My husband and I have actually stayed at the beautiful El Dorado Casitas twice, it’s probably our favorite hotel in the Riviera Maya! The Valentin Imperial Maya is a close second.
The El Dorado Casitas Royale is an adults-only, all-inclusive hotel in the Riviera Maya (South of Cancun). If you stay in the Casitas section you have access to the Royale as well as the family-friendly hotel, Generations. We ate breakfast there one morning to check it out and took a tour of the property.
Check-in
Once you check-in at Casitas you can meet up with your concierge. There are several assigned to all the buildings. They will make dinner reservations, and set up spa appointments if you want, you can choose your pillows and aromatherapy for the room as well and they are very helpful with any questions you have.
The hotel
The Casitas section is part of the larger El Dorado Royale.
Since it’s a large property, they do offer golf cart shuttles around the property. There’s also a path that runs along the beach which is a beautiful walk at night. It’s good for walking or running in the morning as well.
The Royale section has larger pools, volleyball, water aerobics, and more restaurants. It’s also louder, so depending on the type of vacation you like, you may prefer Casitas. If you want nightly shows or music you just walk down to the Royale after dinner.
During the day it’s quiet at the Casitas, and each building has its own pool and swim-up bar. Your bartender will get to know you pretty quickly. Since the room we stay in is ground floor, several mornings when he first opens the bar he would walk over to our patio to bring us a drink. It’s lovely.
The rooms
The room type we prefer is called “honeymoon private pool swim-up casita suite.” It’s a large room, lots of storage in the bathroom area. The jacuzzi is in a separate area and there are two showers – one indoor and one outdoor. The outdoor shower is private, and the roof is open but no one is above you to see in.
This particular room steps directly from the patio into a private pool. You can use the stairs to step out of the pool into the lazy river. The lazy river leads straight to the larger pool with the swim-up bar. You never even have to get out of the water.
There are other ground-floor swim-up rooms as well, they just don’t have a private pool. There are upstairs rooms with private pools as well. We stayed in that room type at El Dorado Maroma (more on that in a different post.)
The food
At Casitas, our favorite is Santa Fe. They have a sit-down breakfast and the French toast is really good! Dinner is a lot of courses – maybe 6? I lose count. The food is delicious.
We also tried the dinner theater at the Royale on our last trip, there are wine pairings with dinner. It’s included but you can choose to pay to upgrade your wine pairings. I tried food I had never eaten before and may or may not eat again, but it was fun!
I don’t love buffets (food displays) but there is one at the Royale for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They also have an outdoor restaurant by the main pool. The Casitas has Santa Fe, an Italian restaurant, and a sandwich and smoothie restaurant for lunch.
On our trip in 2017, we opted to celebrate our anniversary with dinner on the beach. The food and views are unbeatable!
It was multi-course, with wine. It was a table for 2 under a cabana steps from the water. Very romantic and we had a great time!
If you are interested in the El Dorado Casitas Royale or any other Karisma properties, I’d love to earn your business. You can reach me at Lake Pointe Travel at sarah@lakepointetravel.net or 469-698-4071. This is my personal lifestyle blog but I’m a professional travel agent by day.
