We had one of the best family vacations ever at the Paraiso Lindo! We spent 6 nights in late December/early January, traveling with three children (8, 6, 2) and two grandparents. This was our first international trip all together and our first time staying at an Iberostar property. Overall, the consensus is a 10/10 and we can't wait to return! The booking experience through the Iberostar website was relatively quick and user friendly. We booked in July and there seemed to be enough availability. We booked a 2-bedroom family which (think of two connecting rooms in a hotel) with a king in one room and two doubles in the other. On the same reservation we booked a Premium Tropical View room with a kind bed for the grandparents. I like that the full price of the room is made clear and notice that there is an extra - at the time $31.12 pesos - fee per room per night not included in that price. But nothing is due at the time of booking, you pay in total at check-in. I strongly recommend joining IHG One Rewards for a discount (it doesn't cost you anything). Leading up to the trip, contacting Iberostar worked fine. They have an email address that you can use for requests, for example when we requested a crib for one of the rooms, or a birthday cake to prepared for our son's birthday. Iberostar doesn't have an in-house transportation service, however, they partner with a company World to Meet (W2M) for airport transfers and some of their excursions. You book the transfer through W2M and pay online in advance. It was reasonable - $198 for roundtrip transport from Cancun airport for 7 people. The service was easy to use. A rep held a sign outside of arrivals and our ride was there in 20 minutes. It's just a 25–30-minute ride to the resort. On your return, you arrange the pick-up time with the W2M rep at the resort 24 hours before and its easy breezy lemon squeezy. Upon arriving the resort, you sort of know it's going to be a nice vacation. The reception area is open, inviting, and the check in building smells great. Check-in can take a bit between payment and activating the room keys - it probably took 30 minutes. But it's really not bad - the kids can run around while you can hydrate with their infused waters. Your wristband has the room key one it which I thought was a good feature. There were a couple of concerns at check in. First, the person helping us said that the room for the grandparents typically has two double beds. I distinctly remember reserving a room with a king bed, especially because so many other resorts only have the "if available" option, and I liked that with Lindo this was on the reservation so we had the assurance. However, we said the grandparents need a king and they actually found a room for them in the same building as the other two rooms, which ended up working out great. Second, I was concerned because they resort couldn't guarantee a crib for our 2 year old - they would "do their best but it's based on availability". This isn't uncommon I know although it can feel a bit uneasy. I was confident they'd find a crib for us. Unfortunately, it wasn't in our room (we did forget to confirm at the check-in desk), but we called in the request, and it was there within the hour. The rooms themselves were perfectly fine. They were clean and fairly well maintained. We weren't expecting fancy rooms, and you shouldn't here. But they are big and our each had a balcony facing the pool area. I think the room locations were perfect and we'd request the same next visit. There is a mini bar with soda, some beers, and a can of sparkling water. We don't drink soda and wouldn't preferred there were healthier options. But they do refill what you drink every day. For water, they provide a couple of class bottles for you to fill up at the filtered water stations which are all around. The maids came every day and cleaned the rooms, we think they did a great job and are appreciative of their work. The resort itself is really amazing. It's beautiful scenery just walking from reception to the rooms. There is so much to do at the resort. The kids obviously love all the pool options, and the beach is right there. The pool and beach are crowded, obviously, but especially at the pool we were always able to find a couple of chairs. The beach can be harder, but we always found at least one or two. The kids really liked the wave pool, and we did the lazy river, waterslide, and they have a fun area for little kids next to the slides that's like a mini water park. The beach is beautiful. The waves were pretty big when we were there but you can't control that. When you check in (you can do this before you check in but it's a limited view), definitely recommend downloading the Iberostar App. We used it all the time for the Activity Calendar which lists all of the things happening - and there are a lot all the way from early morning to late at night. The other part of the app we found great was the room service we did a lot for the kids. The only negative UX was the laundry service. STAR camp is really neat even though honestly our entire trip our kids spent just a few hours with them. It seems really organized and the staff are terrific. The groups are small and staff take them around doing different activities. Their indoor facilities are also fantastic but actually our kids never even went in we were just so busy do other things. No knock on the camp though, it always seemed like kids were having a great time and what a treat for those parents! So for the food, it was actually above average I would say. We primarily ate the buffet just because it's easiest with the kids and there are so many options and it's laid back. There's something for everyone. We ate the Mexican restaurant once for dinner and the Steak House at the Maya for one dinner. They were fine. Honestly, it's more so for the change of pace, I never think the restaurant food is significantly better. We also grabbed snacks and drinks at the cafes every now and again which was really convenient. And of course, the ice cream and crepe store in the main shopping center was a nightly must-do activity. In terms of other special activities at the resort, we did some SPA things, the photos, the character breakfast. All good/fun! A highlight of the trip for most of us was the off-site dolphin experience. It was our first time doing this it was incredible. We think it's important to tip staff, so we did so fairly but generously. We found out staff/providers will take pesos of course but actually prefer tips in USD. We typically left $1 USD for drinks at the bar, a $2-3 for room service, cafes, and buffet. Maybe $5 for bigger tasks. And larger tips (~$20-30) for drivers, photographer, maids, spa, etc. We'd especially like to call out Saul, one of the resorts outstanding concierges who assisted us throughout our entire stay. He gave us his direct phone number to text him anytime and he helped us with navigating the resort, all of the activities, finding us deals, etc. We felt he really wanted us to have an enjoyable experience and he provided top notch customer service. We hope he'll be working as Paraiso Lindo for our next visit! Except for the few minor hiccups at check-in, with our laundry service (instructions weren't all that clear and it ended up taking almost 2 days but we know how to navigate this better now), and maybe a few other small but relatively mundane things, the only other notable annoyance was The Club invitation. There's plenty out there on ze interwebs about all the timeshare scams, etc etc. We know we'd be approached so it was expected. The grandparents were invited and went on the tour with the promise for some incentives after - it was supposed to be one hour but they left after 3 hours with nothing. In the end, because of Saul (the man!) we ended up getting the incentive, but no matter the stories you hear it's always just such a bummer with these types of experiences. What bothers me most isn't actually their antics with the approach and pushiness, it's their actually contract signing process! Essentially, what happened is that the grandparents took the tour, reported everything back to me, and then I went to have a scheduled "follow-up tour" to check things out. But when I get there and the rep finds out it's just me and not our entire family, he gets suspicious, most likely because he knows that I'm not there to play games. I was more than willing to do the tour myself, but they weren't interested in giving one to me. It probably didn't help the cause that I called out their process where you can only get a copy of the contract AFTER you sign it, I think my words word "insane" - the rep didn't have a reply. I'm still not even entirely sure what "The Club" is, but I do worry about folks signing contract where they don't know what they're signing. It's just sad and frustrating. By no means did this put a damper on the trip, again mostly because you have to expect it, but experiencing it first hand is always sort of interesting. I'm sure there are aspects that I missed but I hope this review is helpful especially for families with young kids looking for a fun break from reality in the sun!…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.