This is an incredibly beautiful property and the pools are heated and amazing! The views cant be beat. The rooms are nice.
Only drawbacks I found where:
-Liquor is low grade
-We werent able to eat at any of the specialty restaurants because they required going to front desk at 7am to get a reservation. The only one we ate at was the Japanese and it was horrible.
The buffet was pretty good though!
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Overall:
This resort was nice but did not meet expectations.
Important:
Cabo is a beautiful spot to visit (i highly recommend it). However, it is a more expensive destination to visit. THEREFORE, you will spend the same on a 4-star hotel in Cabo as you would for a 5+star hotel in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. I have been to a number of 5-star all-inclusives in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta (this is my first time at a RIU - (I have stayed at Secrets resorts and Palace resorts) - the RIU Palace did not rank at the top of my list.
The good:
- Clean: both outside around the pool, the grounds, and the rooms.
- Lots of sun chairs by the pool - no need to wake up early to get one
- Great pool drink service - always asked if you wanted a drink
- The weather - it was sunny for all 8 days we were there
The bad:
- Food: the buffet was okay (a lot of selection but food was similar to lunch buffet). The specialty restaurants had very little variety and after a few nights we got tired of having the same choices for dinner (i.e. each speciality restaurant had basically 3 choices on the menu - chicken, beef, or fish). Other all-inclusives that i have stayed at have had large, diverse menus at their speciality restaurants (i.e. sushi at the japanese restaurant, or lots of mexican dishes at the mexican restaurant). At the RIU Palace Cabo, you could basically get the same food at the buffet as you could get in the specialty restaurants.
- Only one choice of beer at the hotel (Dos Equis) - if you are a big beer drinker you might get tired of having the same beer for 7-days
- Drinks were not strong - watered down alcohol is expected at all-inclusives, however this place didn't make strong drinks (even if you tipped and asked for more alcohol in your drink)
Tips:
- Ask for a room on a higher floor away from the lobby/disco (we had a great ocean view room away from all the noise)
- Go into town for dinner - you will get tired of the mediocre food - we went to a place called The Office in town for EXCELLENT seafood.
- Take a tour to lovers beach - it's beautiful
- if you are willing to spend more money don't stay at the RIU Palace Cabo
Just got back from this all inclusive from 7/5/14 to 7/11/14 , hotel have fantastic view , close to the city of Cabo San Lucas ( 10 minute in a cab for $14.00/each way ) typical RIU Palace lots of drinks and food , comfortable rooms , hotel is super big and in a nice location ,super clean , most of the workers are very polite, this RIU PALACE is not perfect but in general we had a great experience in this hotel , security is tight so don't worry about finding intruders in this place , if you a pool fanatic , the pool left to the lunch buffet is really nice and quieter than the other one, look for Tejas he will get your drinks quick and he will take care of you the way is suppose to be , if you are not a perfection addict I recommend this place to have a great vacation in Cabo san Lucas .
We just returned from the Rui Palace Los Cabos. We had a wonderful time. I would recommend it to anyone. Below are my notes on the resort, food, entertainment, etc...
Location: The location is about 35 minutes from the airport and has an amazing view of the arch and rock formations. Taking a cab into town only takes about 5-10 minutes and cost us (group of 6) $20.
Resort: The resort was beautiful and very clean. People were cleaning non stop. The only complaint would be the gnats. They arrived on our last 2 days. We were told that they are a weather related issue. The first 3 days were totally fine.
Rooms: The room was very clean. The bed was comfortable enough. We reserved an ocean view and read on this site to send an email the day before to request a certain side of the resort. The concierge responded shortly and said they would give us priority status but that is was dependent on availability. We ended up with an ocean front room and you couldn't ask for a better view. The only complaint for the room would be the air conditioning. It was cool in the room but very damp. Everything seemed damp after a few days. It took forever to dry my hair. We had friends staying at the resort also and their rooms were almost freezing cold and not wet. So I guess it depends on what room you get. We had room 1028.
Food: The food was really good. Both buffets had a huge variety of options. The Japenese place did not require a reservation and we were pleasantly surprised at how tasty everything was there. The sushi rolls were somewhat generic but the quality of the fish was excellent. Reservations for the other restaurants was pretty painless. We did have to get up early for the fancy Krystal reservation. I got the sirloin there and thought the surf and turf at the Steak restaurant was better actually. But the shrimp soup at Krystal was my favorite thing the whole trip. The only complaint on the food how heavy everything seemed. By the end of our trip, I just really wanted a salad or turkey sandwich.
Pools: The pools were beautiful! Loved the infinity pool in all four pools. It let you gaze out at the arch with out any obstruction. The swim up bars were fun. I liked how they had seats and tables in the water. The water in the swim up bar pools was very warm compared to the big pools. At any pool you could get a drink without having to wait very long. We found the service at the quieter swim up bar was better then the other one.
