My husband and I travelled to the Riu Naiboa on the 14th of May 2009. We had the most wonderful time, the best holiday ever!
Arriving at Punta Cana Airport, everything was clean and tidy and efficiant. The transfer to the hotel was fine (I was worried by horror stories about the roads, although they are 'basic' and quite rural it was fine, just wear your seatbelt) but take some small change (dollars or peso's) to tip the driver and guide.
Checking in was easy and smooth, the staff were extremely polite. Again I would advise tipping with small change to the baggage man.
Our room was on the 4th floor, when we arrived the weather was fine and the room was ok. It seemed a little dated and the bed was quite small for a double bed, but it was adequate. We didnt plan on spending much time in the room anyway being in such a beautiful place! The shower was powerful, the room secure and the balcony had a lovely view. Take some earplugs if you are a light sleeper. The fridge was stocked as were the optics, and the porter is around every 2 days to restock.
We arrived at around 5pm after a 9 hour flight and were pretty tired out so we went to our room and unpacked to relax with a beer. We were happy to find bbc America and Setanta sports on the tv!!!
We had a walk to the beach, and reading some of these reviews we expected a hike but honestly, whoever wrote that the walk is long is either extremely unfit or extremely lazy! In all honesty, my husband and I walked from the 4th floor of the hotel to the beach in around 5 minutes. It is a lovely walk, a pleasure actually, because of the lushness and beauty of the grounds!
The beach is fabulous! The sand really is like cornflour! Take some pesos or dollars of you want a coconut or massage on the beach. The hotel supply the towels and there are loads of bars for refreshments nearby.
The pool is amazing. It was cleaned so thoroughly, and the water was lovely and warm. The bar is a few metres away and they have aerobics and water polo everyday. There are games and books to borrow too. Take water to the pool with you as it gets very very warm.
The La Bachata bar is lovely, the staff are so friendly, especially Jose and Orlando (and the birds are NOT a nusiance, they are friendly but never steal from plates and we didnt see a single bird near the buffet in 2 weeks!!!)
The restaurant is great, the food is wonderful. For breakfast I enjoyed fresh fruit and croissants, my husband had pancakes and sausages, a real variety! Dinner was great, especially the roast pork, buffalo wings and the spiced rice. Our waiter Polanco, was a star with the loveliest smile!
There was a tropical storm and the heavens really did open, we had a flood in our room but nothing was damaged and they quickly changed us to another lovely room, and Rafael the manager gave us 2 little pottery gifts for our trouble!
I agree that the 4th floor is extremely slippery, they really do need to update this area of the hotel. But in all honesty, everything else is wonderful, and any problems are dealt with quickly.
Take some peso's or dollars in small change, be prepared to haggle over paintings with Antonio and Benito! And if you have any old nick nacks or gifts or perfumes, take them for the local people, it is much aprieciated.
We also went on the Real DR/Hola Tours Saona Island trip and cannot recommend it enough, it was AMAZING!!!
To sum it up, it is an amazing place, with lovely people and great value for money.
We would go back in a heartbeat!

This was my 4th visit to Dominican Republic, and was very disappointed with the hotel. I have stayed at Riu in Mexico and it was superb, but this hotel was the worst I have stayed in Dominican Rep. Can I emphasize that the staff are exceptional, helpful, friendly and certainly made our holiday, the rooms were kept clean, the food was excellent, and we also enjoyed the entertainment. The rooms really need refurbishing, although clean, they are shabby. If you have already booked DO NOT accept a room on the 4th floor - there are open sections in the corridor and because of numerous storms when we were there, the corridors were flooded regularly with lots of towels thrown on the floors to soak up the water and buckets were placed to catch the water coming through the leaking ceilings where the water was pouring down, and if you have a room near the open sections, they have to stuff towels outside your door to stop the water
running in your room . We had rain most nights, and were in a room furthest from the lifts, and you have to be very careful with the water on the slippy tiles. One of the room ceilings did collapse. The Naiboa restaurant is not open at lunchtime, but you can go to the Bambu or Taino to eat at their restaurants which are open. I don't usually visit the restaurant at lunchtime as I prefer a snack at lunch, but the buffet at the snackbar was visited by many black crow like birds who scavenged on the buffet pecking and walking in the food, and dont leave your food on the table while you go for a drink as the birds will be pecking at it.
The buffet is regularly left unattended and the birds obviously take advantage of this and because of this we were forced to walk to one of the other hotels for our lunch when we preferred to stay at our pool. Also the snack bar has a thatched roof which had water running in when it rained, but they did start repairing it when we were there. I usually write a review on my return from holiday and regret that this is absolutely the first time I have had negative comments. The hotel needs serious maintenance work - please do it urgently !

At first I was kind of nervous if we had made a mistake in booking that hotel, some of the reviews are just not that good. We had not. The staff was very friendly, the rooms were clean. Yes, it doesn't have a hairdryer. Big deal, if you know it ahead of time, you can bring your own. Don't forget to bring an adapter. There was also a little problem with the shower, and after calling the reception, maintenance came within 5 min to our room and had it fixed very quickly. I don't eat meat, and had no problem always finding something to eat. The fish was the best ever. There was also always a tasty cheesecake on the buffets. All the rooms are in one building, and you can ride the elevator ( bumpy ride, you are in the Carribean, don't forget), and the good thing about that is, that you don't have to walk far in the morning to get your breakfast and if it rains, you won't get wet. They have on the spot cooking stations and they will cook you an omelette the way you choose. Also always freshly pressed juices in the morning. The pineapple juice was my favorite. At night you are assigned a certain time for the buffet, either 6:30pm or 8:30pm, they let you choose.Our waiter Luciano was the Best. He sang just like Luciano Pavarotti and remembered what kind of drinks you usually choose and had them at the table before you even had to ask him to. The pool was quiet, and there were always empty chairs. There was hardly anybody in the pool. You can also use the Taino and the Bambu. It is a little walk to the Beach, it's not too bad, like 10 min if you take your time. We were always able to find chairs and pull them into the shade. The waves are gentle and you can actually swim easily in the ocean. The Beach is just gorgeous. It's also nice to walk along the Beach. If you walk to the right on the beach, there are stands from locals selling things. One backdraw, the next town is like 60 min away and a cab cost you $ 30. The shows at night were okay, seen better, but were okay. One thing did upset us, though. When we checked in we asked for a second key and they charged us $ 20 for it. When we asked for a receipt, he told us we don't need one, we'll get our money back when we check out. When we checked out, there was a lady at the reception, and she insisted of seeing the receipt and said, we could of went into town copying the key and making $ 20 this way. We asked for the manager, but she said she'll ask the Manager,wnet into a room and when she came back, she kept refusing. Finally we gave up and told her,she can just keep our $ 20. That left a bad taste in our mouth, for an otherwise fantastic vacation.

we booked this hotel for 2 weeks. The room was marginal, no hair dryer, ice or any of the amenities one expects in a so called 4 star. The pool area is nice and the beach, although far away, is also nice.We were told we had to have dinner at 8:30 every night and were required to sit at the same table every night!!! The food was luke warm, boring and down right awful. You cannot get eggs fried the way you like it in the morning. They are pre cooked and sit under a red light. The rest of the food service is also far below standard for a 4 star.The whole food sytem is set up for their convinience. They serve only INSTANT coffee!!
The noise from the night club at 4 in the morning is really unpleasant, but when we saw a rat climbing over the bar we knew it was time to leave.The management said we were just complainers and they could not careless. We transferred to an other hotel not associated with riu and had a wonderful time.
RIU?? PIU!!