Just a few tips on your trip to Cabo..

The Airport
When you arrive off the plane, get your luggage, go through security and proceed directly to outside the main entrance. A bunch of people inside will claim to be with your tour company and then try to sell you into tours or visiting time share properties. Ingore them as your local tour rep will be waiting for you outside the airport.

The Riu Sante Fe Hotel
The hotel was great. Rooms were nice - good sized safe, stocked bar, clean, double sink bathroom. We stayed in Building 5 which is midway between the beach pool and the main lobby.

The Service
Service in the restaurants wasn't the greatest - but I think the main issue is that they need to hire more staff. There seemed to be only a few staff assigned to each quarter of the restaurant. I heard on my last day that they just hired an additional 200 people so I presume that service will get better.

We didn't have any issues with housekeeping. IIt was my experience that if you needed any more towels, etc - you call the front desk and they'll get it to you in 10 minutes. Only thing I would suggest is that if you've bring any of your own towels, special pillows, or blankets - throw them in the closet each day before you go out. My norwex facecloth as well as my orthapedic pillow were accidentally taken by the housekeeping staff when cleaning the room. I am assuming that they were so busy busseling around the room that they neglected to notice that these items were not the hotels property. All I had to do was call the front desk to tell them the items were missing and viola I received them back. :)

The entertainment
Evening entertainment was okay. Not as good as other RIU hotels. Internet is available in the sports bar for 30 pesos for 15 minutes or 80 pesos for 60 minutes. Pool and other video games also available there.

The beach and the weather
You can catch a water taxis to get to Lovers Beach for $10 rtn.
Lots of people selling their wares on the beachfront, but all you have to say is no gracius and they move on.
Another thing to note is that there are no umbrellas or trees on the beach. We tried to move an umbrella down from the pool area and were told that umbrellas were not allowed :(
The weather was great, only one cloudy day. As the other reviews mention, it does get cool at night so bring a few pairs of pants, a sweater, and a jacket.

The transporation and tours
Transportation to town -It costs $10 per way for a taxi to Cabo San Lucas and around $50 to get to San Jose. There is a little black and white local bus that comes up to the gate of the Riu property every 15 minutes. It costs 7 pesos (.70 cents) to get to Cabo San Lucas. I used it twice and would definately recommend it to others. The last bus run is at 9:30pm.
I did the 4X4 jeep safari, horseback riding ($32/hr), and the Taste of Los Cabos tour. All were great. The 4X4 tour ($75) was a great way to see the outback countryside and learn about the local vegetation and culture. The Taste of Los Cabos ($59) took you on a boat ride out by lovers and divorce beach, a look at the sea lions, a one hour shopping trip in San Lucas, lunch at a great restaurant, and than an hour of shopping in San Jose. I took the tour on my second day and it gave a nice general overview of the two main towns and all that there is to do and see in Cabo (which is plenty).

We stayed at Riu Sante Fe from January 10th to the 17th. Upon arriving at our hotel we had a 5 minute wait for check in and instantly had our room key. Our luggage was delivered within the 1/2 hour to our room and our holiday truly began. I will explain this resort to the best of my ability and if you have any questions please contact me.

Rooms: Clean and stocked appropriately. Our fridge had large water bottles, beer, pop and we had our own personal bar in our room that was replenished every 2 days. We stayed in building #3 with a room that overlooked the pool. Building #7 is the only one with elevators so if you have problems with stairs then you should request this building. The stairs were fine especially since it's good excercise from all the eating we were doing.

Pools: 4 pools at this resort, all warm. The main pool at the beach is where there seemed to be more socializing going on so that's where we were drawn too. Never a problem to get a chair since we didn't usually make it to the pool until at least 10:30AM everyday.

Food: The buffet is great with plenty of selections. The al carte restaurants were ok but due to shortage of staff they had these as buffets as well.

Activites: Plenty to do, jet ski's, para sailing, horse back riding etc. If your bored on the resort head into Cabo ( 10 mins from resort) to shop at the local mall and flea market at the marina. Transportation is easy, either take the cab for $10US, the local bus (collectivo) $.70 US or the water taxi $10US. If you want to party then head to Cabo Wabo or Squid Row.......tons of fun!!

Weather: The days were sunny and very warm but the evenings quite cool. ....came home with a great tan. Bring warmer clothes ie: sweaters and pants.

The age group at this resort ranged from early 30's to maybe early 50's.

I'm sure I've missed something but again if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

My family and I (4) )booked to stay 2 weeks at this resort.I have to say easthetically it is beautiful and well maintained.The service was attrocious!! We started out the first night having to collect our luggage at the front desk at 11 pm after a 2 hour wait to have it brought.The food is 2 star,we ate outside the resort most days in Cabos,my husband and 2 kids were served raw hamburgers on 2 occasions.Which they were ill from.We had a plugged toilet for 2 days which after several visits to the front desk proved to be useless.The maid service was shoddy.There were several complaints of lap tops going missing,Blackberrys,wallets,money.Make sure you lock up!!Our safe went on the fritz after the second day... so we had no maid service because of the fear of being ripped off.The beach is beautiful until the endless string of horses come trotting by and leave steaming pile s of [--] for you to smell for your stay in the loungers.BE-WARE wear footwear..... we unearthed numerous glass in the sand from beer bottles and glass ware from the restaraunt.And for those who would like to spend a good 30-45 min. every morning to line up like cattle to get into the a-la-carte restaraunts to get away from the gruel of the main buffet.... (you cannot book the restaraunts in advance you have to do this every a.m.Do yourselves the favour if you go..flip your wristband and go eat at the Rui Palece.... because while your eating rubber eggs... the Palace is serving champayne and orange juice to go with your eggs benny....!!Anyways we had had enough after 4 days of poor service/crap food and front desk management.We asked to go to the neighboring resort RIU PaIace(which is a 5* plus) for the remainder of our stay.(of course we had to dish out more money to go...)I feel for $16,000 for a 2 week holiday should have been a holiday .....not a huge dissappointment.!!!The Sunquest rep there stated that 70% of there passengers were dissappointed in some capacity.I feel that this resort was prematurely rated ,I feel that a resort should be open 1 full year to be rated.I feel that the majority of the guests felt the were the guinea pigs while this resort irons out the wrinkles.Do yourself a favour give them some time to hire some decent staff and management and get their ducks in a row before you shell out your hard earned $$ and your valuable holiday time.

I booked this trip to Cabo at the Riu Santa Fe through Cheap Carribean.com, (which was great by the way). The hotel is brand new and for the most part was nice. The problem was we had money stolen from our room. It was not an isolated incident either. The management denied and ignored any problems, so I did my own investagation and found about 1 in every 4th person I talked to had something stolen from their rooms. Mostly cash, makeup and food. The management would not help. They took a report after I insisted one be made, and then would not give me a copy of the report. I was told I would be contacted by email within 48 hours, and that never happened. I would definately go to another resort or be very careful with my property at this one. They need much bigger and better safes at this resort.