We just got back from RIU Ocho Rios. This is not a five star resort. Maybe a 3 1/2 star. The resort itself was nice. Beach was beautiful. No shortage of loungers on the beach. Pools were okay. The service to the rooms was terrbile. We had to call every day for more towels, shampoo, basic services. Our bar fridge was never restocked unless we called and then they said they only restock every other day. All we wanted was more water and coke and beer, but they just brought orange pop.
The a la carte restaurants were terrible. You had to wait in line from 7 a.m. to get a table, and it wasn't worth the wait. The asian was basically another buffet, as was the salad bar and dessert bar at the steak house. The gourmet restaurants were okay, but nothing special. The buffet was great. Especially the main buffet in the main building.
There was no room service, so you couldn't even get a cup of coffee in your room in the morning............even the red roof inn has coffee makers! There were no bath robes in the regular rooms, only if you stayed over in the more expensive building.
The beds were awful, as were the pillows.
Overall, I was disappointed as I expected better from a RIU resort.

This will be a long but hopefully helpful review in which I will attempt to cover EVERYTHING you need to know about having a great time here. I was there Dec. 12th-19th with my buddy. We are both pretty positive-minded guys and my friend has travelled to numerous rersorts all over the world. Everyone we talked to was planning on coming back incuding a wedding party of 38 who we met there. Here is a guide to the Riu Ocho Rios:

The location is about 1 hour and a half from MoBay airport non-stop. A beautiful, fully-paved ride along the coast and hills of Jamaica is what you get. My friend and I elected to take a private licensed taxi to the Riu as opposed to the tour bus. This turned out to be a great decision. For $70 (we gave him 10 tip so 80), we cut a lot of time off our ride. The driver was GREAT his name is Paul reserve with him [--]. First, if you take your tour bus, you have to wait until everyone from that tour company is accounted for. Then, the bus makes numerous stops along the way including the famous Jerk chicken stop (why pay for lunch when they have great Jerk chicken waiting for you free at the resort) until you finally reach your resort. My friend and I arrived, got a free room upgrade (we complained about not having a full ocean view), unpacked, ate lunch at the jerk hut on the beach (free of course), checked out the beach and when we walked by the lobby we saw our tour bus friends lining up to check in about two hours after us. The resort is special in my opinion because you have the beautiful ocean on one side and the lush hills of Jamaica in the backdrop. Some resorts could be on a beach anywhere but here, when you look out from ocean, you see real Jamaican countryside - paradise. Amazing design, with almost everything overlooking the beach and little walking to anything you need. Two great pools, one for each wing, both with swim-up bars and their own vibe. The deluxe wing is more quiet, laid back where as the regular wing has more music and action with water sports and aqua exercises and a microphone system. Seemed to be a more younger, lively crowd. If you wanted a party atmosphere pool, this was the one but you could use either one no matter where your room is so if you wanted a quieter swim, deluxe side. The beach is really nice. Long with enough trees on one side if you wanted shade and loungers everywhere. The sand is more beige and the water not as clear as Cuba or other spots but still clean, clear, and gorgeous. A bar on the beach is more central so could be a little walk depending where you are seated but a beautiful walk along the beach looking at the hills in the backdrop is no pain. The jr. suite we had had a balcony facing the ocean, four bottle mini-bar, stocked fridge with Red Stripe, marble and mahogany finishes - nice. Two beds pushed together but we pulled them apart so we had our own beds.
The service is about attitude. Take my advice when dealing with Jamaican people and you will have a great experience with them. And no, you don;t need money for this. Jamaican people (I grew with them in Toronto). are very warm-hearted and friendly people. Just show them respect and you will be given respect. Push them and they will push back. I witnessed some incidents where some of the staff were a little rude to guests but in my opinion it was deserved. Yes, you came to relax and you paid for everything but these are still people who are serving you and treating people with respect is expected in Jamaica. If you order a drink like you own the island, you will not be received warmly. A little please and thank-you goes a long way. Jamaicans are strong-minded, confident people and their culture is a very interesting and ind infectious one. It is not uncommon for the staff to invite guests out but you will have to use your own instincts for these activities. Overall if you are courteous you will be treated like family. The maid service wasn't perfect but adequate and if you asked nicely for anything I found you got it right away. And yes, if you leave a tip here or there it does improve.....but not required. The buffet table service could be lacking during busy times but overall good.
The food overall was great. My buddy who has stayed at many five-stars said the meats and food overall at this resort were the best he has ever had at a hotel. The breakfast buffet had everything and even the bacon was good! Lunch you had the Plantation buffet (not bad, enough choices), the Italian buffet (not bad), or the BBQ Jerk hut (amazing) on the beach. The Jerk hut had amazing sausages as well... we ate most lunches here and couldn't get enough of it. It was closed Sunday and you never seen so many sad faces on a nice beach before. Dinner main buffet was really good. There is surely something for everyone. Always a couple of authentic Jamaican dishes, fresh fish (I ate snapper all week!), and tonnes of other buffet fair. The beef Wellington one night was unreal. If you wanted the other dinner restaurants, you had to reserve. You needed to get up and reserve at least by 10 AM to get something and earlier if you wanted to choose outright. We met friends while there and each made reservations for four in two spots one night.... pigging out! The reserved restaraunts are a step up in food. The two a-la-cartes were great. I had great mussels, beef fillet, grilled meat combo plate, some good meals here if you want full value but the reservation process is tedious. I was just as happy to wander up to buffet in my beach clothes rather than change for dinner. If you are very fussy, you will starve. If you are not, you will gain weight lol. Alcohol is not top-shelf but good. The tropical drinks they make are great. I tried them all I think. Jamaican Rum is top notch to me and they would make them as strong as you like if you asked. Bring a big cup for sure because they have dinky cups. They put three shots in my big cup for every drink and after a while, the bartenders would already know to make mine stiff. Just tell them you want it Jamaican style for a really stiff one lol! And yes, some of the staff may hit on some ladies but truth is many ladies go to Jamaica for this very reason. Sexuality is a more open experience in Jamaica but you get what you want.
At the edge of the beach is a craft market with locals. They can be aggressive sellers but are harmless and just trying to make an honest dollar. They may ask you if you need Weed or stuff but a no will send them off to the next tourist. Bargain with them a little and you will get better-priced Jamaican goods. Tell them Big D from Toronto sent you.
They gave me good prices for various things and they need the business more than any resort souvenir shop. You can watch some of them work their crafts as well. Weed is everywhere and if you look like the type who smokes you will be offered it by anyone and everyone. If you are looking for good weed, get it from hotel staff who you have seen working (they will not risk their job and just want to make some extra cash so the risk is lower). Act like you know the best of the best and won't settle for less and you will get something nice. Overall, on the resort you didn;t smell it but you knew people were smoking. Your room is the safest place for this. On the balcony overlooking the ocean was nice.
The Sport Bar was the worst venue. A dive in the basement serving all night but if you make it there, you are probably too drunk to care what it looks like anyway lol. this is where the hardcores would commune afterhours. I admit, I was there most nights lol. This was not as advertised but you don't need it. There isn't any good food here though so make sure you fill up on the buffet (until 10:30 PM). You have bottles in your room anyway for all night drinking.
The tours: you can do the tours with the hotel for big bucks or if you have 4 people, you can hire a cab out front of the hotel to go to ANY tourist spot for much cheaper. Just check he is JUTA certified (Jamaican tourist bureau) and bargain with him. He will stop if you need and tell you much more about what you are experiencing. Again, Paul is good for this. I rode a jet-ski to Dunn's River falls for 50 US but it took some bargaining. This way I got a jet-ski ride and a view of the falls from the ocean. There are a lot of sites to see from this resort and all are good especially if you can hire your own cab and see a couple of sights in one day. Depends on what you want.
There is much more I could say but contact me for more info.... I could tell you how we managed to party with the locals on their beach one night but you will have to follow some advice to do it safely. Overall if you go there with a positive attitude and respect the peoples and the land, you will say it was one of the best trips of your life. Any questions, get back

