I went to the Riu Cancun with my friend for two weeks holiday, I had the most amazin time and im most definatley going back to this hotel next year. I cant understand the bad reviews, as there is nothing bad about this hotel. If people think this hotel is bad, i cant imagine what they are used to, as we were treated like royalty the whole time we were there. The staff are absolutley fantastic, from the waiting on staff to the entertainment staff, you cant fault anything. The food is out of this world, there is every kind of food possible. I would recomend this hotel to aqnyone, and i wouldnt take notice of the bad reviews, they obviously dont know fantastic when it hits them in the face.

I booked this for a Christmas getaway w/my adult children. Our flight was about one hour late landing, but we were relatively quickly put on a transport and taken to the hotel. On check-in discovered that they did not have my preferences/request (or so they said) on our rooms and they placed us in standard rooms in the bowels of the hotel. These rooms were terrible. They smelled like wet dog. The bedding stunk, pillows stunk, towels stunk. I went back to the front desk and told them this was not acceptable - their response was "you can stay in the lobby." Finally they consented to move us the next day (confessed they were over booked and had already given out the room type I had reserved), but we would have to hang around until the rooms were ready. The 2nd set of rooms were more inline w/what I had reserved and quite acceptable. The only issue was that we had to spend a day hanging around and checking/rechecking w/the front desk to move (trade keys, etc.) until the room situation was straightened out. Felt like we lost a day of holiday (exploring, etc.) waiting on them. The front desk (believe me I asked for managers, etc.) was terrible - rude, didn't care, refused to get manager, etc. This really ruined a short holiday get-away and left a bad taste.
Upon return to the states, I did contact our Vacation Booking company (Worry-Free Travel) and have to say that they really stepped up and sent me a future travel voucher ($750.) due to the fisasco on the hotel. I felt this was very generous. Sad thing was, this was a gift & I felt it got ruined & I was powerless to correct it.
Food was okay; good selections.

Loved our stay at this hotel from start to finish and really wanted to give it five out of five but there's just a couple of things that let it down. I shall come onto those at the end.

But onto our experience, pulling up outside this hotel for the 1st time from the airport we just knew we had made the right choice. How anyone can say this hotel doen't have wow factor is beyond belief. From the outside it is simply stunning. The lobby is stunning also and the welcome we received was warm and genuine. Checkin was easy, we had our bags taken from us, were taken to the bar for a welcome drink and given everything we needed there and then. No queuing at the desk, no hassle. I had emailed the hotel a few weeks prior to our arrival & asked for a room with a good view. They did not disappoint as we were allocated the 15th floor with a stunning view of the ocean and infinity pools. The grounds of the hotel are spectacular with fountains, trees, shrubs and 4 gorgeous pools. The swim up bar isn't the best, the stories regarding drunken people sitting in there all day do hold some truth, although we didn't think it was as bad as other reviewers made out. The hotel beach is beautiful, white sands and crystal clear water of course come as standard, and getting waiter service on the beach is an added bonus! It's not the widest beach in parts but there's still plenty of room and we never had an issue finding a lounger even if we headed down there at midday. The restaurants were all very good, the main buffet had a different theme every night so didn't get overly repetitive & there's the 3 al a cartes also. Never had a problem getting reservations for these. Not sure where the stories have come from with regards to having to get up at 7am to book but they are not true. You can book any of the speciality restaurants any time until 3pm and up to 2 days in advance. The steak house was our favourite but all 3 are worth a visit. My only disppointment with the food was the lack of Mexican dishes. Was really looking forward to Mexican food but the hotel seemed to cater more for its American guests.

Now to the 2 best things about the hotel. The staff and the location. All the staff we came across from front desk to cleaners, bar staff to entertainers couldn't do enough for you. Always had a big smile on their faces, greeted you whenever they saw you and were generally helpful and a joy to be around. They took great pride in their jobs and were extremely efficient in everything they did. The location of the hotel is in my opinion the best in Cancun. The main bar/club area is only a 5 minute walk away and there are countless restaurants and shopping centres within a 10-15 min stroll of the hotel. No need to fork out for taxis.

Now for the negatives. Only a few but they need to be mentioned and are the reason why this hotel hasn't scored 5/5. The hotel needs to upgrade the rooms. The communial areas of the hotel are modern and spotlessly clean and they make the rooms look somewhat old fashioned. The furniture needs to be updated and the beds weren't the most comfortable I have slept in, although not as bad as others have made out. There were also a lot of guests who seemed to have problems with the air conditioning, ourselves included. It was very noisy and kept us awake at night. We needed it on all the time because of the humidity. In fairness, the front desk sent someone up to look at it straight away and the problem was partically resolved, although it was still noisy. We were offered to move but wanted to stay on the 15th floor so declined and put up with it. Another issue they need to sort out is the air con in the lifts. The glass lifts are stunning but far too hot coz the sun shines into them all day. Sometimes it felt like you were going to pass out in there! The rooms and corridors are also very musty, very diificult to prevent in a tropical humid climate.

