RIU Hotels & Resorts
Reviews and Complaints

We recently stayed at Rui Santa Fe in Cabo San Lucas. July 27- August 2

I have to say that we have stayed at many other resorts and this place needs to take a little more pride in their hotel and truly research and practice great customer service or go the extra mile to make a lasting impression for the right reasons. We arrived pretty late (11:30pm.ish) with our elderly mother and we had to carry all of our luggage from the front after off loading the taxi to our villa (8). “All inclusive” at previous resorts meant zero inconveniences. This was a major issue especially for our children and mother.

The Riu Santa has no elevators where we were and being our first time in Cabo this should have been anticipated and made more convenient by having a bell boy assist us in navigating the map 🗺 at night plus the 4 flights of stairs.

At this point I kept an open mind because the next day would be the first day of our hard earned vacation. The vacation was booked in advance and the rooms were reserved with double beds and to my surprise there was only one king size bed. I called the front desk and was advised that there was no other double rooms available for that night and was assured that the next morning I would be moved to a room with double beds meanwhile they would send a mattress for the night. Not knowing that the same mattress they issued us was left out and exposed without and chemical treatment or sanitation. If I would have known beforehand how they treated the mattress I would have never agreed. To think that my kids and I slept on that mattress. I was there plenty at nights and I saw that mattress outside of the hall ways several nights in a row. No protective cover no hygiene. Surely the hotel has has plenty of experience in guest services and fixing or addressing known occurrences. The mattress was dragged around as needed because I saw it with my own eyes. The hall way was open there was ants roaches fly’s lizards and god only knows what else. Little did I know this was only the beginning. Next day we get up my priority was to get the room and bed situation straightened out so we had to delay our days events. Then I go to the front desk and I was told that they couldn’t move me rooms since changes on the system have to be made a day in advance. How were we supposed to know we weren’t gonna get a double bed? We were told by the front desk clerk that this issue would be addressed first thing and to our surprise the clerk went home without ANY notification to us nor did we get assurances. I’m the morning we were told there was a glitch yet this wasn’t communicated in a timely manner and in fact we had to go find out on our own.

I understand the system glitch but there has to be a way to move me rooms and then manually edit take pride in hospitality. Both front desk clerks looked around and without a care in the world told me it was impossible. I explained to them that my activities for that day had already been pushed back because I wanted to fix this first. They still didn’t seem to get nor care that people fly from all over the world with the hotels reputation on the line. I thought that was the end to my problems. I was wrong! After that issues was unresolved this prevented us from making it to eat on time because we went to try and have breakfast but the restaurant was already closed. So we had to wait a bit for another one to open.

We were hungry and just wanted the nightmare to end. As we were getting drinks the reused plastic cups had a distinctive smell of mildew which everyone in the line noticed. People were having to rinse out these cups. The smell was so bad That my daughter drank out of it and gagged. I smelled the cups and they smelled disgusting. Like if something rotted inside but it was the smell when they are wet and stacked without drying. The recommendation they gave us was to buy our own cups. This is from staff who knows this is a continuous problem. From there on we bought our own cups and refilled them when we wanted to drink. But the drinks are also either watered down or something is going on because they tasted very bland and at some point I don’t think the the alcohol beverages had any alcohol at all. Subsequently we decided to drink water and began to look forward and hope for a better “next day”. On the way to the beach near the rear kitchen doors down the main walk way there was a horrible smell of rotten food coming from the kitchen doors, drains near the towel collection point. The drains or maintenance areas for restaurants are also not up to par as in not cleaned our regularly. When you are walking towards the beach there is a walk way that you must pass through, that hall way is also in the way of a service door to kitchen for one of the restaurants. It has a foul rotting disgusting odor. If it wasn’t for that smell that area would be beautiful and enticing.

The towel system in place for the pool towels is terrible. I had to trade in keys for towels and then babysit the towel because if you lose that towel you wont get your key back and it will cost you money and time to replace it. (this is while on vacation). For the first time I had felt like we had to make the hospitality employees’ job easy. It was like we were there for their convenience.

