Hotel Riu Palace Mexico

We had a great time at RIU Palace Mexico, it’s newly renovated rooms are spacious and very clean. Beds and pillows comfortable, cleaners do a fantastic job. The grounds are vast bit of a walk from your room to the pool area and beach. Staff and hotel management all wonderful and helpful. Food & drink good lots of choice, something for everyone. Beach is kept very clean but they did not have parasols for shade on the beach so in the afternoons it would get very hot the palm trees did not provide enough shade.

My third time staying and my worst it was better before the upgrade. No welcome drink provided when checking in then had the explanation of that i wasn’t Elite and how they had priority in all the restaurants as well as a swimming pool just for them and top brand drinks that were not permitted for non elite guests. Really made to not feel like my continued loyalty and custom wasn’t appreciated at this hotel unlike the Riu hotels I have visited this year,had an upgrade due to being a diamond member and was given a garden view over the fountain. The gardens have been all but destroyed gone are the flower beds the hedges all ripped out now it’s just grass with a bushy plants very disappointing for a hotel of the Riu Group. The main buffet restaurant is a quarter of the size it was the food is cold and also of poor quality and not replenished when empty, first time i have ever been in the buffet restaurant and been the only guest eating when open some guests were eating at the other palace due to the food being better, the food was that poor some nights i walked out in disgust it was that bad. The steak restaurant and Krystal were slightly better but limited choices only 4 items of the menu to choose from octopus wasn’t cooked enough in the Krystal i ate 3 times in each have eaten in other Riu’s with the same menu which had better preparation but this could just be down to it only being open a few weeks it’s like they’re standardising the hotels as they remodel them. Pool area is good pools have all been renovated and pepe’s moved from the beach to next to the quiet pool and tiki taco is a good addition, but the constant construction noise from the hotel next door was unbearable often over 90 decibels which can cause hearing damage the management didn’t seem to care we had this noise all day for 14 days, this was on top of the 2 elite pool room being dug up to be repaired and a room where the balcony window had been removed. I had issues with no hot water in the morning in my room reported this had to vacate my room while they investigated nothing was fed back to me or the issue fixed. The staff are a credit to the hotel and the service is second to none Omar and all the staff in the lobby bar as well as Pastor around the pool bar, felt sorry for the entertainment staff not really much going off at night time Kahoot was hit and miss and people where just sat around looking at each other other waiting for the main show to start Piano in the lobby bar was the highlight of the night. The managers have no answers for all the complaints in the two weeks i was stopping i have never heard so many people complaining this hotel has the highest number of returning customers than any other Riu and the highest number of Diamond members, sadly this will not be the case for much longer, you will get the happy clappers who can’t say anything bad about the hotel but it has changed for the worse.