One of the reasons we chose to stay at the Princess Resorts in Riviera Maya was its many restaurants and other food options. Our all-inclusive package gave us access to its seven themed restaurants, which doesn’t include the four buffets, paid beach club, and myriad of bars. While we were given our choice of cuisine, the one-reservation-a-day limit meant that we weren’t able to visit every restaurant during our seven-day stay (we weren’t able to reserve for our first night there). I’m going to focus on the food here because I imagine it stays mostly consistent. I’m not going to touch on the service because that really depends on who you get.
Yes, the a la carte restaurants require reservations at the main lobby, where we were able to call dibs three days in advance. While this may be a measure to avoid overcrowding, it clearly wasn’t an issue because many of the restaurants had empty tables during our visit. Buffets and bars had no such reservation system, so we were free to walk in and eat anytime.
Speaking of eating, let’s dive right in:
Buffets + Sports Bar
Restaurant Green & Restaurant Orange
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The two all-day buffets are called Restaurant Green and Restaurant Orange. While each’s decor is different (restaurant green being a little more classy), they both served the exact same food. And what you saw is what you got, with most of the food being alright but not super fresh. However, the exception wasthe fresh food station, which cooked up specialties such as pasta with customized sauces, and the papaya at the fruit stand which were amazing.
Snack Sunset & Snack Riviera
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Named after the two sides of the resort (Sunset and Riviera), these two buffets are half-day, closing at 3:00pm. Again, both serve the exact same food which is about the quality you’d expect a buffet to be. I only visited for breakfast, but I found that their morning options were more fresh and hearty than the ones found at Green and Orange. Again, there is a fresh food station which usually served customized omelettes. Just stay away from the gross-looking juice pitchers which have probably been sitting in the melting ice for hours.
5th Ave Sports Bar
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The Princess Resorts only has one sports bar, but that’s probably a good thing. First, it means that it has the resources to stay open 24 hours a day. More importantly, however, it means that 5th Ave is the place to be for sports fan looking to watch the big game. And the big game (or games) when I visited was the NHL Playoffs. Because it was the first round, I could stop by every single night after the buffet to watch two playoff games.
There were a lot of visiting Canadians at the time, so the bar was packed with hockey fans every night. It was an amazing atmosphere, and the food did not disappoint either. Popcorn is the snack of choice, but the menu also includes salads, burgers (which is actually really, really good), hot dogs, paninis, and nachos.
A La Carte
La Vaqueria
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Our first stop (on the second night) was the steak joint called La Vaqueria. Located between the two lobbies, the restaurant is creatively themed red and white with cowprint chairs.
Our table was started with a loaf of pretty dry bread before we jumped into our appetizers of shrimp sticks and a crab cake. For our main, we got a tenderloin and rib-eye steak, with onion rings and mac ‘n cheese on the side. Dessert was delicious: a slice of chocolate cake and an eclair.
Overall, the food was pretty decent here and probably makes my top-3 at the resort. However, it is a steak restaurant and the menu is basically all meat, so if that’s not your favourite thing then read onwards and see if there’s anywhere else you’d rather go.
Las Olas
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The third night I made a mistake that would affect me the rest of my trip.
Las Olas is the resort’s seafood restaurant, but it occupies the same space as the Snack Buffet in the morning, so there’s really not much for decor here. The menu looked interesting enough though, so we started with sauteed shrimps and seafood pasta. For our entree, we elected to go for the Chef’s Special Grill, which looked like an interesting medley of fish, prawns, squid, and more. However, I’m pretty sure something in this dish gave me the food poisoning that lasted me the entire trip and then some. While I did think something on it tasted a little funny, I didn’t get sick right away and got through the desserts of raspberry mousse and caramel cake no problem.
While the starters we had were great, I cannot recommend coming here. Even if the Chef’s Special Grill wasn’t the main factor in my sickness (although I’m pretty sure it was), it just wasn’t that great.
Miso (Teppanyaki)
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A little backstory: We love teppanyaki. We’ve been to at least two of the Japanese grill restaurants in Vancouver, and made sure to make a teppanyaki restaurant a destination even when we made our way to Victoria and Seattle. So it was a no-brainer when we heard that there was an Asian restaurant at Princess Resorts that had a teppanyaki side, although it also served sushi.
Teppanyaki is the only restaurant that we went to which did not adhere to the standard starter > main > dessert schedule. Instead, the whole thing is built around the show. Good thing we had an excellent showman as our chef then, because the show was excellent. It even included pretty intense audience interaction, like when I was allowed to flip small pieces of veggie for other customers to catch in their mouths (spoilers: I missed)- something a standalone teppanyaki joint would never dream of allowing.