The cleanliness in the restaurants is also lacking. They don’t have air-conditioning therefore there were flies and it was uncomfortable to enjoy your meals. I saw dead flies in syrup One night we went to the Asian restaurant when we arrived the restaurant has a waiting list that I thought ok the food is going to be good. To my surprise when I looked inside there was empty tables. Why they were making us wait was beyond me. When we would ask the host he would reply you’ll get called when you get called. Very rude. Then when we got seated it turns out it is also a buffet and the food looked old and it did not taste good at all. All of us ended up not eating and ended up eating the tacos that were served every night outside (those were the best part of all my stay).

The last of my complaints but I could go on longer was the shuttle service. I had to confirm that I was checking out two days prior in order to schedule my transportation. I thought this was ironic since they have my reservation. So needless to say I had to look for my own transportation and pay for it. The clerk offered no other solutions other than we had to read the fine print as to say we should have known. All inclusive means just that. Do you all have a quality control program that address previous complaints?

I was very disappointed with this resort. Before booking I had read all kind of ugly reviews but thought this surely must have already been taken care of and I’m sure it will be better. We know what to expect because we get what we pay for and we paid a lot. A little more consideration for people who have worked hard and have all the expectations of a great of stay, one would think that pride by the Riu staff would be more obvious. Customer service and hospitality was non existent for most of our stay.

The best thing I can say is that we were all Disappointed! I will never recommend this place to anyone.

we stayed for 10 days from the 24/07/2022 as a couple, we picked this hotel as we have used Rui hotels in the past (Domincan) and also found them to be a good standard, and thought that you were guaranteed the same level of standard through out, the hotel was down as a 5*, the pool and area around the pools was not cleaned, the pool was very cloudy full of fly's and scum, they never moved any sunbeds to clean under or around, old glasses, food was left from night before. the umbrellas for around the pool a large amount of them didn't work. I reported this to Tui rep who did nothing, both myself and my partner were bad for a number of days on the holiday and I put this down to poor hyenine.

Our room was very run down and dirty, we had a large leak from the aircon which they said had been mended by email, only to find on the evening when returning to room that I slipped and hurt my side and knee, as the water was covering the bathroom floor and now to the main door of apartment. I complained to the TUI rep who did nothing we had a bottle of sparkling wine left in room no apology, as we were on a all-inclusive and don't drink wine,

I usually recommend your hotels to people I know as normally have had nothing but good experience.

Deborah Silvester

31 July at 11 pm

For 2 days they did not replenish our refrigerator as planned and at the end of the 3rd day we stayed in the room and realized that we did not have water, we call to the reception and explained that the water had not been refueled, the receptionist told me that we would immediately bring water but after 40 minutes of wait I call again and another receptionist told us that “we did not have room service and if you wanted water that you should come at the reception. It is unacceptable from a 5-star hotel 24h all include where we paid more than €2,500 for 7 days. We asked to make a claim and they told us that it was not possible today.

My name is Leopoldo Acosta jr. [protected]. . I had reserved 3 rooms for 6 people, 2 on each room at the Riu Palace Las Americas in Cancun. I called a week before the arrival date and asked if I needed to pay for it or wait until we got there. I was told its ok pay at check in. We arrived on June 23 which was our check in date, Were told sorry but they had over booked and no longer had rooms for us. After 2 hours of waiting the hotel manager came out with a resolution, which was to move us to another hotel, which they did. We had reserved this hotel cause it was highly recommended, cause it was an adult only hotel. This is very unsadisfactory, if I could have found a different hotel at that time we would have gone there and never again stay at a Riu, but our hands were tied where we had no choice but to take offer or have our vacation ruined which we had already started wrong. This is not a good way to start a vacation. The hotel they moved us too was nice but not the one we had chosen. We did get a discount for the other hotel, but that is because they moved us to a cheaper one. Our reservation number was RNT43XRZ.

