I went here with a group. My room was clean. It had a "living room" area with a sofa, coffee table, & TV. My bed was comfortable. When I asked for extra blankets a staff member quickly brought them to my room.

I enjoyed the food at the restaurants. At night I watched the live entertainment. The beach and pools were clean. The fitness room was clean and had new equipment. There were 2 gift shops at the resort. They had jitney buses leaving from the resort to go to local attractions like Dunn's River Falls and Wassi Art Pottery Works.

They have computers in the sports bar. The Internet was not working the entire time I was there. You have to pay for Internet access, so I got a refund.

I would have liked to have more "authenic Jamaican" food choices at the restaurants. They did have some Jamaican food, such as jerk chicken and beef patties, but I would have liked more.

This place is great for a relaxing getaway.

We had a wonderful trip. We stayed at the RIU Ocho Rios July 9-16th,2007.

Acccomodations:
The resort overall was 4.5 out 5. The room was perfect, no issus at all. Air conditioning was without issue (as in other reviews). Mini-bar/water was refilled every 2 days without issue.

Food/Restaurants:
The speciality restaurants were not as expected. We visited the Asian (Mandalay), Japanese and the Steakhouse. The Asian and Japanese are not worth mentioning....food was so-so. The Steakhouse was very good (Both steak and red snapper as mentioned in other reviews was excellent). Note: We live in a very multi-cultural area of Canada (Greater Toronto Area), where we are fortunate to have an abundance of authentic international cuisine...we thought they dishes in the two Asian restaurants to be poor 'reproductions'.
The main dinnner buffet was amazing. A wonderful variety and when we wanted something that was not available the cooks whipped us up a serving (I wanted to try Jerk fish). We wished we had not booked the specialty restaurants and had gone to the main buffets instead.

Entertainment:
We watched a few shows. They were a little entertaining. The group particpation type shows were hilarious...be careful when you volunteer. The concert nights were very cool. The dance performances were repetitive and not very exciting...we often found ourselves hanging at the bar or going for walks.

Beach/Excursions:
Loved te beach, very clean. We did some snorkelling and saw lots of fish. Even close to the beach (for non-swimmers), wherever there was seaweed there tons of fish.

We did the 4X4 Jeep Safari - Marley tour and absolutely reccommend it. Great way to see and travel through the country side. Very infomative guide and awesome photo opps. If you want to visit Bob Marley's final resting place take the Jeep, not the tour bus.

Dunn River: Make sure to do this...climbing a waterfall, got to do this on any trip to Jamaica. We did rivertubing on the White River after the falls....perfect was to relax and let your muscles take a rest. Our Dunn River/River tubing tour was organized by private JUTA tour guide - Phil Lafayette. We would definitely reccomend booking with him for a more private/small group tour. Google his name with Ocho Rios to contact him. He called us our first day in Jamaica and set up things. we set a day and he came to the resort and picked us up. Very informative and entertaining guide. $55 US for Falls and Rivertubing.

Thats it, we loved the trip, met some awesome ppl and absolutely loved Jamaica.

The drive from the airport to the hotel wasn't horrible but it can take up to 2 hours depending on traffic and construction. Didn't know what to expect after reading reviews but we were pleasantly surprised at how beautiful the hotel was and how hospitable the staff was. We made friends with the bartender, Edmond, really nice guy and he took care of us and also kept us entertained. The main concern we had after reading the reviews was the food but other than the Mexican food, we always found something that we enjoyed from the buffet. If you want to make dinner reservations, you need to start at 9:00 am sharp and keep redialing the phone as you will surely get a busy signal. By 10:00 am, most of the restaurants are already booked. The steak house was good and it's a nice change from the buffet which can get a bit crowded during peak hours. We would definitely come back!

Stayed for 2 weeks at the ROR in July 07, had a fantastic time we are a family of 4, including 2 daughters 18 and 20. We booked through Thomson's and I have to say that they were well organised and the best leg room in economy I have ever had on a flight so I would recommend Thompson Fly.

The standard rooms were great for us and even though I booked one room with a limited sea view and one without a sea view they both had fantastic views of the sea. The rooms were clean, great mini bar, all have balconies some larger than others our room had one of the large balconies but the smaller ones are just fine anyway. Great little extra's like a decent clothes line on the balcony, double sinks in bathroom and good amount of clothes hangers make a difference. We knew before we went thanks to this forum that there was no coffee/ tea in the rooms so we took a travel kettle as we do like coffee when we wake up, and it was a good way to start the morning with coffee on the balcony overlooking the sea - I am missing it already.

We managed to book at all the restaurants even the ones that were supposed to be for the suites, we found if you ask they will try to accommodate you. The steakhouse, Japanese and the Asian restaurant can all be pre booked up to a week in advance and the gourmet restaurants only on the day. From reading previous reviews I did expect to have to spend hours in my room booking the restaurants but not only did it not take us long there is a phone at the bars by the pool so really easy. And with staying for 2 weeks it is worth booking the speciality restaurants as the food like at any hotel can get a bit boring after awhile. However this is the first time I have been on an all inclusive and the first time at a RIU hotel and I was very impressed with the food. Especially the breakfast and the gourmet restaurants. We did go to Evita's one evening in Ocho Rios for a meal which was worth it as well.

The beach is fantastic and they do there best to keep it clean from seaweed, off beach snorkelling was great with small reefs only a few foot from the beach. We never had any problems in finding place on the beach or sunbeds even though the hotel was full.

The spa were very helpful while we were there my daughter had problems with her facial skin and they gave her a wonderful facial and advice on how to control the outbreak which really did help I think it was 80 US dollars and they gave her a massage as well.

We never felt pressured in the resort to tip however it was appreciated by the staff but outside the resort it seems to be standard for the tour guides etc to be very upfront about what they expect. We thought the service was great we did meet some other guests who had stayed at other RIU resorts and they said the service was not as good as other RIU hotels - well if this is so then I would definitely book another RIU hotel as I was very happy with this one.

We booked a number of excursions - Swimming with Dolphins was fantastic, the Cat to Dunns river falls and climbing the falls was great fun, we did enjoy the south coast safaris but it is a 13 hour round trip so be prepared for a long day and plenty of travelling in the mini bus. Horse riding was also good fun. The Jamaicans are really good a creating a video for all excursions which we did purchase and as we got back today it has been good fun watching them so well worth the 40 US dollars, however around 100 US at the Dolphin Cove for the video.

The entertainment staff were fun and worked hard to keep you entertained, they did take a little to much interest in my daughters but I suppose they did enjoy the attention. The best part of the shows were the audience participation and we really did have a laugh, it is all done with good taste.

We did find the taxi's expensive compared to other countries and even compared to London, we booked the first one though the hotel but got the name of the driver and booked directly with him the second time which proved to be cheaper.

For the first 12 days of our stay I could not find any of the negatives that had been mentioned on this site apart from the timing of the make up of the rooms even though I left a tip every day, due to the amount of check in / outs they have a day the room is often not made up until after 4pm. Then on the last few days the electricity kept tripping and the air-conditioning stopped working and the rooms started to go very musky. However for the first 12 days when the aircon did work the rooms were cool and not at all musky.

All in all was a great holiday and I would recommend the hotel