Riu Palace Aruba - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

9109 reviews

• 

  Great Hotel, mediocre food.

  Overall, the hotel is beautiful. Great pool, good bars, great location on beach, large rooms, good views from rooms. Bring a large container to pool bars otherwise 6 0z cups constantly being refilled. They'll make anything and give you as much alcohol as you want. If you want a covered spot on beach, go down at 6 AM to reserve. Nice beach swimming. Board walk on beach goes more than a mile in either direction. I did a lot of beach walking on shoreline and boardwalk. Sunsets on beach. Bring lots of $1 bills - tipping is normal. Service everywhere was great. Now the bad things: - Very noisy AC in room. I probably should have had them look at it. - Lots of nighttime noise from shows. Ask for a room facing away from pool. I switched and it was much better. Outfoor shows go till 11 PM every night and 1:30 AM on Saturday. - 4 specialty restaurants. I'll start with Italian. There was an antipasto bar - half empty, cold, slimy, very poor quality. 45 minutes to start to refill it. Vinegar/oil on table, but no bread. When they finally started to refill bar, the food coming out from kitchen was cold runny and inedible. They finally started bringing food to other half of room about an hour after we arrived. We left without eating. Second restaurant was 'new age '. Asked other people and were told not to bother. 3rd was Japanese. Sushi dinner was good. Other options, according to my better half, not so good. 4th - Steakhouse - spoke to others who defined it as okay. Buffet: extensive and relatively varied. Had good fish, sushi, and side dishes. Steak was tough. Pork was dry. Desserts were good. Fruit was good. Service was great.

  Dec 20, 2024
• 

  Riu Palace once great not so much anymore

  Not what it used to be. This hotel was one of the best but now seems dated and worn. One elevator broke on our first night, never fixed while we were there. Tiles are cracked everywhere, and the place needs a refreshing. Our first visit over 10 years ago everything was fabulous. Now, there are no waiters on the beach and only 1 by the pool. No beach crew out raking the sand and making it pristine anymore. Seems like staff has been majorly cut, and the amenities are definitely suffering. If you don't get out on the beach by 630am, every palapa is taken. There is no beach crew walking around, and most of the beach lounge chairs are broken. Piles and piles of broken chairs. It's still the best beach spot on Palm Beach. There were many non-hotel guests using the palapas. It's very annoying. Would definitely come back as Aruba is a magical place, but probably try a different resort. Third time at the Riu Palace and most likely our last. The Hyatt and Hilton, both very close to the Riu, still had beach crews raking the sand, and both had waiters on the beach.

  Dec 20, 2024
• 

  A waste of time and money A Riu experience that ruined all our Riu experiences

  The construction noise can be heard on the beach and in the room all day long The security staff are not professional and friendly and they ruined our day and didn’t apologize about their mistake I will NOT recommend. Being a Riu customer I should say Aruba is way below Riu Standards. Don’t expect a Riu experience in Rio Palace Aruba.

  Dec 19, 2024
• 

  Excellent

  Good food, good weather in Aruba as always, clean room. Buffet could get very busy. Always good activities around the pool. Chairs easy to find around the pool but fill up quickly on the beach. Water very calm. Overall I would recommend

  Dec 19, 2024
• 

  Riu really dropped the ball on this one!!

  Let me start by saying that this was my 22nd RIU vacation. I am a loyal RIU ambassador, but I have to say that RIU really dropped the ball on this one. Vacationing at the RIU Palace Aruba is not cheap. A 7 day vacation in November during non-peak season will run you about $5,000 CDN for 7 mights and that doesn't even include your airfare. The vacation started off wrong from the get go. We were a group of 6 and I had emailed RIU Class asking for us to all be together on the same floor. When we got to reception, we were told that we were all in the same building and on the same floor. That was nice. But, what we weren't told is that we were in the building where there is construction going on. Our rooms faced the pool and ocean, again very nice but we didn't have a balcony. We couldn't even enjoy the views and take in the sounds of the ocean. For a Palace Resort, this was unacceptable not to have balconies. Being a RIU Class Gold member, we could have been placed in another block. When I mentioned that to the reception girl and even showed her my RIU Class card, she said "You got what you paid for". I have never been spoken to like that ever at the 21 previous RIUs I have been to. My RIU Class card meant nothing to her. Aruba has always been my dream destination and to be treated like that from the minute I arrived left a bad taste in my mouth. Next, the rooms. The resort is getting very old and needs a remodel very soon. For RIU to charge people those kind of prices is highway robbery. Our room was very worn out and really needs to be updated. No balcony. The food. The food was really good at the supper buffets and the A-LA-CARTES, but the buffet breakfast was not that large and was always mostly the same food, but again really good food. For a Palace Resort, the buffet should be a lot bigger. Also, the beach and pool buffet restaurant was closed so we all had go go to the main buffet every day. The drinks. The drinks were good and they did have the champagne free flowing and some good quality liquor. The hotel as a whole. The hotel has a whole is very big and beautiful. The grounds are very well maintained and the pool is lovely. The beach and sand are amazing and there is coverage for all people that need shade. The staff. Most of the staff were nice and polite, but there were a few sour apples among the bunch. Overall, this Palace Resort is in need of a big overall for the rooms and some of the staff need better customer service training. They need to realize how expensive it is to vacation in ARUBA. Again, this was my 22nd RIU vacation, and I am second guessing on whether I will be vacationing at another RIU resort again. I hope that one of the Spanish RIU management team members contacts me for more information on all of my 22 trips. Luis RIU would be nice.

  Dec 18, 2024