I received an email from the RIU saying that I should mention the email at the time of check to get a10% discount at the time of check in. I followed those instructions and the man at the desk said I would see the discount on my end. But I did not see it. I went back downstairs that day and spoke to the manager, Gabrielle. She said they do not do discounts onsite and she is unaware of any offers. Additionally, when I originally made the reservation over the phone they said I’d get a discount with my brothers AAA and to just present it when we checked in. I was unable to confirm that the AAA discount was applied as it did not show up on my receipt.

Our rooms were 1910 & 1911.

Our stay was June 18th - 22nd.

My wife and daughter are staying at Hotel Riu Ocho Rios and have experienced couple off sleepless night due to abusive couple in the next apartment .

My wife contacted the duty manager who was unable to move my wife or the abusive couple .

Not good enough very poor services .

Hotel Riu Ocho Rios

My husband and I booked a vacation to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We had to cancel and before I authorized the cancellation, I was told that all hotel funds would be credited to original form of payment and airline credit would be given to me in a wallet for American Airlines so I could book my own flight. After the cancellation went through the story changed... I was told I'd have to book through Riu for future flights using the credit. This was not the agreement. Now, every call to them is over 1 hour, generally 2 hours, and a computer glitch ALWAYS occurs. Today I've been working with an agent for over an hour and get told there's a glitch. I want RIU to reimburse the full credit amount of my airline tickets = $2013.12, to my original form of payment. I could have booked my own flight in under 15 minutes... but now I've wasted an hour and then was hung up on. Now I'm waiting for a call back to schedule this flight. This is unacceptable. Please call me ASAP to get this resolved.

Regarding Itinerary # [protected]

On the afternoon of June the 8th, 2022 (Club Riu Negril) at approximately 1pm, my friend and myself were discussing the fact that my door (1131) was sticking on the floor of the room and was difficult to close. As we walked out to go to lunch, I discovered that the great door in front of the hallway, between the adjoining rooms of my friend and myself was found to non-functional. A screw was in the locking mechanism. As we were opening and closing the door and turning the manual lock, a member of maintenance approached us and asked us if we were ok. We replied that the door wasn't locking, he stated that they do that if the keycard doesn't work they do that to hold the door open. We stated that they didn't seem safe and he said that the resort was very safe. We went to dinner later that night and my son left his Nintendo Switch on the bed and someone came into the room and stole it off of the bed. We reported it to the front desk and security came to investigate it and stated that the only recourse was to file a report at the local police station. We did not feel safe going to the police station and the police would not come to us. We feel it is the due to the negligence and unsafe, unsecured door that this loss occurred and would like to be reimbursed for the cost of the game system plus 1 game that was in it, so in total we request a refund of $350 USD.

Stayed at the Riu Montego Bay for our honeymoon

We were given an upgraded room when we arrived, only to find out after a week of being there that the room was actually a quarantine room for Covid positive guests

Everyone else in the same block of rooms were in quarantine except for myself and my husband.

As a big company you would of thought that the staff would have a duty of care towards the guests.

We also had to put up with people smoking weed in areas that clearly stated no smoking, the staff turned a blind eye to this, and we had to keep moving to different areas around the pools to avoid passive smoking.

I'm not against smoking, but the staff should prompt guests to use designated smoking areas.

Our honeymoon was ruined, we had waited 2 years for it.

I reserved TWO rooms in January and requested 4 double beds in each AND most importantly the rooms be closed together! I sent a reminder request March 1st. Needless to say NEITHER happened nor did the staff give a damn. They told me they may could change us the next day and would call to let us know either way the next morning. Of course that never happened! Food was mediocre. Basically cruise ship food. Would not take reservations for either of the separate restaurants. So it was pretty much buffet food all week! Ugh. Will never stay here again. Floors were very dirty and the first day after 5 minutes barefoot in the room the bottom of my feet were BLACK! Ridiculous!

Estuvimos en el Hotel Riu Vallarta en Nuevo Vallarta del 16 al 21 de Mayo pasado en la suite #7017 ubicada frente al mar.

