offer a "shuttle" of sorts, they have multiple color lines to get you where you're wanting to go on the property. If you're in Maya, the orange line is not running, meaning you're hiking wherever you choose to go. We have an injured party, and this has been a huge downfall, as a 10 minute walk is unbearable, and to constantly be doing it to get anywhere on the property, is just cruel. The solution given to us by the facility? Plan multiple trips at once to mitigate the amount of walking. The drinks. As someone who rarely drinks, I do have the ability to taste alcohol, nearly in an amplified way. A small amount, seems very generous. The drinks I have had since being here, haven't had the flavor of alcohol much less the effect of alcohol, at any of the bar locations. I have no other way to justify it than a weak pour, or an altered supply. We used the pool this evening, and it was amazing. That so far is the highlight, but after walking by the "water park", you have one slide structure with 6 options, a pirate ship, and there's a wave pool. This will entertain most children for 20 to 30 minutes. I'll add to and edit this review as necessary, but for now? I'm very displeased.

Least favorite AI I've stayed at. Our room was infested with cockroaches. We had 8 during our stay (2 the first night!) and the staff did finally come and fumigate but we kept getting them afterwards as well. The ONLY reason we got a restaurant booking was because of the cockroach issue we had. No restaurant reservations available even though they are nearly empty every single night when you walk by. I asked concierge and they told me they were understaffed. So why the f*** are they booking so many people to stay if they can't handle it? What a joke. Lazy river was closed 2 entire days with no explanation. Buffet food is Golden Corral quality. Fruit was about the only thing decent. I can get better tacos back home it's really quite frustrating. Tacos at the beach were barely any better. Drinks are way too much sugar and hardly any alcohol, even when asking for strong/double. I've had better shows at budget tier hotels. Grounds are beautiful and are about the only redeeming quality. Much better options exist at this price point. They could really use more shade areas near the pool as well. Especially the kids pool area. We stayed at Maya but the Del Mar side was even worse. They should increase staffing or decrease guest reservations. Clearly they are not capable of handling everyone.