Riu Palace Peninsula - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

9121 reviews

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  RIU Peninsula- Perfect

  Loved everything there. Room, Restaurants, Pools, Beach and Entertainment was wonderful. The only thing better than the grounds was the Staff. Thanks for great time to Hector by the Villa Pool and Alessia in the Buffet Restaurant

  May 17, 2025
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  Not 5 star experience as advertised, 3 star at best.

  Not the best experience. We have stayed at RIU properties before in New York and in Playa and both were great experiences. This experience left quite a bit to be desired. Check-in was fine, but we were told rooms would not be ready until 3pm. That was fine. However, when we returned at 3pm, they were not ready and we were told another 15 minutes. Then only one of our two rooms was ready. They were not adjoining as we had asked, but only slightly down the hall, which was fine. We had to wait until 3:30 for our room, which isn't too big of a deal, but we had already been there for several hours. When arriving in the room, my daughter and her friend found an open water bottle sitting around, hair on the counter tops, and sheets with marks all over them. They cleaned up the hair and bottle but asked for new sheets. Our room was fine when we arrived. My daughter was celebrating a birthday. We had emailed ahead for a delivery to the room and were told it would be the next day and I verified this at check in. Fine, no issues. That night we requested extra pillows for one room and an extra blanket for the other. The room that requested the extra blanket, never received it, but the pillows were delivered to that room. My daughter had to walk them down the hall to us. The extra blanket never arrived...whole time we were there, even after asking again. They also removed floaties from the room and when we asked for them back, we were told they never remove items. They were there when we went downstairs to eat and gone when we returned. They were floaties, so whatever, but still they didn't even look for them, just told us they didn't take them. The next day, no birthday delivery all day. Went down the following morning and asked. We were told we never asked for it. I showed them the email and also explained we set it up at check-in with Ivan. The person stated it was not requested, but she would put it in for delivery the next day. It did arrive the next day, but not really a great celebration since it wasn't when we asked for it and we were told we'd never requested even though we had multiple times. Okay, so service was questionable when asking for things or requesting things to the room so don't expect much. Service at dinner was great. Food was only okay. Both the other RIUs had better food. Food was definitely hit or miss. Crab cakes were great at the steakhouse, but the steak was not great and neither was the lobster. Both were overdone with little to no seasoning. The Japanese restaurant was the overall winner for our group. They loved the sushi, and the salmon tartar was great. Dessert was pretty good there. Krystal had good appetizers but not much else. The Mexican restaurant was disappointing as it was not well seasoned and only okay. The service was great at each place. The breakfast buffet was good as it had omelets and crepes and fresh fruit. The lunch buffet was not great and the first day there were birds landing on the buffet and taking food off the buffet. The birds SAT for quite a while on the fresh fruit eating it while we sat for our first lunch. We were very taken aback by them allowing this. Only people trying to get the birds away were other customers while RIU employees just watched the birds sit on the buffet and eat from it. Worst part, coffee shop doesn't open until 10 am. What?! We were up at 7 am so we would have preferred an earlier opening time. The sports bar was open 24 hours and we figured out 3rd day they also had an espresso machine so we were able to get coffee at 7 am. Beach was great and we never lacked for a chair. They give you towel cards to exchange for towels and there is a fee if lost. We kept up with them fine and had no issues getting towels when needed. We even exchanged soggy towels for dry ones with no issues. First three days there was quite a bit of seaweed on the main beach, but side beaches were good. Last day, it rained that night and took the seaweed out which made for a better experience. Hotel can't control this obviously. Pools were good. We did spend time in the adult only bar pool and it was not okay. It was full of bugs and plant parts and only saw them clean it once in our four days, so we limited use of that pool after the first day. The larger infinity pool was clean without issue so if we went in pool, we used that one. Bartenders were all friendly and helpful. Shuttles for airport were helpful with little wait and were clean. Be prepared to tip as it is not included. We talked to the hotel excursion people, but could not find what we wanted. Walked over to the next hotel, Dos Playas, and it had a hut on the beach. Spoke with Eddy and he set us up a snorkeling trip that was out of this world! Highly recommend the Total Snorkel Cancun, which was not offered at our RIU hotel. The shuttle picked us up at RIU and returned us across the street. Check-out was also not our favorite. We wanted to check out early and leave our bags. Alejandro checked us out and was not friendly, didn't smile, and over all just not pleasant. (Found out from our daughter he was also the rude one about the floaties issue. ) I asked to keep our bracelets on so we could continue to use the facilities from 9am until we caught our shuttle at 10:15, he didn't respond and just began cutting off bracelets and then handed us a 2x3 piece of paper to carry around to show if asked. Very weird. This did not happen in Playa. Overall, the beach was great, location was great, hotel was definitely not a 5 star experience as advertised, maybe 3 star at best. Food was not great. I will probably not book our next experience with RIU due to this poor service experience. Sad because this was our 3rd RIU in 2 years and the other two were much better.

  May 17, 2025
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  Amazing Hotel

  Love this place!!! Service is great. Diego and Fernando were the best bartenders. The only thing I did not like is people being loud in the hallways very late at night. Pools were fabulous and ocean was perfect. No seaweed and very calm. 3rd time at this resort and definitely will be back after the renovations are complete.

  May 16, 2025
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  Fantastic!!!

  We love this resort. This was our second visit and many more to come. We had a wonderful time. Thank you to all the staff!!

  May 16, 2025
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  Great

  The trip was great. The stay was wonderful. I love all the entertainment. The food and drinks were on point. And the employees were top notch.

  May 16, 2025