My wife and I were at the Riu Santa Fé Nov. 05-12, 2012 for the first time. The resort is huge and very well located between San-José (airport at 45 min.) and Cabo San-Lucas (about 15 min.); with Costco and Walmart not far away; the frequent local bus (1$) is easy to use.
Excellent 5 stars: resort landscaping, outdoor and indoor cleanliness, excellent food at buffets and restaurants (but personnel too quick at the restaurants), excellent service, everything is well organized with efficiency.
Good 4 stars: room, bathroom
Poor 2 stars: entertainement at night (continuation of the day animation); only one real show
Suggestion: Keep an eye on your personnal effects (a dress disappeared in our room) and a book + magazine on our chairs nearby the pool; also check your towels (a few people when they returned at their chairs had to pay for their towels missing)

The Riu Santa Fe is awesome!! I've never had an all-inclusive deal before and was sceptical - it sounded too good to be true but... It wasn't! It was excellent value for money.
The rooms are very clean and well kept, as are the grounds of the hotel. It was handy having the bar stocked regularly if you wanted to have a few quiet drinks in the room before heading to dinner or the club (all of these drinks were still part of the all-inclusive price).
We stayed in an ocean view room which had a lovely view of the ocean but also the infinity pool.
It was probably the most fun resort I've stayed at. The games at the pool were hilarious and entertaining - the staff were great & so fun and friendly! They made sure everyone was enjoying themselves! It was good to have variety with so many restaurants. And having so many bars was good as it was always busy. The nightclub was fun as well - everyone seemed to want to go out and have a good time while we were there.
We met some really nice people there, both the staff and those on vacation. I hope to go back to Mexico again one day, loved it!

We went to the Santa Fe in Cabo as part of a wedding party from Nov. 8 to the 15th of Nov. 2012. There was a total of 37, including family, friends and children.
The problems started at the front desk on arrival. Most of us checked in O.K. although we were informed that we would have all of our keys handed to us on the bus ride from the airport. That did not happen, No big deal. However, the bride and groom to be, were left out in the lobby as the RIu did not have them in the system. No matter how hard they pleaded the hotel said that they were not registered and that the issue was with the tour operator. (Sun Wing to be precise). After a long battle with the front desk, the wedding planner came to the rescue and vouched that they were there for a wedding and they gave them a room.
On the positive side, the setting of the hotel is great. Very nice beach with a close up view of the major site of the point of the peninsula. Pools were nice and the food was better than average, HOWEVER, if you like wine with your dinner FORGET IT! The wine that they serve is the worst tasting wine I have tasted at a resort. The wine comes from plastic hoses that they use to fill decanters with and in some cases they even used wine bottles to fill with their cheap wine. The next day we went to Walmart which is close by and bought our own wine to take into the restaurants. We saw other guests do the same.
The wedding part of the holiday went off without a hitch. Guadalupe, the wedding coordinator did a great job of getting it all together. It's too bad the rest of the staff did not have her motivation to do a good job. The staff in general were not to friendly or happy to be there.
The end of our stay was met with a huge issue. One by one, members of our group took sick. Six in total. We had to call the house physician. $80.00 to go to her office or $100 for a room visit. If you can't get out of bed which was the case it was $100. then another $100 for the shots and medication. The physician told me that she saw at least two people per day with Montezumas Revenge. Not a good lasting impression for the last two days there.
There is not one of a group of 37 that would go back there.
We discovered that the chamber maids did not replace used glasses with clean sterilized ones but instead washed them in the bathroom sinks and put them back out. Makes a lot of sense when they tell you not to brush your teeth with the sink water or to drink it but yet they wash the glasses that you drink from with the contaminated water.

my 3rd riu resort to visit, and i love it...great everything and nice beach.

the only bad thing is the location since all resorts are away from the clubs, but they have taxis going from resort to the clubs, about 10 min ride.