The outside view is wonderful, but we encountered MANY problems once we checked in. We were traveling with a large group. We had a total of 12 rooms reserved (18 people). We encountered the following problems:

1. About 10 of the 12 of us had to switch rooms because we were given a view of the construction site next door. When we were assigned our new rooms, many were very poorly cleaned (dirty q-tips in room, bathroom floor dirty, etc).

2. The hotel will only give guests 1 key regardless of the number of people in the room. If you have 2 adults in the room and you have different activities planned for the day, you have to coordinate whee to meet to get back into the room. The hotel states that they will let the other person into the room, but they don't have enough keys. This turned out to be a HUGE problem for all the people in our group.

3. The walls are paper thin and many of the hotel guests partied till 2:00 and 3:00am and were very loud so sleeping was difficult at night.

4. The food is lousy. They advertise that they offer 4 restaurants on site plus a food "buffet". Getting a reservation to any of the restaurants is very difficult. They keep saying they are booked. We finally got into the steak house restaurant because they had a cancellation. We then discovered that they only book the restaurant to about 25% capacity. The majority of the tabels were empty. This is most likely done so that you will be forced to eat at the buffet. The buffet was good for breakfast, but for dinner......well it is a buffet.

5. The spa facility is lacking a sense of taste and comfort. Like everything else at the Riu Palace, it was poorly designed and lacking a sense of class.

6. Many light bulbs were burned out throughout the place....restaurants the spa, etc. When I scheduled a facial at the spa, they had to have all the canned overhead lights on because the "soft background lights" were burned out.

I have probably said enough, even though I could go on and on. The Riu Palace was a complete waste of money. I would not recommend it.

My wife and I returned last evening from a very disappointing stay at the Riu Palace, Cabo San Lucas.

Although we have traveled extensively, including nine years to Mexico, where we have on each occasion stayed at other all-inclusive hotels, this is our first review posted on tripadvisor. In summary, our motivation for writing this review is the blatantly inferior quality of vacation experience at the Riu – particularly as to service, food and beverage quality, and cleanliness - as compared to all of our previous hotel experiences in Mexico. In a variety of ways, the Riu falls well short of providing what travelers should be able to expect, based on cost and the hotel’s star rating (4 stars at tripadvisor, and as high as 5½ stars elsewhere).

To illustrate:

•Most food is offered by way of a mass buffet which we rate as mediocre at best. Stated bluntly, we are far from picky eaters, but found the bulk of items to be tasteless or totally inedible. In addition, there are four restaurants that may be reserved two days at a time, by standing in a line-up in the afternoon, usually for about ½ hour. Two of these (Mexican and Steak House Restaurants) are, for the most part, essentially duplications of the main buffet. The remaining two (Japanese and Gourmet Restaurants) are very good.
•For beer and wine, just one brand of the former (Corona) and three very inexpensive representatives of the latter are available at the hotel. Of the wines, only a Mexican offering, which we rate as undrinkable, is readily available, while the other two, which are marginally palatable, are usually by special request only. Further, no other alcoholic beverages (margaritas, etc.) are available at any of the restaurant facilities.
•Service of all kinds throughout the hotel and grounds varies from inattentive to non-existent.
•Very bothersome, especially on one particular evening, were loud, intoxicated individuals partying boisterously throughout the hotel halls until 4:00 AM, totally unimpeded by hotel staff.
•Elevators, washrooms, and common areas are not cleaned adequately or sufficiently frequently. Daily room cleaning and replenishment follows a barely passable, surface approach.
•Evening entertainment is poor, and not representative of quality Mexican entertainment. Alternatives to the hotel entertainment are not easily accessible in Cabo San Lucas.
•No food, beverage, or other service of any nature is available on the beach.
•The fitness facility is poorly equipped and ill-repaired.

The Riu Palace is, as other reviewers have stated, a very impressive facility, and it has the potential to be a very good hotel. However, a substantial management turn-around and major adjustments in service philosophies will be required in order for the hotel to begin to approach its potential. Travelers in Mexico can do much, much better for the same or less cost.

I was at the Riu Cabo during spring break of 2007.
I will say that the room and the hotel grounds were very clean and well taken care of. If I needed something in the room my request was quickly taken care of. The staff was very friendly and willing to help out with any problems.
When I was there you had to get to the pool by 8:00 am in order to reserve a chair, so make sure someone is willing to wake up and take care of that.
The one aspect i was not impressed with was the food. I found it to be bland and got boring after a week there. It does have to be considered though that it is buffet type food that is being prepared for large numbers of people. There are plenty of restaurants in the town of Cabo that are a short cab ride from the Riu.
A dollar goes a long way in Mexico. I tipped the pool waitress a couple of dollars with the first drink and got constant attention all day long.
All in all I would say that I would go back to the Riu.

My Husband and I just got back from the Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas. Palace material it definately is NOT. It was a glorified Super 8 Hotel, and I do mean that in every way. The hall ways are extremely noisy, so if your a light sleeper pack ear plugs. It also seems to be a great hotel for families with lots of children and also a large university crowd. So , if loud comotion at 3 am is your bag, cold food from the buffet table sits well with you, and Privacy and quaitness is not an issue, and you love to pay for a 5 star hotel when it really only merrits a 3, then the view is pretty and the weather is nice. However, they do warn you that you cannot go into this ocean because of the under tow. You have to take a cab to the beach where you can swim. You really can't even walk the beach all that easy. The Palace was not that clean, it could also have been because of the late night party crowd (I will give them that). But I definately would not ever go back there. There is much nicer hotels that merrit 5 stars. I have been to the Riu Palace in Playa del Carmen, Cancun. NOW that was Palace.