This hotel had the worst service I have ever experienced. I traveled with my 3 children ages 10-15. There was nothing for them to do when it rained. Which it did for 3 days. I guess if you are under 10 the kids club might be ok, or over 18 you can just drink to pass the time, but let me tell you nothing for in between. They didn't even play any music outside. It was not a downpour or storm just all day drizzle. The pool was still open but the beach turned into a mess with the rough waves. And they never cleaned the debris.

The beds are like sleeping on a slab of rock with a boulder as a pillow. The worst part was the shortage of towels. If you didn't get a pool towel by 9am, you didn't get one. Every day, after our room was cleaned, we had to request more towels. Most days they left only 2 (we had 4 people in the room). One particular day they only left 1. So, after climbing the falls (which is a wonderful experience) we came home to 1 towel and 2 hours before our dinner reservation (I will talk more about that later) we called for 3 more towels. Let me just say, we all four had to share 1 towel so we could go to dinner.

And now for dinner reservations. If you want one, you better set up a wake up call for 7am. If you are not in line by 7:30 you can count on the buffet again that night. Now don't assume you can set the alarm in your room, because the power went off every night which messed up the clock.

I would never recommend this hotel to anyone.

My husband and I (seniors) were at this hotel for a family wedding from Dec 12-19. I read many, many reviews before our trip and wanted to give our opinion. It was an amazing hotel, don't know how anyone could not enjoy. Many things to do for all ages and our party of approx 48 friends and family covered all ages, with us being the oldest. I'm commenting on the things we did and also what the others did in our group and their observations.
Hotel.... check in marvelous service, rooms ready for us, always kept clean, both in our rooms and around all areas, staff extra friendly. Sometimes you had to wait for towels to come during the day, but always had ample. Pillows were not the best, but we had 7 good nite's sleeps, and beds were comfortable. No bugs.
Meals......buffet is fantastic, restaurants good too but we preferred buffet because you had everything you could ever be hungry for, breakfast the best meal of the day. Jerk Chicken on the beach of course was excellent too. No one could complain about the variety or taste of the food, if they did, don't know what they are used to at home.
Beach.........beautiful, lots of chairs, wherever you wanted to be there was room.
Pools.......we didn't go in them but the rest of our party were in them all the time and were having a good time.
Entertainment........very enjoyable, they all work extremely hard.
Drinks.......always there for you, we don't drink but enjoyed what they have in the way of cooling drinks, well I did have a couple of the juice drinks with a bit of rum. They are very accomodating to what you want.
We all went on the Dunn's Falls trip and it is wonderful, bus drivers and guides work hard. We found we could just sit on our balcony and relax, walk as much or little as we wanted (we were close to the lobby) and see what we wanted. We would recommend this to seniors if you want a relaxing holiday and recommend it to families and young people, and I guess any age at all. We would love to go back one day.
For an all inclusive hotels, it must be one of the best. The wedding was done perfectly and no bad reports from any of us about anything.