Hotel Riu Palace Santa Maria

Just back from a week at the Riu Palace Santa Maria. We had a brilliant time. The food was good and plentiful. We didn't try the 4 additional restaurants as we are not 'foodies' but they looked full every night with lots of choice. Entertainment was very good, and very professional.Drinks mostly branded and the staff exceptional. So many pools and lots of sunbeds available no matter what time of day. As 2 'over 60 yr olds' the walk from reception to the pool areas and beach IS a fair walk, but pleasant and everywhere is so flat, so accessibility looks well catered for. Rooms really spacious, with fab shower, comfy beds and very clean. The beach has miles of soft sand and is spectacular but the sea current is very strong and so we used the pools whilst at the hotel. For a change we went to the beach in Santa Maria which is beautiful, easy to walk into the sea, and the sea is like bath water. The walk to Santa Maria town can be a bit of a stretch for some so a taxi is only €5 euros each way. Santa Maria is vibrant with lots of souvenir shops and a fun market area to practice your haggling. To finish, just want mention the staff at Riu Palace again ; they were exceptional and so kind and helpful, nothing was too much trouble so thank you. We'd love to come back!

We travelled from Glasgow as a group of 4. First time we've travelled late in the afternoon so we didnt arrive till 7.45 pm. Got room keys, dropped our luggage and went to the buffet for dinner. We didnt go to neon night as we've been many times before so we just sat in the lobby and had a few drinks. The lobby is a beautiful area but can get very busy and some people were just standing around as there were no seats left. We requested villa 3, top floor, same as our last holiday to Riu Santa Maria and we were allocated room 2137 on the top floor. The rooms are lovely, very spacious with lots of storage space and a brilliant powerful waterfall shower. The air-conditioning worked very well, sometimes too well during the night so we switched it off and just kept the fan on when we went to sleep. We asked for more pillows as we felt one was just a bit too low for us. The fridge wasnt stocked until we asked on the app for it to be filled on our 5th day there but we didn't need it till then and it was done within an hour. The grounds are very wide spread with quite a bit of walking so we were doing between 10 and 12 thousand steps a day just going between our room, pools,restaurants and lobby bar. All areas are kept beautifully. The staff work really hard to keep everything clean and tidy. We got sunbeds at the quiet pool to the right of villa 3 and got the same spot every day. Theres loads of daily activities going on but we were only there for a chilled relaxing week so didn't take part in anything. We felt the night time entertainment was very disappointing. A show at nine then a couple of singers singing slow, chilled kind of songs. Good singers but we felt they really need more upbeat kind of music to keep people awake 😴 There was karaoke a couple of nights aswell but nothing great. Just our opinion, maybe its other people's kind of thing. The buffet food was lovely with lots of choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We managed to book all 4 a la carte and thought the Asian and Italian were best. They were all nice but these were our favourites. The drinks were fine, we didn't get branded spirits but our drinks were always nice whether it was cocktails or spirits. We went into Santa Maria twice. Its beach is beautiful with powdery white sand and gorgeous turquoise sea. Bought a few tops and bracelets from the market sellers, had a wander round and had lunch and cocktails at a couple of bars. My new fave cocktail is capi black. So easy to make so I'm going to try making it at home soon. We had a fab week at Santa Maria and I'm sure we'll be back again soon.