I recently stayed for 7 days at the Riu palace in Cabo. Ive stayed at riu palaces in Cancun and Punta Cana as well as the new Riu in Varadero Cuba and they're all very similar. In my experience with Riu's, they're all almost identical. The rooms look the same, the food looks the same, the entertainment is the same and the service is, for the most part, the same. Ive tried different resorts as well as renting condos and fending for myself, so im not solely comparing apples to apples.
This year my group consisted of myself and 13 of my friends. Its the biggest group ive ever traveled with and they were quite accommodating. When we originally booked (through selloffvacations.com) we had booked 7 oceanview rooms, thinking that we would have a kingbed/two double bed option because thats what sell off had told us. When we discovered that 2 of our rooms would be uncomfortable sleeping arrangements with friends a quick email to the hotel had those 2 rooms upgraded to jr suits for free. No hassels. Also,they managed to keep all of our rooms very close together (at first) which was a nice suprise. One of the rooms (mine) was very smokey and needed to be cleaned/aired out significantly before it was liveable. After complaining to the front desk, 4 or 5 times, they finally, reluctantly, moved us to the absolute furthest corner of the hotel from our group. Which was a pain in the butt, but was still better then the stink of that first room.
When one of our safes broke on the second day, the staff managed to get it open. They never fixed the issue or switched them to another room with a functioning safe, but luckly it never ended up being an issue. Ive read in the forums on this site that the riu palace has had problems with theft in the past but a laptop, ipods, phones, cash, passports were all never touched even though they were left out in the open for the remaining 5 days.
Another suprise was on the second day when we tried to make reservations for all 14 of us to eat together at the al-a-carts they booked us into the mexican restaurant for that night and the steak house for the following night and told us the other restaurants should be able to take us anytime. (which turned out to be untrue but oh well)
The service all in all was quite good. I found 3 issues with staff in the entire week. 1. The front desk while trying to get a new room were rude and extremely difficult to deal with. 2. A bartender at the swim up bar for some reason would just not take an order properly. he would either make 2 out of the 6 drinks ordered and then tell us to come back later, or make completely different drinks then we asked for and expect us to take them, or completely leave the alcohol out of drinks for no real reason. 3 This was at the swim up bar at the Riu santa fe. The bartender must have been having a bad day because he kept snapping on people. First on my friend who tried to get a round of 6 shots. He started screaming at him, took off his nametag and put it in his pocket and then said we could no longer order drinks. Then about 2 minutes later made us the drinks. about 30 minutes after that i saw him snap on another guest over a drink order and do the same thing. at this point we started getting out of the water to get our drinks from the top bar.
For excursions, i was very pleased with the catamaran tour we took (pez gato) it was a fun ride, we saw some wales, the snorkeling was good (but cold) lunch was good. the music was great and the drinks were great. We also did a pubcrawl (not sure of the name but we booked through sunwing in the lobby) and it was great aswell. because of the size of our group it ended up private which was nice because we could switch clubs when we wanted and we convinced the driver to take us for tacos on the way back to the hotel.
All in all, pretty good. ive been to worse and ive been to better.

Also, a bunch of us got massages on the balcony and they were great! highly recommend.

we just got back from staying at the Riu palace in Cabo with my son and daughter in law staying at the Riu Santa fe for their wedding so we can give a bit of a review for both....but first the Cabo airport. after numerous attempts to get info on the Cabo airport let me just say there are only 2 terminals and they are like 2 separate airports...there is no direct walkway between the 2 except walking in the street from one to the other. So if you are meeting someone who is arriving on a flight different from your terminal there is no direct way to meet them other than one of you walking to the other terminal or picking them up there...now on to the Riu.

I gave the Riu palace 4 instead of 3 due to overly friendly staff and well kept grounds,but the hotel is some what old. Modern items such as flat screen tv's are in the rooms , but no internet access that we could get and in the business center there is a major fee for internet use since it is run by non hotel staff. So it is somewhat difficult to get airline info or printout boarding docs. beach and pool area are clean and nice...waves from the beach are very rough. Plenty of drinks top shelf liquor, food is typical buffet style nothing special. The Santa fe seems just as clean and for the money I do not see any physical difference between the 2 except the palace may have fewer steps to walk up to your room...no elevator in either resort that i could see and stairs are everywhere. Both are too far to walk to downtown Cabo and even if you wanted to there is not much of a sidewalk as both resorts are along the highway.

Guests cannot visit either resorts even if they are coming for an event such as a wedding without purchasing a day pass which i believe is equal to one days lodging. Riu palace guests can go to the Santa fe...but not the other way around. A few routine activities but nothing special, but the wedding ceremony and photographer were excellent. Weather was fantastic and views were just as sensational , but for the most part if you're not into the techno party scene of Cabo its mostly just sitting by the pool , drinking and eating.
NOTE: if you have arranged for a shuttle pickup, do not follow anyone inside the airport...they are time share salesmen. I dont know why but the real shuttle people have to wait outside by the curb while the timeshare people get a chance to trick you.

All in all in can find no major fault with the Riu palace or Santa fe....they were was just a so-so resort nothing special.

Having vacationed in the Caribbean and Mayan Riviera, this was our first visit to this side of Mexico. The resort was comparable to the high end ones - beats any resort in Cuba, hands down. Clean, well decorated and good amenities, this resort impressed us. One downfall was the reservation system for the specialty restaurants; we had a snag with the fine dining choice because it didn't seat more than 6 in one group. Our visit to the in-resort spa was excellent, and the evening entertainment was good too.

Well me and my fiance returned for our second time to the Riu Palace. Actually I proposed there last week. We went 2 years ago around the same time of year. i have to Thank Charlie in costomer Service, cheers!!!! i can understand why some people may complain, but you make your vacation what it is, the staff of the hotel can only help it.

First off we had a beautiful ocean view right over the beach, and with there being no humidity you can leave your balcony door open and listen to the waves all night while you sleep. the beds are not as bad as some suggest, its all your prefrerence. as for the colour of the drapes and couch and comforter, who cares? its not like you are spending that much time in your rooms beside to sleep and shower.

The buffet was good as usual, with a good selection of foods. Sorry i can't help you with the other restaurants as we have always opted to go into Cabo San Luca and eat to change it up from the buffet, there is a ton of great restaurants in and around the Marina. At the buffet Colon gives you great service and always makes sure your table is clear when you decide to go get more food and come back.

Well there are 2 very nice pools, quiet and loud.... the quiet one has no music playing and is mostly an older crowd. the "loud pool" while a bit louder with music playing it does not get all the rowdy. personaly i like a little noise while i am relaxing by the pool.

the grounds are kept very clean.

the entertainment well is what you typicaly get on a resort, nothing really spectacular, but can be amusing.

All in all its a good resort with very good service... We highly recomend this resort to everyone, and thats why we have decided to get married here next year.

P.S. THE BEST VIEW IN ALL OF CABO

So enjoy your vacation !!!!!!