After reading the RIU was a five star resort, I was disappointed in many aspects of RIU. The food for starters was horrible, and it is almost impossible to get a reservation at one of the hotel restaurants unless you wake up at 8am every morning and walk down to the front desk/ bar area. Couldn't reservations be made over the phone? Additionally, only one reservation per room- so if you come with a group of couples- each couple has to make their own reservation for dinner which makes it difficult to coordinate. While staff was friendly, very minimal english was spoken by all- questions were hard to get answered regarding various options etc. The staff was accomodating to a request for a room change because of the view being blocked- and they seemed to clean the rooms very well as well as the exterior of the building. I agree that some more options should be included with room service as well beverages served at the bar. Lastly, after 10pm there is no one available to bring needed items to room- more bottled water, an extra pillow or blanket etc. I was hoping that for the price I'd get much more out of this trip- probably won't go back.

Last year my fiance and I spent a ton of time planning a cozumel vacation that we had to cancel last minute due to hurricane dean. At the last minute we booked the Riu Palace in Cabo, and therefore did not really have any expectations, since we were just happy not to be stuck in a hurricane. The resort is very impressive. The grounds are very well cared for and our room was very nice, not luxurious, but nice. We thought the food was adequate. The asian a la carte restaurant was very good, but over all with regards to food we felt we got what we paid for. Actually, my only complaint has to do with the other hotel guests. People definitely come here to drink HEAVILY. I know it is their vacation, but there should still be some decency. In fact half way into our stay the hotel had to close down the active pool because a patron had vomited in it. Gross! Despite the other guests we had a very relaxing and affordable vacation at Riu Palace

we stayed at this hotle for a week. i am a fussy traveller and was worried after reading the reviews as they were mixed. we went with my 5 year old daughter and she loved it! the food was great. she ate at every meal, there was always somehtig for her. i am a fussy eater and for me too, there was always something.

upon arrival we were allocated a room, strange that we hadnt already been allocated one priort to arrival as they knew we were coming! the only dissappointment was that the sofa bed hadnt been made up for my daughter and i had to go and ask for sheets. 2 days later the cleaner, a different one who usually cleaned our room, asked me if a child was sleeping in the bed, i said yes and she made a phone call. i dont speak spanish so i have no idea what she said but later on we noticed they had put a matress on the sofa bed. i was a little upset as they should have done this prior to our arrival, when getting the room ready. but maybe we didnt get the room we had been allocated??? am still confused as to why we were allocated a room on arrival as it was obviously not catered for us. but nevermind, minor hickup and luckily my daughter slept on the bed anyway! poor thing.

apart from this the room was great. spacious, great view and cleaned twice a day some days!

breakfast was our favorite meal. loads of differenct choices. dinner was good too, with themed nights, but lunch wore a bit thin towards the end, but i think this was as it was so hot and we didnt feel like eating lunch. we didnt go to the other restaurants as we couldnt be bothered to queue for an hour in the morning. we didnt feel this was a problem.

the pool was great. we started off by the childrens pool, which was empty and only us by it! but it was so hot so we moved to the bigger pool with the swim up bar as it was cooler with the ocean breeze hitting us. it was lovely, gorgeous views and so relaxing. there were always sunbeds avaialbe. always.

the entertainment in the eveing was adequate. they alaways had kids stuff for an hour btw 8-9pm and then at 9.30pm they had the entertainment. some of it wasnt suitable for children but it wasnt too bad. we enjoyed it.

overal we had a great holiday. it really is paradise here. yes you cant swim in the beach but we didnt want to anyway. we walked down to the waves and it was nice but you have to be careful as they are POWERFUL!!!

i would reccommend this hotel as i didnt encounter any problems. rest assured it is a nice place to stay.

Our family of 4, which included 2 children ages 10 & 14, stayed @ this hotel 7/27/08 to 8/02/08. We've been to Cancun the past 2 years & decided to try another part of Mexico this year. I always wanted to try out the Riu Hotel chain so we did, in Cabo this year. The service was NOWHERE near the level we came accustomed to @ the Moon Palace & Cancun Palace Resorts in Cancun. At those resorts we never had to beg for anything, they went above & beyond; always "their pleasure". But @ the RIU Palace things were very different.
1st we paid x $ for oceanview. I know the difference between oceanfront & oceanview. But really, oceanview is not having to stand up & lean over your balcony railing & peer around a wall to see the ocean. We did politely ask for a room change but then we had to play the waiting game. I read in a previous review about how their couch was stained & how there coffee table was missing pieces of wood - I swear we had that room. We're not that picky but the furniture did look "Ratty", this was supposed to be a 4-5 star hotel though. We did tip @ both hotel chains but it still did not help to improve the service we received @ the RIU. We always had to practically "BEG" for towels after the maid cleaned our room. Twice she left us with 0 towels for our family of 4. The other times we asked for extra but only recieved enough for 4 guests. We were always missing the floor towel for the bathroom. The entire room was tiled. Our tiled floor was never swept = dirty feet most of the time. Such our luck too, we had 2 lights blow out & had no water @ one point. Yes, just like in one of those bad movies, one of us was in the shower with a head full of soap. We did have a good laugh! Everything was taken care of but not as quickly as we needed it to be. At the Palace resorts they always checked up on any inquiries, not @ our RIU though. Oh well.
Now the food. Buffet food. The problem in Cabo it was the SAME everyday for breakfast & lunch. The only exception was @ breakfast, if you were an earlybird, 2 of my crew were not, you can get an omlete made "your way" @ the inside buffet but only until 1030 am. Anytime after you had to eat breakfast @ the outside buffet -no omletes. YES, IT WAS A LITTLE ANNOYING TO HAVE TO STAND IN LINE FOR A # EVERYTIME you wanted to eat at their specialty restaurants for dinner. But we did. The food wasn't too bad. My 14 year old loves shrimp as do I, especially peel & eat shrimp. NOWHERE to be found. We did have shrimp that came with some of our dinners if ordered.
Overall the rooms were nicely decorated. Beds were hard. The grounds were well maintained & kept clean. The resort itself was in a beautiful location & had a wonderful view of "Land's End". We also enjoyed watching for cruise ships arriving & departing. We did venture by foot down the beach to the safe swimming beach. That water was even rough but it was FUN. It seemed like every 10 steps a vendor asked you to "looK" what they had for $$. Paco was memorable, he stated he had the best junk on the beach @ the best price. Sorry my review was soo long, but we did have a nice vacation despite the service of the RIU.