This is my first review, but I thought I should share my experiences since Trip Advisor was my main tool in choosing this hotel.

My family and I have stayed at three all inclusives in Puerto Vallarta, so many of my comments are based on comparisons to the other two resorts. (Melia, Vallarta Palace)

We were on a budget this year, so I opted for a less expensive resort. There were many solid reviews for the Crown Paradise, so I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into. It wasn't going to be fancy, but if you get a bed, food and beverages, you can't go too wrong.

The Crown Paradise is extremely basic. It is very reasonably priced, because you don't get much more than the basics. If you are satified staying at Best Westerns and love eating at Denny's...you won't have any problems here. Otherwise, you may want to save your money for a couple more months and upgrade.

Here are the basics you should know when choosing this resort.

Rooms - Decent size, older furniture, decent storage, nice balconies, iron, blow dryer. Request room #425-430 for top floors, closet to the ocean with the best views. - NEGATIVES...the beds are very hard. I am used to hard Mexican beds, but these are extremely hard. Shower only gave you warm to hot water. No cold setting, which is disappointing after 95 degree weather with 100% humidity. Be careful channel surfing with your kids on the TV after 10pm. Several cable channels with profanity, nudity and soft porn.

Food - Fair at best. Plenty of it, but not overly appealing. Breakfast the best with all the American and Mexican standards including eggs and omeletes cooked to order. Lunch and dinner questionable at best. Pasta, sandwich and tostada stations at the buffet. Warmers with mainly Mexican dishes that weren't too appealing to me. Surprisingly good desserts. Eat at the themed locations for dinner every night. Much better than the buffet. Snack bar with burgers, hot dogs, pizza, nachos, fries, etc. Room service actually pretty good although a fairly limited menu. NEGATIVES...Many items not held at safe temperatures. Salad bar just bowls of food sitting in ice. Several meats, all breads and desserts at room temperature. Nats frequent the fruit displays. No air conditioning in the buffet, so it is extremely warm and uncomfortable. Buffet fills up from 10-11am and there is a long waiting list. Try the Japanese as they serve breakfast in an air conditioned setting. Never saw much seafood other than fried fish.

Beach - OK, but there is a run off nearby that drains into the ocean. Coupled with the rock baracade, it traps alot of debris in the ocean about 10-20 feet out. The chairs are completely uncomfortable. I was jealous looking at the soft recliners at the Golden Crown next door. The beach vendors are out of control. I am used to be asked occassionally, however they are everywhere. I assume the hotel does not own any of the beach area, thus it is public to everyone. Other hotels I have stayed at, the vendors don't cross the first row of chairs. Not here however. They walk up and down the rows mercilessly. They stop at the sidewalk, but the entire beach is up for grabs. You will get hit up at least 20-25 times per hour. They even stand in the shade under the palapas resting between harassments.

Pools - children's waterpark is great. If you have kids 2-8 that love this kind of stuff, this is the main reason to stay here. NEGATIVES...No place to sit for parents watching their kids at the water park. Main pool is WAY too small. All the shaded areas are "reserved" by mysteriously appearing towels and clothing by 8am, so don't bother thinking you are ever going to get a nice chair there. The third smaller pool is a waste. Almost no one goes there. I don't know why they didn't use this area and build another larger pool just for adults. A huge waste of space.

Service - The staff here will get you whatever you ask for. That being said, they never really seemed to go out of their way for you until you ask. They never smile and say hi as you walk past. They never offer you anything until you ask. They frequently interact with each other while you wait to get their attention. The beach service is terrible, unless you start tipping early. Then they reappear more frequently. They just don't seem to enjoy working there as much as other places I have stayed.

The Shows - Only went to three. The Magic show was cheesy but OK. The Disney show was great for the kids. They loved it. The Hollywood show caught me by surprise. I read that I was a little racy, but I thought my 11 year old daughter could handle it. We made it past the cowboy routine with the girl in the chaps and G-String. However we got up and left during the routine with the men dressed as cops stripping to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff"

Timeshare - just be firm and say no way from day one and they never bothered me again.

Cleanliness - staff always cleaning everywhere.

