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 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.

Let me start with the pros:
- The beach was beautiful
- The weather was great
- Scotchies Restaurant located about 1.5 miles outside the resort was AWESOME!

Cons:
- Everyone is expecting a tip and is quick to turn into a jerk if you don't tip them
- Transportation and Activities are very expensive
- The staff spent more time hitting on the women than doing their job
- The food was sub-par
- The alcohol at the bars are watered down, bottom barrel brands
- Getting any type of issues resolved is a hassle, and you get the run around
- Constantly out of beach towels

My vacation was a long four days and I was thrilled to come back home!