Hotel Riu Vallarta

Two weddings and 20 pounds later I’m happy to say it was a great time!
We arrived at the resort at about 3pm. The lobby is completely open to the outdoors! Got to the front desk and to a refreshing beverage waiting for us! Immediately we were shown to our rooms and our luggage came right behind us!
Every room facing the back of the resort of course has a beautiful view! The rooms facing the front part of the hotel get the view of the lovely trees and land! (If booking ask for rooms or suites near the elevators in the rear) They are all very nice with a mini fridge fully stocked with alcohol and gets replenished every other day with anything you want!
There are buffets available all day but if you want some variety there are restaurants that take reservations! I tried the Steakhouse, (liked it) a Gourmet (didn’t try it) and Asian buffet (didn’t like it but others said it was good) All these are included in the «ALL INCLUSIVE“deal!
TIP: THERE ARE NO HANDICAP ACCESS ROOMS! SO IF YOU HAVE A PERSON IN A WHEELCHAIR THEY WILL HAVE TROUBLE GETTING IN THE SHOWER!
The pools have lots of lounge chairs but here’s a trick I learned the first morning… people take their towels as early as 5 am down to the pool area and reserve the spot! Well every morning I would go down and grab an awesome spot by the pool with the slides and restroom! :) I would go back to my room, go back to sleep! After breakfast I would just leave my stuff there on the chair and head to the beach! If anyone didn’t like it oh well!
The staff was great, very friendly and always helpful! The rooms have safes but I just left all my jewelry out and not one item was stolen! An ironing board and iron are in each room or you can get your clothing laundered for 600 pesos! WiFi is also available… yes for 650 pesos a week or the lobby offers free wifi only if you are in THE LOBBY!
Would I stay again? No… there are other resorts I’d like to experience but I would recommend it to someone that is thinking of going on vacation!
FOUR STARS

It’s pretty average for a Resort. BUT BEWARE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS
1. They charge 640 pesos for wifi in your room (week charge.)
2. The towels if lost (or if staff takes them while you are on the beach) will charge you $ 20.
3. The gym isn’t full service, and lacks almost everything.
And one positive. The drinks are strong

I have stayed at all inclusive resorts all over mexico and this is a good one. Food is above average and drinks are good. It is a older property but its still nice. Room had good ac and a clean bathroom. Mini bar was well stocked. Pool and beach are very nice. I would stay here again.

This is the worst and most disgusting hotel I have ever been to. The staff stole money from our room when we weren’t there. When we spoke to them downstairs they said they can’t do anything and they trust there staff. Then we saw someone who told us they had money stolen as well. They had bugs in there food and ants in there sandwiches. The staff do not care and I wouldn’t recommend this hotel to anyone.

Let’s start at the beginning. Upon check in, they didn’t have our reservation. I had a printed confirmation, with a confirmation number, clearly showing our confirmation. They would not allow us to check in until they verified it with their central reservation center, which happened to be closed on Sundays.
40 minutes later, they made me pay for one night (hello foreign transaction fees I wasn’t expecting), in order to be checked in. When they were about to give us keys, the reservation «magically» appeared, and they reversed the credit card charge… foreign transaction fees to remain.
For our trouble we were told we were going to be given a «very nice room», which was very standard, and overlooked the NOISY disco.
Buffet Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner were mediocre at best. At least it was edible, and so far no signs of stomach illness. The reserved dinners were a complete waste of time, at least with the crappy buffet you could see what looked gross or not.
The final straw was the child situation. I am child-​free and proud. I like to avoid them. When I reserved, it was with the understanding that there was an «adult» pool. This was confirmed when I checked in. There were many children in the pool. So many. Peeing, pooping, everywhere in the pool. There was a posted sign that pool floats were not allowed, but since there were so many children that I thought were not allowed, I waited until the activities were over, and the pool was empty to bust out my float and relax. I was pulled aside by the lifeguard, and told I had to get out. I pointed out the hoards of children that were in the pool, against the rules. He referred me to the manager. I waited and talked to the manager, and she had NO sympathy, and just repeated «the children are allowed everywhere but the Jacuzzi», and that this was a «family friendly resort», and that I should pay more to stay at the Palace next time to have a better experience.
Nope. I’ve stayed at the Riu Palace in Cabo. While it was better, it wasn’t by much, and I am never ever ever staying in a Riu Property again.

Place looks and feels old, not very well maintained, especially pools and pool area. Food is very generic and lacks any flavor. WiFi offered for free or paid but both have very week and unstable signal and requires to sign in constantly.
The positive note is that the air conditioning in the room is great. With almost 100° outside and very high humidity it was the only escape.

Just returned from a 5 night stay. 1^st time at this hotel. Food was very good. Buffet clean & staff was attentive. Steakhouse was excellent. Rooms very small. Beds hard & uncomfortable. Air conditioning out for a few days & the humidity was AWFUL! Activities staff was very nice. Always something to do. Pool was disgusting to say the least. Cloudy, tiles broken, etc. needs an overhaul. Beach was ok. A bit dirty. I don’t recommend going late July/​August. The water is very murky due to all the rain. The lightening storms at night are incredible! We really rely on honest reviews for our family destinations. I hope this helps families out there with kids.

