Riu palace mexico in playa del carmen?

Question

has anyone been to this resort recently?? four friends and myself are going in the end of march/beginning of april... how's the weather? and the beach?

are the drinks good?? we're not expecting great food, since its an all-inclusive. but is it hard to make reservations for the restaurants besides the buffet?

what is the clientele like... is it mainly older couples, young couples, families, etc? we're all 21 years old, and yes it is our college spring break, BUT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR A WILD AND CRAZY TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OF BREAK. we want to relax for a change!! if we wanted a party we would have booked in cancun!

any other advice about the hotel or the surrounding are would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

The Hotel: We found the hotel to be very beautiful. Fountains and landscaping were gorgeous. The beach was the best we had seen in the area. It has a lot of palm trees for shade if you didn’t want to get too much sun. The rooms are very nice. We were not able to upgrade to a suite because they were sold out. But the standard rooms, which are called Junior Suites, are plenty big. They have a living room area. The rooms were a little musty smelling. But that has been in just about every tropical location.

Over all- 9 1/2

Service: This was the one area where we were not too pleased. Half the staff was nice and the other half was rude. My husband went to the bar to ask for limes for the beers in the room and the bartender gave him a hard time asking why he needed them and on and on. It is funny that you are at an All-Inclusive and you have to give a 5-minute explanation of why you want a lime. Then one day I went into the beach lunch area with no shoes. The head manager ran up to me and told me that I needed shoes so I asked if I could take my plate with me and bring it back since it was already full of food. He said no; so I said ok, let me flag my husband down so he can bring them. The manager at that point grabbed my plate out of my hands, spilling hot food all down my chest. I was so upset and told him don’t ever do something like that again….he was then very rude arguing with me. I walked out embarrassed and angry and went and got my husband. When we came back he apologized and said please, please forgive me. It was unbelievable. Then another manager in the Japanese restaurant was rude to a group of 10 of us when we were 10 minutes late all getting there for dinner. The staff just didn’t give you that feel like they were there to help you. They were the terrible at the lobby bar. They just ignored you and didn’t give good service. We would ask and ask for coffee at the buffet and they would take 20 minutes to come back with it. Other Riu’s had such wonderful, friendly service. We did not get that here in Mexico. And were very disappointed with that aspect of the trip. I was even in tears at one point with the staff for my rehearsal dinner. That was embarrassing and in front of 35 guests. Long story, but another bad service problem.

Over all- 5

Food: The food was very good. We ate at the Japanese restaurant, which I didn’t think I would like, but I actually loved it. The Brazilian restaurant and Sir Edward was great too. The stake house was always booked, so we never tried it but heard good things. I’d definitely recommend eating at them all, because they were excellent. The only thing we noticed was, there is some kind of politics going on with getting in some of the restaurants. If there is a wedding dinner, understandably, you couldn’t get in. But we had some family wait in line early in the morning and be 2nd in line and they would tell them that there were only 3 seats left for a specific restaurant. How could that be when you are second in line? We heard if you pay money, you were able to get “restaurant reservation favors”. That isn’t the way we wanted to do business so a couple nights we ate down town. We did have a few out of the group get very sick. We think it was raw vegetables/salad. All the other food seemed to be fine. Bring Imodium just in case. We did have to have the doctor come for 2 people. He gave a shot and prescriptions. All total costing $150. US

Over all-9

Entertainment: During the day the resort was way too quiet. We are use to music going on and activities. They had a few activities. But this is not the hotel that has a lot going on. If you like things very quiet you’ll love this hotel. The entertainment at night was fine. But the bars outside close way too early. The beach bar closes hours before the sun even goes down. And there are just small snacks for after hours. Nothing for the tons of starving folks that are up late night. There is only one bar to go after the entertainment and that is the bar off the lobby. I expected a late night outside bar for a hotel of this size.

Over all-6