Activities - go do the Pirate Ship, zip lines, dune buggies, Malecon, etc. as they are great and there isn't many activities going on through out the day.

Overall, I am satisfied because I got what I paid for. However, I would recommend that you spend a little more and upgrade to a nicer hotel than the Crown Paradise.

I too booked my trip based on the great reviews on tripadvisor. As my trip got closer, the reivews got worse. I was nervous and worried it not being a good resort. I was pleasantly surprised.

First of all, I think as many have stated on here, that expectations have a lot to do with how well you will like it. It is not a fancy place, but it is very nice. I found the people working there to be very hard working and attentive.

We had a great time. It was definitely better than I was expecting. The hotel was very clean and I liked the overall layout of it. It wasn't too spread out and there was a bar almost everywhere you turned (the lobby, the main pool, the beach & the adult pool), plus, all the restaurants had waiters at every meal and they would also bring you drinks from the bar.

I would not recommend it if you want something real Americanized. I would say 80% of the families there were Mexican and most of the food had a definite authentic Mexican flair (which my husband absolutely loved). The water was purified on the resort. All of us drank it and none of us got sick. I never once saw flies in the food - and after reading the recent reviews, both my husband and I looked for them. There were lots of bees around the bars because of all the sweet drinks being made.

There was plenty to do. The beach was great, but we always came back with lots of sand in our suits. Also, the beach vendors would get annoying. The would even approach me when I was reading a book under our little Tiki hut. I would not even look up from the book and just shake my head "no" and they would leave, still, it was annoying. We body surfed or just played in the ocean. The waves were perfect -- not so big that we would worry about the girls, but big enough to body surf a little and have fun with them.

The main pool usually had music playing and had a lot of activity going on. We went a few times, but preferred the little pool, which our balcony overlooked where it was quieter and less crowded. The kids pool was better and bigger than I expected. Our 5 year old daughter loved it and and would have liked to have spent many hours everyday there. Our 8 year old daughter, though, liked it for a little while, but preferred the beach. The slides were fun, but not huge and geared more for ages 3-7. The adult only pool was also quiet and not crowded. The water at the adult pool was warmer than a normal heated pool and a little cooler than a hot tub. I loved it, my husband didn't.

The kids' club was fun for the girls in spite of the workers limited English. Every Saturday there is a Disney production and all the kids can participate in it. Only 7 kids were in it, including my daughters. The kids were the 7 dwarfs. They had play practive for an hour on both Friday and Saturday. The girls loved in and couldn't wait for their big performance. We only went to 2 shows at Club Nitro -- the International Magic show (not that great, but the girls liked it) and the Disney show, which was pretty good.

They also had a baby paradise which the kids went to one night (the kids club closes at 6:00 I think) when we ate at the adult only French restaurant (which was wonderful, by the way). It was pretty big and a lot of fun for the girls. They give you a pager, and I would have been fine with leaving my kids there even when they were younger.

If I had to list complaints, I would say that there weren't enough air conditioned spots. The main buffet restaurant was not air conditioned. It had lots of fans and was cooler than being outside, but more air conditioned options would have been nice.

Also, for some reason, I thought there would be a small fridge in the room, but there wasn't. You had to go down to the lobby bar to get ice, which was inconvenient. Other than that, the rooms were very nice and we had an outstanding view from our room (#571).

Also, the timeshare people were annoying. I had read enough reviews of the hotel to know they'd be at the hotel and to avoid them. What I didn't expect was how often we were approached off the resort. It was constant -- whether we were in downtown PV, at the supermarket around the corner, or even talking to staff at dinner off the resort. I've never experienced anything like it. We would keep saying "no" and they would keep raising their price, at one point offering us $350 US to go to a 45 minute breakfast and 45 minute presentation. We still said "no", although, I have to admit, I was tempted -- my husband wasn't though.

I'm glad we went. Personally, we wouldn't go back, but not because of anything wrong with the resort. We are just not the type to repeat vacations in the same spot unless it's a ski trip or something. It was very cultural and we loved that, but next time we will probably want to experience something different. Also, I wouldn't recommend it for too long -- no more than a week. The food choices at the main restaurant are the same or variations of the same everyday. I don't think I would have liked it for too much longer.

