My wife and, age 30, stayed at the RIU Cancun from 11/10-11/17.
I love to vacation in the Caribbean and we had a great time again. The hotel is very nice and the service was great. My wife and I were happy with eating breakfast and lunch in the glorified mess halls but we did not like to eat dinner in them. We ate at both of the reservation restaurants twice, we liked them both and went out twice to try some of the local restaurants. The pool and beach area is in the shade from about 2:00, this was no fun. This hotel is very tall and because it's right in the heart of the action and it doesn't have a lot of grounds to work with This is an issue with most of the hotels in the "hotel zone". All jacuzzi's at the hotel are the same temperature as the pools, which was pretty cold. I have never seen a cold jacuzzi before that wasn't broke. The Riu Palace is right next door. The cost is a little more per day but it may be worth it. If you are staying there you can go anywhere on both properties. Staying at the Riu Cancun, you are not supposed to be on the Palace grounds. You will also have to wear a wrist band while you are staying at the resort. If you do not enjoy Mexican made vodka, did you know Mexico made vodka, you need to ask for Finlandia, they also have other better liquors like Bacardi. It seemed that 1/2 the people were from Europe, I liked this for 2 reasons. One, it was great to talk to people from other places and two, European women do not wear tops when bathing. All in all it was a great vacation. I will go back to Cancun again but I will stay further out of town where the hotels have more grounds to work with. I don't see a need to stay so close, the bus runs just about once a minute and it cost 60 cents.

Stayed at RIU Cancun from 11/4 - 11/9. Had great weather. Originally given room on 15th floor (top floor) but asked for room on lower floor and got 7th floor - which was better.
Nice room - I didn't think the bed was too hard.
We only ate at buffet restaurant - the food was fine - nothing spectacular but OK.
The pool area is nice but there is a short amount of time that the sun shines on those areas. After the 1st day you realize where to sit to have the most sun - but you have to get to those chairs early. By about 2:30 the pools are in the shade & the pool water is pretty chilly.
The hotel is within walking distance to shopping plaza, Mexican outlet, flea market, CocoBongo's, Senor Frog's so there is always something to do if you get bored at hotel. We found that we got the best deals at the shopping plaza directly across the street from hotel. The Mexican outlet had huge selection of just about everything. We went to flea market and looked around but did not buy anything there - not in mood to negotiate & no prices were shown on anything there.
This was our 1st time to hotel in Cancun as we usually go to Playa del Carmen. I prefer the type of hotels in Playa as opposed to the high-rises in Cancun.
I was happy with our hotel, room,hotel staff and especially the location. The only downside was the shade at the pools.
Would recommend this hotel especially to people who want to be near alot of nightlife.

I stayed at the Riu Cancun for a week at the end of April '07 with my husband. It was our silver wedding and the first time we had holidayed abroad without kids. We had a fabulous time and didn't want to go home. We are normally ready for home after about 10 or 11 days of a 2 week holiday but here 1 week wasn't enough, though we packed a lot in. We thought the hotel was excellent.
The decor in the public rooms was very stylish and grand. Our room was large and the bed seemed massive. Admitted the bed was hard, as mentioned by many other visitors, but we managed. There was a well stocked full size fridge with beers, water and fizzy drinks plus optics with spirits. The room was very clean.
We were on the 10th floor i think with a side view of the sea and the side pool. We had no problems with noise and no problems with the lifts which, by the way, are glass and you get a great view of the lagoon. I don't like heights but whilst I didn't mind the lifts, looking over the rail at the top of the spiral stairs did something not nice to my stomach!
The hotel grounds are lovely and provide a nice backdrop for pictures. There was always room by the pools and the infinity pools are really nice. You feel like you are in the sea.
The food!! I fail to see how anyone could complain about the food, much of which is cooked in front of you. There was so much choice at every meal and it was all well cooked. The waiters were friendly. We ate in the main buffet restaurant every night except one when we tried the Brazilian. It was fine in the Brazilian but we felt there was no point in going there instead of the main buffet which had so much choice and they had various theme nights.No complaints at all and we had both put on a few pounds when we got home despite not going over the top.
The location of the hotel is spot on and the weather was hot. We managed to pack in swimming with the dolphins on Isla Mujeres, a very long day at xcaret and the jungle tour including snorkeling in the cenotes and the sea. We also did a club crawl with the reps but didn't really enjoy this. I felt like I was being forced to join in to silly games etc.
We would definitely recommend this hotel and would be very happy to go again.

We stayed at the Riu Cancun from November 1 - 4, 2007. The property is located on the North Shore of the hotel zone, a twenty minute ride to/from the airport. I say with confidence it is one of the nicest looking properties in the area.

In general, we enjoyed many parts of our hotel stay. The staff members were kind and helpful. Everyone said hello to each other all of the time and their pleasant attitudes made the stay really enjoyable.

Our room (706) was amazing. We had a king size bed and the room looked just like the pictures on the major hotel websites. Our ocean view was wonderful. The bathroom was very nice. The room was larger than I thought it would be from the pictures. The housekeeping staff kept the room in great shape. The floors were cleaned, refrigerator filled, and sheets/towels changes every day. One day we came back to the room and found our shoes organized. It was awesome. We cannot stress how hard the staff works to make the hotel so clean and friendly. A huge thank you to them.

The hotel pools were nice as well. There are 4 pools at the Riu Cancun. One is more of an activities pool, one a "see and be seen" pool, one a pool bar, and one a quiet pool. Because we went during the winter months, the sun went behind the building quickly leaving nothing but shade by 2:30pm. That meant finding a sun-chair by the pool that maximized sun time was tricky. You had to wake up early to get those chairs~ on the peninsula by the far pool (the see and be seen pool). The only pool I didn't like was the pool bar. It was windy so drinks were spilling over into the water and so were cigarettes (you can smoke pretty much anywhere). As a non-smoker I found the smoking to be tolerable outside, but annoying in elevators and in pools.

The long stretch of beach was nonexistent at times. The waves and current were so strong on two days, the water came up to the hotel wall leaving only small beach areas on either end of the hotel. Regardless, the sand was soft and white and some areas were quite rocky. Because of the wind the waves we didn't do much swimming at the hotel in the Gulf, though the water was warm and blue.

The food at the hotel was just ok. It wasn't excellent, but it wasn't awful either. I was disappointed by the specialty restaurants. If you have had good Brazilian and Japanese (sushi) in the past, you'll be disappointed too. On the other hand, we were really impressed by the food selection and service at the buffet restaurant, Don Juan's. The staff was attentive and the food was excellent. All of the fish dishes were wonderful. The only thing we noticed about a few items on the buffet was the salt ~ some items were very salty. Otherwise, the food was fine. A lot of variety and it's free after all. You can't ask for more than that really.

The drinks were ok too. Not very strong, but again, they're free so you can have 20 if you want. I loved the Coronas in the room and I loved the espresso machine in the lobby bar. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the never ending supplies of nachos, cheese and jalapeños scatted throughout the hotel. Drinks at check in were a nice treat.

Overall, we thought the Riu Cancun was great for our short three night stay. The crowd was pretty diverse ~ adults, kids, couples, singles, Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans. We probably wouldn't go back to the Riu Cancun if we wanted a quiet or relaxing adults only vacation, but it definitely met our needs for a perfect weekend getaway.