I love the location of Royal Palm. I like the layout of the beach, as there are a lot of shade palapas out there on the beach, so that you can have your own shade and chairs, a bit away from other people. The bad thing about the beach there is that there are a lot of sailboats that routinely sit out front of there. Because many or most of them don't use holding tanks, I personally do not go in the water there. The beach itself I think is manmade and the sand is pretty coarse.

The restaurant and the bar at the Upper View routinely provide abysmal service, so if you elect to use them, set your expectations very low. There is a little shop downstairs where you can buy [expensive] snacks, etc., as well as some bread, etc for the mornings.

The front desk staff seems to be much better than they were years ago, and now seem fairly responsive. I love that all units have full ocean view. Most units are two bedroom, with one bedroom having ocean view and the second bedroom, no view of anything. The décor is very vanilla, you could be anywhere, but there is a nice amount of room in the units, especially if it's just two people. Years ago, the elevators seemed to always be on the fritz, but they seem to be working pretty well now. The free wifi is generally pretty slow, unless there are not many people there. The best signal is in the lobby on the first floor and you may or may not get any signal in your room. There are some grills out front, but they are not convenient unless you are staying on the first floor. By the same token, if you stay on the first floor, you won't have much if any view, and you could have an issue with mosquitoes. The parking spaces are very tight from side to side, but unless the resort is totally full, you should not have a problem finding a place to park. The pool is ok, but not a lot of chairs in the vicinity of the pool. To me, the location for walking to everywhere more than trumps the other issues.