We had a great time and my husband and I asked each other several times, "What were all those people complaining about? This place is great!"

We stayed at this resort for 5 days and 4 nights. The first night the front desk told us we would recieve a "suite". This turned out to be an icky room with a kitchenette. The bedroom had a teeny window and looked out over the pool area. Other reviewers were right about the music being annoying in the pool area. Luckily we had taken advantage of the unlimited drinks included in our all-inclusive deal and slept through it, however, the next morning at 7 it was super annoying! We asked to be moved and paid an additional $ 20.00 per night (cash - did it really go to the hotel?) and received an awesome beach front room. BUT, the mattresses are sooooo hard and the pillows equally. It is difficult to get a good night's sleep if you have any back problems whatsoever. The food at the pool snack bar was quite good. The vegetarian selections from the restaurant were also good. We had it together enough to eat one night at one of the reservation only restaurants and it was also very good. You can go to the family part of the resort to eat as well and we got desperate enough a couple of nights to go to the buffet which is open the latest - yuck - unidentifiable food. Tip the bartenders $ 1.00 a drink to get the best available tequila/rum or whatever and also you are treated royally. We are continually amazed at all-inclusives when people don't tip and then laugh our heads off as the bartenders pour them the cheapest possible brands.

I used tripadvisor before booking and i guess my expectations was a bit high, the hotel is rated as the best hotell for kids in Puerto Vallarta...

First, overall the hotell gives good value for the money. We were 4 persons in 1 familyroom and payed around 150 dls a day all inclusive. We travelled from Norway, so when we first travelled that fare (20 hours) we stayed for 3 weeks. Thats far to many days at this hotel, i guess 4-5 days would be enough.

Most has been mentioned before, i will just comment on some details.

Weather: I was abit concerned before going cuz the weatherforecast said heavy rain and lightning/thunder everyday.
This was ONLY in the night time and all days were sunny from morning to evening.

Avvoid the sales personel for the timeshare, we did the first days and then they left us alone. They tried hard the first days to get in contact but i already read here, so i knew and kept away.

We booked all our trips on the beach and in general was around 25% cheaper than at the hotel for the same trips.
We went fishing twice was nice and can be recomnded.
We went with the pirateship and it was far the best experience there. Very profesional, agreat show and 5 stars service.

The Hotel in general is getting old and needs a major upgrade, this includes the rooms.

The pools are ok, and the childs pool will be great for kids from 3 to 5. Mine are 7 and 9 so was nothing for them.

The beach was nice, but the amont of sellers were incredibel.
The beach bar serves you to your chair at the beach and the snackbar has maybe the best food at the hotel.

The personell does a great job and you never have to wait for everything. After some days i found that if i gave the waitress at the beach or by the pool 2-5 dls in the start of the day they provided drinks for all the family all day. Same goes in the bars. (most people gives 1 dls so just a bit more makes the look after YOU...)

The food was ok, but not impressive in any ways.
In the 3 weeks the Italian resturant was always fully booked when we tryed to book in the morning.

We spendt most evenings at resturants in downtown. 6 dls by taxi.

Some days we went to Chillis or resturants at the mall (Gallerias Vallarta, is close)

Our room was facing the street with a 1 person balcony.
It had a bunkbed for the kids (can be 3 kids) and a seperate tv for the kids in the "room" for the them. The "room" was half a wall and did not provide any means of privacy towards the adult bed.
The Kingsize bed was hard like concrete and we both had bad backs after a few days. Mind that the hotel does not provide minibars and roomservice takes 45 minutes fro you order. Stated in the roomservice folder.

Reading this I realize is mostly negative. Overall we had a good time there and the personell was very nice. But as i started we had to high expactations before arriving. Others said like a 3 stars hotel. I would say 2+ by europeen standard.

Last time in Puerto Vallarta we stayed at Westin. Was 3 times the price, but next time we go back there. Im willing to pay more for the quality.

Enjoy your vacation.

Truls
Norway