My wife and I stayed at the Riu for 12 nights in February, on arrival the hotel looks fine and the foyer is quite impressive.

Check in was a breeze and the staff were excellent and couldn't have been more helpful...but i'm afraid thats where the excellents seems to end.

our room was on the eighth floor so off to the lifts we went, I had to laugh at the speed of the lifts during the holiday i even managed to beat them down from the eighth floor and i'm an overweight coach potato, the corridor on our floor was horrendous and i must admit my stomach lurched at the thought of our room.
it looked as though it had been painted 20 years ago, there were repairs to holes in the walls that any self respecting diyer would have been appalled at and the doors looked like someone had been tapping paint off them with a hammer.

The room itself was ok, although there was a funny musty smell that you just couldn't get rid of and the air con was the loudest i'd ever heard no way we could leave it on when we were in the room but it was clean.

we had a deal that gave us the buffet breakfast and this was more than adequate and there was always room to sit. We did eat in the restaurant on a few occasions and the food was good if a little over priced.

the pool area is ok and the beach is just across the boardwalk which was lovely.

I could go on but all in all the hotel served it's purpose but is in dire need of a revamp, there is no way that it is 4* I would say a lot closer to 2*

would i go to Miami again yes most definately, would i stay at the Riu no, unless it was totally revamped.

The Hotel is rather dated in appearance. It makes candid attempts to be a full service hotel with entertainment (which was glorified karaoke). The bartender made me wait over 15 minutes while he joked with some patrons.
You can't get a cup of coffee in the morning unless it is room service-or you buy the full buffet.
The valets were polite, helpful and friendly.
The front desk help was inexperienced and unprofessional.
The walls on the rooms are thin. We were tortured with two different families with infants that cried several times in the night. Need I say I left the hotel tired? I called the front desk the first night with my concern, but they couldn't move me.
I had cold weather in my visit, in the 50's-yet, they wouldn't heat the pool. Geez, I flew all that way and never even got in the pool :(.
All in all, after paying over $225 per night, I feel very ripped off.

We arrived at 6.30am in the morning from L.A. check in was 4pm, but they kindly got us a room at 8.40am, so we could have a sleep and start our day which was great of them. The room was good size and very clean and comfortable, the hotel was lovely, the pool etc, staff were quite friendly, coffee in the room no tea bags and they would not give us any, we don't drink coffee, we had tea at breakfast time, after that we had to buy a cup of tea at the bar in the lounge. Lovely walk along the board walk down to Ocean Drive art deco area, very safe, the beach is right outside the back gate of the hotel, all tours were available in the hotel.

For the life of me I cannot understand there being negative comments about this hotel,unless they are absulute perfectionists
We stayed at this hotel for 12 days in Feb 2013,we had a standard room which was clean,spacious and nicely decorated.The breakfast and dinner buffett were excellent,a good choice and a high standard.Marceleno cooking fried eggs and omelette perfect every time,cheaper than most restaurants as well .The pool area is very nice,and though the pool isn't massive we found it plenty big enough.
All the staff we came in contact with were friendly and helpful.
We would certainly stay there again