Hicimos la reservación directamente con ustedes. SuTaxi nos iba a recoger a la 1.30 pm para llevarnos al aeropuerto el sábado 21 de Mayo. Por lo que durante nuestra estancia el miércoles por la tarde fuimos a recepción a preguntar si se nos podía extender la hora de salida el día de nuestra partida.

La recepcionista (nunca nos fijamos en su nombre creo esto es muy común que le sucede a los húespedes ) nos dijo amablemente que podiamos salir el sábado 21 de Mayo del cuarto a la 1pm, pero a las 11am entregar las llaves.

El día de salida (sábado) se me ocurrió llamar a recepción para confirmar la salida a la 1p.m. y es dónde todo empezó a complicarse. La recepcionista me dijo que no era posible dejar las llaves a las 11 y permanecer hasta la 1pm y que quién me había dicho, empezó a cuestionarme lo que me pareció de mal gusto.

Decidí bajar a hablar con la recepcionista . Alma Rosa fué la persona que me atendió y me dijo que era una equivocación pues no estaba permitido (no lo creo) y que podía entregar las llaves a las 12p.m., y salir del cuarto. le pedi de favor y dijo que No que de ninguna manera que sólo a húespedes con estatus les permitía la salida más tarde . No me agradó la situación pues nunca me lo esperé.

A continuación explicó con detalle lo sucedido:

Le entregamos las llaves a Alma Rosa a las 12p.m., y mi esposo le solicitó en el mismo momento hablar con el Jefe de Supervisores para apoyarme y decir que efectivamente nos habían permitido estar hasta la 1pm previa entrega de llaves.

Alma Rosa le dijo a mi esposo que el Jefe de Supervisores lo iba a atender que esperará en el lobby o sillones tipo francés que estan atrás y junto a recepción.

Así lo hicimos y nunca nadie fue a atender a mi esposo que después de media hora volvió a solicitar por segunda vez a Alma Rosa que estaba esperando hablar con el Jefe de Supervisores y ella le dijo que en unos minutos.

Así pasó Una hora y Media, tiempo en que nos ibamos a ir y hasta que el Taxi estaba por llegar y entregamos los brazaletes a Alma Rosa y le dije que nos habían dejado allí sentados por una Hora y Media esperando al Jefe de Supervisores.

Alma Rosa sabiendo que ya nos ibamos nos dijo""Yo soy la Supervisora y el Sr. que esta aquí detras de mi en el escritorio es mi Jefe."

Por lo que les hago saber que fué Muy desagradable su proceder! y una burla a considerar...

Entregamos brazaletes y estaban solos y le dije al Sr. Jefe de Supervisores que era de muy mal gusto no haber atendido a mi marido pues estaba sólo y sin huéspedes en recepción, y todavía me responde y me dijo que estaba Ocupado haciendo papeleo y me molesté pues era el colmo y le dije que los iba a Reportar pue habían dejado como un idiota esperando durante una Hora y Media a mi esposo sentado conmigo detrás de recepción en espera, cuando nunca irían.

Me hizó un ademán con la mano y me dijo :Haga lo que quiera!

Mi marido siempre se creyó que lo iban a atender;y la verdad yo también ya que es importante se conozca el trato al visitante perolo que ignorabamos que estaban de acuerdo.

Ya de salida en la puerta del Hotel le pregunté a un trabajador por la Gerencia General pero para mi mala fortuna no había nadie, la gerente no estaba. Acudí ala oficina pequeña que estaba a un lado y le expliqué brevemente lo sucedido y le dí mi número de celular. Nadie me llamó.

Mi esposo es Ingeniero y yo Contador Público y estamos jubilados conociendo México. Fué la primera vez que empezamos a viajar a México a celebrar y conocer su Hotel para futuras estancias en otros lugares.

Salimos con un sabor amargo de boca por el trato dado al último . No la habíamos pasado super bien y disfutando es una pena el haber finalizado con una experiencia de tan baja clase en un Hotel de esta Categoría.

I checked into your RIU Palace Tropical Bay hotel on March 31st, 2022, f0r a family reunion, Our group usually numbers between 20-30 persons. The family typically uses different hotels until we decided to start using the RIU group of hotels, In the two previous years, we stayed at RIU Negril.