Despite these few little gripes, please don't be put off by the negative reviews. The hotel is stunning and overall you will love it. Our stay was excellent. If they could sort out these few little problems, it would be perfect.

I stayed at RIU Cancun in April 2009.

I've divided this review into two parts - PROS & CONS.

PROS: The RIU CANCUN is a clean hotel. You will find the hotel staff cleaning the floors all day long. The location of the RIU is perfect – if you are looking to be close to the action. It's close to shopping centres, bars, nightclubs and restaurants. We almost never had to use a bus or taxi (however, we did use a taxi to get to RIU Caribe). The beach area is not wide, but it is long, tons of areas that get sun all day. Many previous reviewers complained about lack of sun presence due to shadowing of hotel - but this is not as bad as those reviews make it out to be. Sun out until approx 4 pm in pool areas. And trust me, considering how strong the sun is most of the day, you'll have had enough of the sun by 4 pm! There are four separate pools at this resort and each pool has it's distinct feel to it - there is the infinity pool, where a lot of adults and kids hang out... then there is the pool bar, where the teens hang out...and then there is a pool on the west side which is pretty empty most of the time. Decent quality of food. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 24 hour Sports Bar had a ton of healthy food alternatives (salad, eggs, and sandwiches). Three a la carte restaurant choices as opposed to typical one or two choice in previous resorts visited. No pressuring to buy drugs. No timeshare pressure at all (we didn't get approached once!). Three times now visited Cancun and no rain at all. Great thing about the RIU chain is that you can visit the other hotels in the area. We were able to go to RIU Caribe for the day, where we chilled in the one big pool and had lunch in their buffet restaurant. Our room was nice. We got a King sized bed (and it wasn’t two small beds pushed together – but an actually king sized mattress). We had an open bar in the room that was stocked with RUM and two types of TEQUILA and stocked fridge with water, coke and beer. The safe was included (we did not have to pay extra). The bathroom was very spacious with two sinks and a decent sized bath tub. The closest was large and had tons of hangers (more than twenty hangers). The maid service was great – we asked for an extra pillow, and got the extra pillow the next morning. Almost all views are ocean views. We were lucky enough to be on the 13th floor – we highly recommend it. The rooms on the 13th floor do not have railings, but a concrete barrier – which acts as a noise barrier at night. Whereas most rooms in the resort could hear music from the night clubs, we didn’t hear anything!

CONS: Where do I begin - the service in the buffet area is lousy. The staff there is generally unpleasant all the time, never smile, and seems annoyed at you. During one breakfast, we were completely ignored and never asked if we wanted coffee. The lack of elevators was annoying. Since we were on the 13th floor, it was a long and tedious task to get to the first floor. For the number of rooms and people staying at the resort, there should have been more than four elevators. And once I got on the elevator, I was always disgusted to see food and alcohol everywhere. There is only one swim up bar, and most of the people in the swim up bar pool never leave (kind of disgusting considering that when you drink you need to pee more frequently – and where are they peeing if they never leave?? I’ll leave that to your imagination….). And this resort is not for families. It is geared towards younger people, and not families. There were few things wrong with the room, but they were corrected within 24-48 hours – our remote control and hair dryer were not working when we first got there. The BED is extremely uncomfortable. Yes, it is true that the bed is only for sleeping and shouldn't be that comfortable...however, if you are expecting a four or five star resort, you should get a DECENT bed. The bed is far from decent. I had the worst sleeps of my life in this resort. The amount of Mexicans walking the beach selling sunglasses, or sea shells was irritating. We were bothered every ten minutes. Also frustrating was the large amount of Mexicans that were not staying at the resort, but were on the beach, using lounge chairs. I don’t expect security on the beach, and I was ok that there was no security on the beach, but I did not expect and I did not like the amount of lounge chairs that were taking up by people NOT PAYING to stay at the resort. We have stayed at many resorts, in many countries and what we took for granted there, we did NOT get here. For example, there was no complimentary newspaper. Oh, there was complimentary newspaper – but less than five newspapers, and you had to pick it up at the reservation desk before 6:00 am. When I asked one morning (around 7:00 am) if I could have a newspaper, I was informed that they were all out because they only get “a few” copies. The one thing we didn’t like about Mexico (and this has nothing to do with the resort itself) was how aggressive staff are becoming about getting tips. We were pretty much harassed every time we went to bars, nightclubs and restaurants outside of the resort. This is something you should consider when going to Mexico – if you aren’t aggressive with them immediately – they will walk all over you. We went to Coco Bongo’s and the City, and they tried to squeeze as much money from us as possible…and they were not even nice about it. Staff in Cancun night clubs have not learned customer service skills and do not appreciate vacationers.