However, the restaurant’s biggest strength, the show, is also it’s biggest weakness. Case in point: our chef’s first attempt at the flaming onion volcano didn’t work out, so he continued to pour the oil/alcohol/soy sauce mix into the volcano until it worked. While this meant that the trick was successful, the added sauce made the resulting fried rice incredibly salty. As I took my first bite, I reminded myself, it’s about the show, not the food. However bad the food was though, the fun we had at the show definitely made up for it (and the dessert also helped).
Miso’s teppanyaki show is my top recommendation at the Princess Resorts. Although the food really wasn’t great, you’re not going to get mind blowing food at any other restaurant either. However, what you do get at Miso is a great time watching the show while laughing and talking with total strangers around the table. Just remember to book the teppanyaki side, because the sushi side of the restaurant is separate.
Mama Mia
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Who doesn’t like Italian food? Not us, so we made the Mama Mia our spot for the fifth night.
Like La Vaqueria, the table was started off with some bread, only this time it had some Italian flair with tomatoes and cheese. Outside of the bits covered in it though, it tasted like the same dry bread from the steak restaurant. Our starters, beef carpaccio and fish soup, were better though, and they even gave us some cream soup! For our mains, we selected the ravioli and fish fillet, both of were great. The pistachio and chocolate cake we had for dessert were also tasty, although the latter tasted identical to the one we had at La Vaqueria (and also the buffet).
I thought Mama Mia was a decent effort to create an high-dining Italian atmosphere within the constraints of an all-inclusive resort. While nothing really reaches the height of an Italian restaurant you would find in Vancouver, I had a pretty good time. Mama Mia really should be on your list when you visit Princess Resorts.
La Hacienda
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Although I’ve had my fair share of crappy Tex-Mex (Chipotle, Guadalupe, etc), I’ve never really had a full on Mexican dinner. Now obviously whatever La Hacienda offers is still in the realm of all-inclusive resort, but we it is still the closest we’ve gotten to authentic Mexican cuisine.
The table was started with chips & dips (Guac, black bean, and salsa) which were really, really different than the ones I’ve had at Chipotle. We started with shrimp tacos and a shrimp quesadilla, which both tasted the same- I’m honestly not sure what we were expecting. The corn soup that came with the appies were good though. We then moved into the main courses which were a beef flank steak and tampiquena cut steak of the same meat, both with rice on the side. Although they were both good, we struggled to taste the difference between this and the steak we had on our first night here. Dessert was almond cake and some kind of tuxedo cake.
Although I really didn’t know what to expect with La Hacienda, I came away pretty happy. The food was pretty good, chips were great, and the atmosphere was very pleasant. I would definitely recommend this restaurant for your visit.
La Fleur
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On our last night at Princess Resorts, we ate at Le Fleur which promised international cuisine that was mostly French.
Our night here was great. We had a quick chat with the couple we met at Miso a few nights before, after noticing that we were sitting right next to them. Then we started with the appetizers, which were beef tartar (is it really just a big block of raw meat? It was good, but I kinda expected a little more) and Roquefeller-style scallop. Both were excellent, as was the chicken soup and squash blossom cream which tasted markedly better than any other soup we had at the resort. For our mains, we chose the roasted chicken and beef fillet. While the former was excellent and unique to this restaurant, the beef tasted about the same as the other restaurants. Dessert was also great, as we capped off the meal with pudding and tiramisu.
In terms of food quality and taste, none of the other restaurants come to Le Fleur. The choices here were unique and seemed more difficult to prepare than the others, and the presentation was on point as well with the fancy metal covers. I would definitely recommend La Fleur to anyone visiting the Princess Resorts.
La Fondue
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Because we arrived too late on our first night to eat at one, we only six days available for a la carte restaurants. This meant that we had to decide which of the seven to leave out, and it came down to La Fondue. However, the restaurant is just as advertised- you choose from several meats and veggies to dip in either cheese or tomato fondue along with the standard starter and dessert.
The logic behind our decision was that with the other restaurants, we got to experience the Mexican take on cultural food while we didn’t feel like La Fondue could offer anything that different from the fondues we’ve had elsewhere. We could be wrong though, so feel free to give it a try and let me know how it was!
Either way, I’m incredibly happy with the food options that were offered. From eating burgers every night while watching the playoffs to visiting the buffet after an excellent dinner, I never spent a second hungry at Princess Resorts. And that’s not even counting the burger stands scattered around the resort!
If you’d like to learn more about the food options or resort in general, check out their website.