Food walking distance from park royal

[sharky60]

Yeah, friends of ours stayed there, the service was VERY slow, we dropped in to see them one night and they had been waiting 45 minutes already for appetizers and then it took another hour to get the entrées , & then the food wasn't that good.

Ernesto's is literally across the street, just north are Papa Hogs & La Hatch (La Hatch is open late on most nights), very good tacos el pastor, Blue Angel is probably just under a 1/2 mile north, but an easy walk.

Just south, they have reopened the "cruise ship shopping center" across from La Ceiba, there could be some restaurants in there, not sure.

Jump in a cab, it's probably $7ish to town, TONS of great restaurants in town.

 

[ggunn]

FWIW, when we are on the island, we buy supplies at Mega and eat ham and cheese sandwiches at the hotel for lunch every day. We save our money for dinners in town every night.

 

[cicopo]

DJDiverDan this should look familiar. I ate at both locations way back when too.

 

[bambino77]

Thanks all for the input. I should have done my research before booking the ai.

 

[halocline]

Regarding paprikas, yes I guess it depends on "what you like" but living in San Antonio I am lucky enough to enjoy lots of really good cheap Tex-mex restaurants, and when I ate at that place I couldn't freaking believe how bad it was. I'm not trying to insult anyone's taste in restaurants, but jeeshh...

Ernesto's is ok but I got the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had after eating there once, so now I'm pretty cagey about it.

There are so many really, really good inexpensive simple restaurants in town that it's a shame that the few places down by Casa Del Mar/Park Royal are so bad by comparison.

After many years of traveling around Mexico and living in a city that has a large Mexican culture, I've often noticed an inverse relationship between menu price and food quality, especially in Mexican restaurants in heavily touristed areas. You can pay $15 for very mediocre enchiladas on the riverwalk or $5 for great ones on the west side of San Antonio. Strange....

 

[rossandmaureen]

We just returned from Cozumel after staying at the Park Royal for 12 days. While we found the breakfast and lunch/snack offering reasonably adequate, both the dinner buffet and specialty restaurants are sadly lacking....and we don't consider ourselves food snobs. We do, however, know that chow mien should probably not be made with spaghetti noodles! Seriously...bad. That being said, we didn't go there for the food and only had dinner there four times...the arrival day, New Years eve when cabs disappear after midnight and to accommodate some night dives when I got back to the property too late to go to town. It was always our intention to walk downtown to enjoy our favourite restaurants and we found that the walk was generally around 30 - 40 minutes and, according to my Fitbit, about 7000 steps. We would then cab back after dinner at a cost of 80 pesos. As poor as we found the dinners at Park Royal were, we would stay there again as there is a lot to be said about the property in terms of friendly staff, well maintained grounds and rooms and a good location for my dive op to pick me up. We considered the approximate 4 km walk to town to be good for burning off calories from the more than a couple beers after diving.

 

[Tunaman68]

DJDiverDan this should look familiar. I ate at both locations way back when too.

Oh man- that takes me back! We used to go there after diving before heading back on board the ship we worked on and they had the little coronitas in the metal bucket. Nothing like salty diving mouth, an ice cold beer and sizzling chicken and onions!!! Nom Nom Nom.

I still like them and we eat there every trip, but with the new local/view I think it's gotten really expensive for what it is.

 

[DjDiverDan]

DJDiverDan this should look familiar. I ate at both locations way back when too.

I remember that very well. Way back then, when I first started diving, I went down with a group from the Dallas Dive Shop where I took the Open Water Certification class, and the owner of the shop (I can't remember his name) had a close relationship with the owner of Fantasia Divers, the Dive Op right across the street from that Ernesto's location. Fantasia was owned by a Texas ex-pat - Kelly something. I still remember the Dive Master - Johnson. Anyway, we would get off the boat after morning dives and walk across the street to Ernesto's for lunch - beer, Guacamole, and Beef Fajitas. And, speaking of things I miss from the old days, and in response to Tunaman's comment about salty dive mouth, does anyone else remember the Crystal Grapefruit soda? Fantasia used to carry that in the cooler on the dive boat, and while I'm not usually a big fan of grapefruit soda, like Squirt, when you had that sea salt taste in your mouth after a dive, nothing cut through that salt quite like the Crystal Grapefruit - it was excellent! I've looked for it, but haven't been able to find it anywhere in recent years.

 

[jake11]

I second this idea!!! Also, they have a great happy hour so be sure to check out the times for this!!

There is a great little restaurant just up the street from PR at Blue Angel.

 

[PARADISE HUNTER]

Look for the blue food truck across the street. Very popular with the locals. Great food. But I'm not sure your wife will be down with it.

PH