We have stayed in puerto Vallarta twice now, the first time we stayed at the Riu palace for our wedding. Which is supposed to be more fancy than the Riu Vallarta, however I don’t really see a difference! If you can get a better rate at the Riu Vallarta then book here. They serve the same food at all the restaurants, and have the same entertainment shows from what I saw. Everyone was nice and helped us whenever we needed it. Every day the maids put a towel animal in our room which the kids really liked and they always did a great job cleaning the room. When we checked in they upgraded us to a family sized room for no extra charge and put two cribs in there for our kids. On my birthday my wife planned with them to have a cake (made of towels) and two geese (made of towels) shaped like a heart, with rose petals all over the room and a sign that said happy bday and the maids pulled it off while we were eating breakfast so when I came back it was a surprise! Over all was a great stay for our vacation and I recommend staying there if you want to stay in and all inclusive hotel where you can have as much food and drinks as you want!

I have stayed here twice in the past ten years. Great place to come with family but not much of a nightlife. I would recommend staying closer to downtown Puerto Vallarta. All the food is inclusive but the food is very generic and lacks any flavor. Wifi is free in the lobby but must pay for it in your rooms which defeats the all inclusive part. Nice hotel for a family vacation.

We had a good time at this hotel with our kid. The kids pool has slides that both adults and kids can use. The property is kept very clean but the rooms need some renovations. Also, the restaurants have Mosquitos in the dark areas and need more cleaning and ventilation. The staff work very hard to help customers but need to be reminded of the issues or requests you made earlier. We had to ask for liquor bottles to be refilled 3 times as they were pretty much empty when we got the room which was annoying. The worst part was the food! The buffet was boring, very small selections, food was tasteless and very salty. The food at riu Santa fe at cabo san lucas was much better. The drinks are very watered down in most bars but the lobby bar was ok. Don’t forget to bring mosquito repellent as they have tiny black Mosquitos almost everywhere. Overall a 3.5 star as this place was a budget friendly option with all the features you look for in a sun vacation.

Customer service a 5 this people try hard to please too many people that act like Divas… yeah I seen that…
This place is safe as it sounds, i left an apple tablet outside the room safe and when I came back (after a tour) was still there among other subvenirs.
Food a 4… just dot eat at the asian buffet its really bad.
Sorry but this is the worst asian food.
Cleanness a 4
Wifi…ok… let me tell you, this is the tough part, you only get 1.5 hours of wifi per day, you use it or not.
They need to work on Wifi.
Shows are ok just the mexican show was a little under performed because they only showed 5 mariachis, i dont know how many must be, but 5 guys only was a little poor.
Anyhow I enjoyed their service.
Also my wife got sick around 10:45 pm she needed some pills that to go buy them (somewhere because it was late) was going to take me at least 1 hour plus about 30 us dollars.
This girl named Alejandra at loby desk and another guy that was going to start his shift after Alejandra, they both worked together to bring my wife’s medicine.
This what I call going beyond customers needs.
This makes me come back because I know we’re not only safe but we’ll get an excellent customer service.

We were having a good holiday, the resort was pretty nice and the food wasn’t bad. This was until our room was broken into on our second last night and all of the money we had in our wallets was stolen. The hotel said that the door to the room didn’t appear to be tampered with and therefore we will not give you any money back. Our wallets were tucked away in our suitcases and we were just going down for dinner and the show so we thought they would be okay out of the safe. We were very wrong! We were gone for barely three hours and in the morning when I went to take money out of my wallet to go to the beach it was all gone. My husband checked his wallet and his was all gone too. This means someone came into our room and rummaged through our suitcases. I am extremely disappointed that the hotel will not reimburse us and were pretty much calling us liars. This was our sixth time to Mexico and we have never had anything like this happen. I will not stay in another RIU again!

Good place to be if you have all inclusive, I just can imagine how expensive it would be without it!

I was staying in this hotel with my friends and my daughter. The hotel by itself is very beautiful but service is terrible. Everything started when the key from our room didn’t work. (And when I’m saying the key-it’s real metal key not a plastic card) BTW it’s only one for room. :) It took only 45 min before someone show up to fix it.
Now about food: if you have gluten intolerance– you will fill hungry all the time. There is no seafood either. Pretty much hamburger, hot dog and french fries.
WiFi: In a lobby, you will see so many people are trying to get connections. I wasn’t the lucky one :) for 5 days only 1 of my friend was able to get on line but only for 5 min.
I’m still giving 2 stars only the place by itself is gorgeous, but I would never stay in this hotel ever again.

Stayed here with my family for 3 days last month and I can honestly say they can do so much better but they don’t want to try.(CONS) First off the place is huge! and very attractive but it slacks customer service big time! it reminded me of Wal-​Mart and I don’t want to be reminded of Wa-​lmart never! it is very crowded and if you ask for something the staff happily says yes then disappears. No Wi-​Fi in your room unless you pay an extra 15 $ bucks a day, so you only get 90 mins free wi-​fi in the lobby only. The Food is Buffett style and you know what that means! its plain and tasteless same goes for the watered down drinks at the bar stick to beer instead.(PROS) on the bright side the place is pretty clean the pools are great and the shows are not too bad, the mini bar in the room is also a plus since the drinks at the bar suck. I would maybe come back here one day maybe…

All inclusive hotel that is really worth it! The food was delicious and the service was great! We had a great time here.