Iberostar Waves Paraiso del Mar - All Inclusive

Customer ratings & reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

8048 reviews

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  Amazing Vacation

  Thanks to our amazing ambassadors Carlos and Shonny for making our stay (first time in Mexico) memorable, exciting, and hassle free. They've coordinated our entire stay from transportations, restaurants and trips. We only had to show up on time. We will definitely be back.

  Nov 06, 2025
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  Highly recommend Vacation Spot

  Special thanks to the star prestige club ambassadors Shonny and Carlos for making our stay fun, exciting, enjoyable, memorable, hassle free and most important they are reachable at anytime with any concerns that we had with getting us transportation, making reservations to the restaurants and reserving our tours. We also would like to thank the sales team Antonio and Alfredo who sold us the club membership, without them we wouldn't have met our outstanding ambassadors Shonny & Carlos.

  Nov 06, 2025
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  So, so close to 5 stars... but evening entertainment was a miss

  I've had conflicting feelings over how to rate this hotel. The vast majority of it is excellent, and no hesitation that is deserves 5 stars, but there are a couple of reasons why I think 4 is appropriate: Evening Entertainment - The hotel is in a complex where you are very reliant on the hotel for evening activities. Unfortunately these were extremely disappointing with the exception of two evenings (out of 11) - the excellent Fire Show and the first Circus night. They need to focus on less activities and more 'big' shows in the main Theatre using external entertainers. The biggest disappointment was Halloween where there was no halloween event, and the 'disco' party was over 18's only, so my family (inc two teens) ended up in our hotel room watching a movie at 10pm. This is in sharp contrast to the day activities by the pool which are very good. 'The Club' - This is pushed by every Concierge you meet in the first few days, and it's clear that they are competing to sign you up to the sales pitch. It gets pretty frustrating to speak to someone for a genuine request / issue, but have to go through the sales pitch and explain why you're not interested. Guys, the balance is wrong here and looking at reviews, it's a big deal. With that out the way, the hotel is otherwise excellent. The pools are fantastic (occassionally need a bit more cleaning), beach is lovely, food is largely excellent - make sure you visit the French (the steak!!!) and Japanese in particular, maybe skip the Rock Cafe, which was the only disappointing one. Staff are generally nice and friendly, with variable speed of service at bars. Rooms are a bit on the old side, but OK for our purposes, but cleaning staff could do better topping up coffee and fridges on a daily basis. I'd recommend bringing mosquito repellant as they are an issue at this time of year and we all got bit a few times. It is a huge resort so getting around relies a bit on the golf carts but these are regular enough and I never had to wait longer than 15m. Trips and excursions wise, those offered in the hotel are OK but I got some good deals online and there are a lot of excursion vendors in Playa Del Carmen which is a 500mx cab ride (each way) from the hotel - just need to make sure they can pick up from the hotel. Can highly recommend Chichen Itza through Amigo tours for a day trip. Overall I feel slightly bad dropping to 4 stars, but dropping the ball so... so badly on evening entertainment, especially if travelling with 13-17yr olds, is a big deal for a hotel this big. To give you an idea how bad, on Halloween night the 'show' was packed at the start, but within 20 mins almost everyone had left. If this was significantly improved I'd return.

  Nov 05, 2025
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  Not a 5 star experience

  This is an honest albeit long review with pros and cons based off of mine and my daughters experience. We stayed for 10 nights. Check in was quick but the staff were the most unwelcoming people ever, very moody and we got no information about the hotel at all. The hotel is absolutely huge so we had to figure everything out for ourselves and ask other guests. It was a long flight and we arrived late but after check in we were seated with a lady and told she would explain everything. All she did was try to get to us to accept her invitation to breakfast and to go with her to the other hotel next door as in her words "it has better facilities than this one" in actual fact it was a 90 minute timeshare presentation. I didn't accept as I knew what she was up to but this harassment by the Iberostar staff carried on our whole holiday, when you decline they laugh at you and talk about you in Spanish. I got invitations through my door every single morning as well. This got very annoying. All bar a few most of the staff were moody, bar staff all looked like they'd rather be anywhere else, no banter or wanting to engage with people. If you are Spanish then you will get a different level of service! Food in the buffet was nice we always found something to eat, even the fussy eaters will be fine. Breakfast was nice plenty of choice. The beach snack bar was probably best for lunch everything fresh and hot. The burger place in the Mall was also nice. Impossible to book al a carte restaurants they were always closed or booked up. I think the Brazilian restaurant was closed completely for refurbishment but we were not told this. We were surprised that all the entertainment was for adults they didn't let children even older kids take part. Big shout out to Axel from the entertainment team he was the only one who spoke to us and was really good at getting people involved. The rest of the entertainment team didn't acknowledge us. We were there for Halloween and they did make an effort. They did a pumpkin carving competition and we went to the House of Terror which was really good. My daughter loved it. Evening entertainment was disappointing, there were a couple of good shows but most were boring. There are 3 large pools which are all gorgeous and not too cold. No issues getting a sunbed always plenty available. Hotel itself was stunning, well maintained and plenty of wildlife you'll see flamingos, turtles, coatis (which will steal your food), iguanas and lots more. Because it's an eco hotel take your own water bottle as they have filtered water stations in every block, no bottled water. Mosquitos are really bad we got biten alive even with mosquito spray. Rooms were fine, good aircon, a bit dated and could do with a refurb. Cleaning was hit and miss and they didn't change the sheets every day just made the beds. There was some renovation work going on by the pool and on the roof of the lobby so very noisy at times. Overall the hotel was nice and we made the most of it just the staff and atmosphere was a real negative for us. There was just no vibe and no excuse for rude staff. I paid a lot of money for this holiday that was meant to be special mother daughter trip and overall we were a bit deflated and wished we'd of gone somewhere else. I wouldn't book Iberostar again nothing special in my opinion. Definitely need to work on their staffs customer service skills!

  Nov 03, 2025
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  Good experience

  Hotel was great. Staff is friendly. My daughter had a great time. Room was clean. Activities to enjoy lead by Entertainment Staff at the pool and beach, Shows were really good. Food and drinks excellent at Buffet. Viviana at Concierge was good, Captain (Mayra) at Faro and Chef (Diner Buffet ) were AWSOME to accommodates my little one needs.

  Oct 29, 2025