another very nice riu resort. nice buildings, nice sites and as always super clean. staff where great,food was good but not great.views from beach or pools is breathtaking.beach is very nice but can't swim there. pools are nice.entertainment is good but it's the same at all these resorts.cabos san lucus is a short ride away ,with lots of shops and restarants/bars.whale watching was amazing.lots of excursions if thats what you want.yes i would go back was a great holiday

I stayed at the RIU Sante Fe for a week in March 2013 with 6 other women, 6 of us in our late 40's to early 50's. Overall we very much enjoyed the trip and I thought it was a good value. We saw a lot of whales and some dolphins on a couple of boat trips and even from the resort, even seeing a whale while up parasailing.

We stayed in building 7. It was a fun area being near the beach and pools and there was a lot of activity going on during the daytime. It was fairly easy to find spots to lay on the beach or near the pools, even when we didn't get up early to put out our towels. Many days we returned to our room to find cute towel sculptures on our bed. I only heard noise in the hallways late at night a couple of times during the week.

The buffet had a wide variety of foods, but it was the same every day and did get boring after a few days. We ate at the Asian, Mexian and Italian ala carte restaurants during our stay, and they were very good. We booked our restaurant reservations in the lobby of our buildind and didn't really have any problems getting decent times....a couple times they were a day out but we were flexible so it didn't matter to us.

We attended several of the nighly shows which were a lot of fun. We also spent some evening time at the bar near the show and the Sports Bar, where we met a lot of other guests. The evenings tended to be a little cool and I could have used more light jackets and long pants.

We went into Cabo a couple of times and it was very easy to get a taxi for $3/person each way. Found that most stores in town did not take credit cards so we could have used more cash. The water taxi drivers were very annoying during the daytime, constantly offering us water taxis back to the RIU even though we weren't ready to go back. They knew where we were staying because of our wrist bands. We walked back to the Riu one day on the beach. This was a bit difficult walking because of the sloped beach but it was interesting to see the bars and other sights along the way.


Pros
- Fun entertainment staff; they were very friendly and good at getting people involved
- Very clean rooms and grounds
- Beautiful pools, with multiple swim up bars


Cons
- We had requested adjoining rooms with 2 beds in each room but this was not honored. We ended up with our rooms on separate floors in building 7,but fairly close together. We only got one room with 2 beds. One was a room with a king size bed....we did request one with 2 beds and got one the next day. The 3rd room was a beachview suite, even though we had reserved a standard non-view room, which would have been great but we had 3 people in that room. They brought in a portable bed for the 3rd person, which wasn't the most comfortable.
- The vendors on the beach constantly wanting to sell us their wares or some sort of excursion. They are roped off from the private beach, but they are located between the private beach and the water so if you lay out on the beach, they are right in front of you the whole time.
- In room refrigerator was only stocked every other day.
- Service around the pools was not as good as I've seen at other all-inclusives. We had to generally go get our drinks ourselves. Service at the bars was pretty good though...we did tip with American $1s which probably helped
- No fan in bathroom so mirror was always fogged up after showers

We were 2 couples that stayed at the Riu Santa Fe the first week of February. We flew Sunwing from Toronto and left on time and arrived on time in San Jose del Cabo. Within 20 minutes of departing the plane we were thru customs, had our luggage (pearson airport take note)
and were pre-checked into the hotel. My husband was quite happy that they sold beer on our bus ride to the resort. We arrived around noon and our luggage was stored until our rooms were ready (note - if you have duty free alcohol do not store it, you may not see it again).

The resort is large as previously mentioned - feels like 2 resorts in 1 therefore depending on your mood you can experience a party atmosphere or a quiet one. The grounds are very beautiful and very well maintained. Lots of cacti. We were in building 7 and yes there was a bit of a walk to the main buffet and lobby but it only took 5 minutes.

We have stayed at a number of other all-inclusives over the past few years and this resort had the nicest infinity pool complete with an awesome view of Land's End. We also had amazing weather the entire week we stayed (sunny, hot and no rain).

Our room was as we requested - top floor of building 7, king size bed and a great view of Land's End (7403), since it was on the far side of building 7 it wasn't too noisy. They even had Hockey Night in Canada on TV 3 nights.

The food was fine for the most part. We were fortunate to eat twice at the steak restuarant and our 1st time was great and the 2nd time was disappointing. Also as previously mentioned the wine is very bad so I brought my own with me.

Almost all the staff at this resort are fabulous. Our favorite bartender was Armando.

We golfed across the street at the Cabo San Lucas Country Club and it was great. Guests at the Riu get special rates. We also checked out Cabo Wabo, Land's End and Cabo San Lucas. All are a must to see.

Yes the sand is quite coarse however the beach area is quite large. The Riu should utilize the beach area, perhaps installing a beach bar etc?

All in all we had a great vacation and would consider returning someday to this area.

Me and 2 of my girl friends went March 2013. (we are in later 20s). Food was just ok- but no complaints. There was a mixed crowd- families,singles, kids, adults. You had to walk far to get a good view of the beach. Riu Palace had a way better view of beach than Riu Santa Fe. Our room was NOT READY AT ARRIVAL. We had to wait atleast an hour. $10 cab ride to downtown. We NEGOTIATED $3 water taxi cab to Medano Beach. We parasailed and had to do some negotiating to get the price down- we paid $25 a piece. I recommend ordering the airport shuttle when you book the room--it was $11 roundtrip. The driver was 20 minutes late picking us up from hotel on way to airport--so make sure you schedule a pickup time very early. I RECOMMEND MEDANAO BEACH FOR LUNCH. We went to Mango Deck and Billygan's Island restaurants during day-- very affordable and decent food with GREAT beach front atmosphere and scenery.