Excursions: We did the sunset luxury sailboat cruise. It was really neat. By accident we were the last to get on the boat and had to sit in the back. Which would out wonderfully. We had shade, seats with backs, and a table.
Service: The service was excellent. Any special request was taken with out hesitation and although they would say they weren't sure they could accommodate us, it always seemed to work out.
Other: There are a few things that everyone seemed to think were a must do in town.
1. Cabo Wabo bar and grille. We tried it twice. At lunch it was pretty dead. We went again around 8:00 and It was just getting busy. It's probably more of a party scene later and we had free drinks at the resort so didn't stay.
2. The Office which is a restaurant and has live music outside on the beach near the water. We did not end up going but saw it from our boat and it looked fun.
Just been there June 2 to 9. 5 Star expectations! Lobster almost all night! Excellent food choices, there is always new menu everyday. The best that we have experienced with any of the all inclusives we have visited. The hotel and grounds are clean and extremely well maintained.. The staff were friendly and could not do enough for you. The pools were very good, and always had lots of loungers available. Not being able to swim in the ocean was a negative. Beware of sudden intense wave with no warning. We were brought down by a wave when we were walking 20 feet away from the water. Our knees were hurt by the sudden twist caused by the freak wave accident. My Digital camera was submerge in the water and now broken, the other couple that was walking in front of us lost their sunglasses and slippers. It was really a freak one. Anyways, I told the front desk that I need to call a tool-free number to advise my insurance. When we checked-out, we were charge US$32.00 for using the phone although it was a toll-free number and a collect call from outside the US. That was ridiculous, they were paid by the insurance for the collect call and I have to pay also because they won't let me check-out. After many letters to RIU, they finally said, they cannot do anything about it because it was their policy. Later I received an apology email from the management but none the less, my claim is turned down. For good customer relation, I think US$32.00 is nothing compared to over US$2,400.00 that a couple of customer has paid. Anyways, BEWARE!
I spent 5 days there last week with a friend and from the time we checked into the hotel until the morning we left there were issues we were not pleased with. Upon check in they said they only had 1 person down and we had to spend an extra $600 to get a room for 2 people. I sat at the front desk on the phone with expedia trying to fight this for 2 hours and never once did anyone at the front desk offer to try and alleviate the problem. We checked into a room that was a 10 minute walk from the lobby and just about everywhere else. This hotel looks great in photos but was not at all what we expected. Literally everything is outdoors including restaurants/ bars/ entertainment/ and even the lobby, so there is no air conditioning anywhere except for the hotel room. On the second day our keys stopped working and 3 times we had to go to the front desk to get new keys only to find out that the battery in our door needed to be replaced. We ended up waiting in the hallway that was roughly 100 degrees for about 15 minutes before someone finally came to change the batteries. I made reservations upon check in for the steak house restaurant and when we got there we were told there was no reservation on file and they refused to seat us. We had to walk all the way back to the lobby to argue again and finally someone was able to validate that we did in fact have a reservation. One evening after having dinner in town we took a taxi home and had a fight with the driver in the entrance of the hotel after he tried to rip us off and lied about the cost of our drive (which was literally down the street). After hearing us fight with this man, a gentleman from the front desk came over (I was hoping to help us) but he basically took the taxi drivers side and insisted we pay what he asked or he would call the police. At that point I felt like our safety was a huge concern and paid the taxi driver but continued to argue with the gentleman from the front desk about how absurd it is that they wouldn't try to reason with the thief who was clearly trying to take advantage of us. We left our safe open by mistake one morning only to find out that their "protocol" when a safe is left open is to literally pull out and itemize every single thing in the safe and change the code so a security guard has to come to the room and re-open it. In the process he asked us to sign a sheet of paper that was written entirely in spanish and although all of our items were in fact still there (thank god), I had no idea if this guy or anyone else had made copies of our passports or credit cards. They insisted it was a liability and they have to keep track of everything that is in the safe, which I sort of understand but at the same time this is a complete invasion of privacy. We also kept having issues with the maids coming in and out of our room at strange hours and on our last night the fire alarm went off about 6 times throughout the night (as if my anxiety level wasn't already in full gear). The beds were also very hard and the bedding was not comfortable at all. The best times we had were outside of the resort because the food was not good either. It's also important to know that you can't lay near the water on the beach at this resort and it's blocked off by a rope to keep out the people who sell things. We had to walk 15 minutes to get to safe water on the beach and to do any sort of water sports. The one positive thing I can say is the staff was very friendly, but unfortunately they were just not very accommodating considering all the money that was spent.
