Hotel Riu Cabo Verde 5*

Well this is a difficult one but I’ll keep it simple. This hotel is advertised and sold by TUI as a 5 star establishment. This is simply misleading. The accommodation is on-par with higher end 3 Star hotels that we have stayed in. On day 7 of our holiday we discovered mould (top to bottom) on the back of the PVC curtains covering the patio door to our terrace. I complained about this to the TUI Reps in the hotel and to be honest, they treated me and my complaint as an inconvenience. The food, the restaurants ,the staff, the grounds, the beach are all fantastic and probably just about worth the 5 star rating. You’ll find that many reviews will support what say and this was the general view of our fellow guests during our stay.

Just stayed here for a week and would give an honest review of 4*s, however easily 5*s if they done a few amendments. The check in process was done within minutes, staff were extremely friendly and your suitcases were in the room for when you got there. The main buffet wasn’t repetitive, there was a large amount of variety each day and never really too busy which was good. Steakhouse and Italian restaurant was lovely which you had to book through their hotel application. There was another restaurant but was unable to book due to no availability. There was a snack bar by the pool which accommodated when other restaurants were closed. Plenty of sun loungers, even going to the pool around 11am we were able to get them. Daily entertainment around the pool was spot on as everyone was taking part. Not sure what the last review is on about …hand sanitiser is offered to you in person by a member of staff as you walk into any of the restaurants. The room was a good size, bed was comfy, nice balcony and bathroom was a good size. There were 4 bottles of spirits on optics within the room (Vodka, Gin, Rum, Whiskey) which you could help yourself too and they are re-filled once empty. A fridge containing Coke Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Larger and water. These were topped up every 2 days. The rooms were cleaned to a very high standard each morning. There’s a 24hr sports bar available but didn’t use it. There was also a coffee shop which was lovely and all included. You’re able to walk into the other RIU hotels and utilise their pool/water park which was ideal and I believe they weren’t allowed into this hotel but not 100% sure as there were security guards checking colour of wrist bands when re-entering this hotel. Only issues I found was the WiFi was very intermittent and definitely need more staff at the pool bars and evening bars as there was a lot of queuing which was frustrating as they know the resort is extremely large and accommodates a lot of people so should ensure more staff to serve at a quicker pace. Would definitely revisit in the future and wouldn’t be put off by the poor reviews.