It started badly as the keys to the room did not work, I was let in by a member of the housekeeping staff, on entering the room she said, "Where is all this water coming from as the room is underwater, she turned the lights on and realized the water coming from the ceiling seemingly from the air conditioning unit. She called the technician who spent approximately 11/2 hours checking then said the issue was the air conditioning fan blowing the water in the wrong direction which he repaired with me sitting there all this time.

My daughter who lived in Jamaica wanted to come as she always does but was told there was no accommodation. I then spoke to a manager about having two beds in my room so she could come as I had a king-sizesued

bed, he assured m it would not be a problem, I subsequently spoke to

various managers between Wednesday and Friday morning.

On Friday morning we hired a bus for a tour outside the property but when to the front desk to finalize getting two beds in the room, the manager on duty started but the bus came and had to leave so he told me when I returned if he was not there an assistant or someone at the front desk would complete the transaction. I returned at 6.05 P. M went straight to the front desk where I spoke to the manager on duty who informed me there was nothing there indicating that she should be added.

After being told it would be arranged and we will be moved to another room nothing was done when get there after I have packed to move to another room she called saying she is at the front desk and there is nothing there saying she coming. After eventually getting added she had to carry her bags while the bellhop was standing there, they took her drives to license a forget to give it back to her when she checked so I had to take it back with me to the US and send it to at a cost of $140 US.

There were other incidents during all this, but I think this letter is long enough, I must add that we are all RIU members and are very disappointed, as discussions are presently in place for our next family reunion I know the rest of the family will want to stop using the RU group it's a pity that you will be losing a group of 30 persons who supported you hotels annually because of poor services

Thanks I know this letter is a bit lengthy but was necessary

Dr. Dave A Johnson.

We are currently staying at Hotel Riu Negril in a suite. Unfortunately we left our key in our room and had to go to the front desk to request a new key. The employee Davion was extremely rude to my wife. He was questioning her “why” she left the key in the room and “what did you do with yours?” My wife said she accidentally left it in the room. He literally sighed at her and said “hold on.” We are a family of 14 who is spending our holiday here. We are taking this holiday because my nephew, our grandson, our son, our cousin, and our brother died of leukemia this past year and he always wanted a Caribbean vacation. We have spent close to $30,000 at this resort to be treated the way he treated us. It is unfortunate. We don’t want anything in return because we know someone might be “having a bad day”. Even though we know it could be much worse. We feel an apology would not be out of line. Disappointed disappointed disappointed. Davion might need extra customer service training.

The vacation at the Riu Palace tropical Bay resort in Negril, Jamaica was a Epic disaster! We stayed there from May 7th- May 14th 2022. It all started with check in by not receiving the room that we had upgraded and paid for. We had to have our room changed to the one we paid for. The AC went out several days , bugs in the room, dirty sheets, water back up in the sink, no water for one day. After two face meetings with the assistant general manager Claudia Praiz and one with assistant general manager Luis Suarez absolutely nothing was done! They both are good at deflecting and not excepting responsibility for anything that was within the hotels responsibility! We had my 84 year old dad with us at this hotel as well as other family members and the whole trip was an epic disaster from the beginning till they end! I would not recommend this hotel to anyone and Managment that was left on duty in place of the general manager being on vacation are useless and don’t care to solve and issues that arise that are within their control! And speaking with other guess at the pool they also experienced the same issues and this seems to be something that occurs at several of the hotels and properties they own! We will never stay at this property again and will not recommend it to anyone! I would like to be contacted and not a cut and paste response that I see on their website to respond to guest complaints! We had a total of 17 family members on this vacation and our stay was an Epic disaster and left us with unforgettable bad memories!

