Reviewers Rating: 
Excellent
Travel Dates 4/19/00-4/26/00
Transportation- My husband and I booked our vacation through Apple Vacations. All ground and air transportation was either early or on time. Bravo to Ryan International Airlines. We flew out of Baltimore, MD.
Hotel Impressions- The property is beautifully landscaped and elegant. Very classy. It is beautifully lit up at night. Definitely looks like a six golden apple property as rated by Apple Vacations. The open air lobby has ceiling fans and you can see the pool, palm trees and ocean from the reception. There is an upscale beach shop and a gift shop in the main lobby. Bring lots of reading material. They sell no American magazines or books. Nice marble floors , wooden columns, and wicker couches. Gorgeous paintings on the walls of the lobby. They hand you a drink as you check in.
Check In/Room- Three of the four desk attendants could speak English. The view of the ocean is somewhat covered by all of the palm trees. There is no room with full ocean view. The hotel is set back from the beach behind the palms. I believed there was as least ten minutes of bargaining and begging when finally the clerk promised that we could move to an ocean view room on day 2. Thank goodness. The room we were initially assigned was on the first floor and overlooked the roofs of the shops on their shopping area "Carribean Street". What a view! It smelled like mildew. The lamps on the wall were broken. The toilet wouldn't flush well. The shower was broken. The furniture was a bit beaten. A fruit basket was placed in our room. I tried to feel better about that room. Room #2 had vaulted ceilings (top floor) and a wonderful view of the pool and beach. The air smelled clean. There was a huge 10 ft. mirror hanging from the ceiling. The balcony had nice wooden rockers and a glass topped table. The furniture looked new and nothing was in disrepair. We tipped Patricia a $20.US after we got the room we wanted. The hotel earned its six golden apple rating after this move. Yes there is a safe, a refrigerator full of sodas and beer and spring water in the room. There are four dispenser bottles of liquor on the wall. (vodka, whiskey, rum, and brandy I think.) We aren't huge drinkers but alcoholics would love this place. Maid service was adequate. They cleaned the room daily and replaced towels. They also reentered your room in the evening to turn down your bed. Sometimes they left flowers and candy in the room.
Food- There are really only three restaurants. El Patio is the main buffet restaurant (located inside of the hotel) which has a dinner menu as well. You are assigned a dinner table for the week. Service was superb in all of the restaurants.
Breakfast- Highlights of the breakfasts included those fabulous omelettes made to order and the juice bar with freshly blended fruits. Champagne was always available for breakfast as well. Lunch- Lunches were ok. I can't put my finger on it but I simply didn't enjoy lunch as much as I loved breakfast and dinner. . The food simply wasn't as tasty and the variety was limited at lunch.
Dinner - They had live music( band or piano player) in the dinner reception area with drinks and appetizers for the waiting dinner patrons. One night the employees came out and danced with the guests. Dinner is always announced with a town crier type who greets everyone with "Good Evening" in many languages. The servers all line up in the entry hall of the restaurant to greet the incoming guests. It always included beef, chicken, fish and sometimes pork. Smoked salmon was available at every meal. There were lots of salads and vegetables prepared in various ways. Fried bananas were my favorite. I loved the mussels steamed in the shell and the calamari. My husband ate lots of shrimp which was served with the heads on. Desserts were super. Ice cream bar was available. I never got around to eating at the ala carte outside restaurant at night. You must make reservations for this one. It looked empty for most of the week. The buffet was so good we didn't want to try ala carte. Some foods could be found everyday. We probably would have grown tired of the food if we had stayed a second week. There was enough of a variety to make eight days exciting.
Beach- It's breathtaking! Words can't describe how perfect and clean it is. Nice gentle blue/turquoise colored waves. Wonderful white sand that never gets hot. We staked out a group of palm trees and set up a table, umbrella and two padded chairs each day. Plenty of empty chairs are available each day but if you like a particular group of palms, I suggest you head out there by 9:30am and reserve your spot with some towels. My husband enjoyed massages on the beach everyday ($20.US). Beware :There are a lot of topless women on the beach. Women and men wore thongs. Nudity is attractive in our twenties but for the over 30ish crowd, clothes should assist where gravity has taken over. Topless, thonged out of shape ,elderly people simply made the week hysterical. I never went into the pool. During Easter week the kids had taken over the pool area. They were all over the pool area with their inflatable toys. The hotel doesn't host children's activities and I really wished that the adults had left the little ones at home. There are better resorts for kids down the beach. There were aerobics on the beach daily, along with volleyball, darts and table tennis etc. Motorized sports were shut down for Easter week. They reopened during our last few days. They had the banana ride, parasailing, windsurfing, kayaking and glass bottom boats. There are tents with souvenir vendors on the beach at the off of the Riu property. Many deals to be made on paintings, t-shirts and such. Bargaining was a must.
Nightly Entertainment- We saw several marvelous shows. We enjoyed the variety show, Carribean show, and the Broadway show. The only complaint was the lateness of the shows. They started between 10:00 and 10:30PM. There were two theaters. The Copacabana was the nice outside theater. I liked this theater because I was able to breathe without inhaling too much smoke. Those Europeans smoke cigars and cigarettes like chimneys. La Boheme (the inside theater) was elegant but I actually experienced chest pains from the smoke in there. I couldn't breathe and had to walk outside. Can you imagine smoke inhalation on your vacation? I walked through the tiny casino. It was definitely not Vegas or Atlantic City. Just a few slots and some tables in a room. I never made it to that disco. It opened at 11:00pm.
MONEY SAVING TIPS: I made good use of the internet cafˇ on Carribean street. $7.00 US for 20 minutes. I sent email messages to my family there. Didn't need to worry about expensive phone calls. There are no pay phones at the Riu. No phone cards are available either. Calls from your room can be a killer. There are a variety of high priced tourist type shops on Carribean Street. Skip them. We made better deals in the beach tents. There is a beauty parlor, gym, photo shop and pharmacy there too.
Our Rating: We would definitely stay at this hotel again. It certainly earned all of its apples. Our vacation was wonderful. The service was superb. The property is just as it appears in their brochure. I do recommend standing your ground and insisting that you get the room that suits your taste.
Pam T.
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