I'm pretty upset with my stay. I went to your Riu palace las americana for my bachelor party on May 13th. I was extremely excited, but within 10 minutes of getting into my room, my knee was sliced open from broken glass on top of the living room table. I required 13 stitches and it ruined my entire trip. The resort's manager was great and took care of my medical expenses because it was the resort's fault for the incident. But I didn't enjoy any of your pools or do any site seeing because I couldn't walk long distances or get my leg wet. During my entire trip, I could only sit outside the pools. It was a fantastic resort and everything looked great but because there was a broken table that was overseen or neglected by staff resulting in my injury I couldn't enjoy the trip. I had planned on going back for my honeymoon in September but now I'm second guessing if I should because of how this trip went. I don't know if there is anything you can do to change that but it was a very disappointing bachelor party.

On the evening of March 27, 2022 we returned to our room at the Hotel Riu Plaza Fisherman's Wharf and found that our room had been burglarized and the perpetrator had even left items, including shoes, a blanket and an elevator lock, behind. We reported the break-in to the desk, finding two other parties there who had their rooms robbed as well. The San Francisco Police were called and they took report [protected]. The officers were #2710 and #2470.

The hotel told us the manager would contact us that evening but he/she did not and we had to ask for the manager the following morning. We had realized after the officers left that additional items were missing and since the thief had stolen not only some New Balance shoes with orthotics (and left their sandals in our room), but had stolen a red ski jacket and a shoulder satchel (blue and red, about 18 inches by 16 inches in size), and had taken a roller bag, circumstances indicated the thief would be easily identifiable in surveillance videos. In addition to our possessions, the thief had taken my passport so using the videos to possibly recover our possessions was an urgent matter. However, the police let us know the hotel had not been willing to provide surveillance tapes to them. I also provided the hotel management with a photo of a lock with a key in it that had a large tag with multiple things written on it that I had found on the floor next to my luggage that had had been ransacked. The lock is associated with elevators. Various members of the hotel management either passed us off to someone else or told us the losses would be paid for by the hotel — but that did not happen. We were left to pay our own expenses for replacement luggage, shoes and clothing, etc. to be able to continue our trip to another city and have now incurred additional expenses to replace glasses, jewelry, the passport, etc. that were stolen.

I stayed at the Riu Ocho Rio from April10-14 I booked a family suite garden view, when I arrived they gave me 2 rooms that’s not what I paid for ! The room was so stink smelled like mildew that I couldn’t even stay in the room the first night. staff tried to clean it with No prevail. The food was horrible made me sick. I spoke to managers several times that did not to accommodate my family and I. When day of check out I never received the Covid test back had to wait for hours almost missed my ride to the airport which is 1 1/2 away. The staff didn’t care everyone has attitude. I would never come back here and wouldn’t recommend this place.

My stay was April 6-11 ,April 10th night before before leaving the hotel I fell getting out of the shower, water leaking all over the floor , the incident was reported to the Nurse and report was taken, security was made aware I am Nurse as well. IT was a pretty hard fall I hit my head, I did refused transportation to hospital in Montegobay. Not sure of the expense and there health practice and if my insurance would be exceped I decided to wait until I reach home to follow up with my doctor . I was told at the front desk$ 45.00 to see the nurse to follow up with blood pressure check, since I have my health issue. She came to my room but she failed to do basic nurse practice I head my head no neurology checks done, no pupil check I had stoke in 6-28-21 so you can understand why I was afraid to travel to hospital.

I like to make a billing complain on my stay at Rui Hotel Cancun. Me and my guest where charge double for our stay. The reservation was on 3/24/2022- 3/28/2022 under my guest.

My guest check in first and paid the bill for both of us, but when I arrive I was told by the front desk I needed to paid even though my guest already paid the full amount. I was unaware our booking was already paid for and I paid them with my credit card.

We were very disappointed to find that the normal lunch time restaurant wasn't functions any more because the hotel as moved over to All Inclusive to allow us to eat at lunch time, all additional bars on the beech have gone.

We paid an extra 480 Euros just so we could eat at lunch time, however the drinks offered weren't brand drinks but cheap alternatives.

There were so many restrictions on what you could have and what you couldn't have, it spoiled holiday
We did not enjoy our holiday at all and we have been and this hotel many times over the years, our Riu Class membership number is [protected].