This will be a pretty long review: If you are seriously considering staying at the Riu Palace Las Americas, Please Read Carefully.

I just got back from my honeymoon trip which lasted 8 days at RPLA. This was my 3rd trip to Cancun in 3 years and once I saw the location and facade of the RPLA on my first trip to Cancun I when I had to stay there. I researched the hotel as thoroughly as possible and saw a lot of good reviews and some negative review that caught my attention. Before we went on the trip I have been excited to get back and write a review of the hotel, mainly because the reviews that I have read have been extremely helpful in finding other hotels for my wife and I.

LOCATION:

Probably the best beach in Cancun (IMO), and centrally located near a lot of the hotel zone shops etc. The beach was large and is not battered by large waves, and has extremely clear water. There is a nice rock outcropping for walking and a great little snorkeling area on the hotel property. A+

HOTEL:

The lobby is huge and very nice looking with many of the restaurants also in very clean states. When you get past the first floor and outside, there is visible wear and tear around the hotel property and in the individual rooms. No amount of cleaning will replace the outdated furniture and decor of the rooms or worn carpet in the guest room hallways (nor will it replace the rock hard beds in the rooms). THERE IS ABSOLUTELY a musty / mildew smell in the entire hotel and in the rooms. The smell is not the smell of salt water from the ocean, IT IS A mildew / dampness that permeates everything. When we got home from our trip, every item of clothing and the bags taken had to be cleaned to get the overpowering nasty smell out. The only time I did not smell the mildew was when it was overpowered by cleaning detergent.

FOOD:

Simply put, what a disappointment. I ate at all of the restaurants and all of the buffets for every meal, and the food was simply not on par with all inclusive resorts in the RPLA's price range. The breakfast buffet was sad. There was a very limited selection of food, with horrible orange juice. I should note that the buffet dining facility was in excellent condition and was always clean. The hotel did have the best honey melon I have ever eaten anywhere, which was mostly what I ate for breakfast (that and bacon). The lunch buffet was much the same, a poor showing for a hotel such as the RIU. The dinner buffet was surprisingly good, depending on the evening’s main courses. I did not eat at any of the specialty restaurants that "WOW"ed me, but I thought Krystal was the best. The Japanese restaurant was the worst of all. I think it was the Sushi that made me sick after eating it. (Note: didn't get sick any other time after any meals).

HOTEL ROOM:

I had a Jr. Suite on the 7th floor with a balcony that wrapped around 2 sides of the hotel. It was probably the best located hotel room in the hotel (just being honest). The view was absolutely wonderful. It was a great and extremely large room with a hot tub on the terrace, but all of the furniture was extremely outdated and had definitely seen some heavy use and I would not have put myself in the hot tub if I was on fire. The "white" hot tub had a tan / brown tinge to it with water rings all over...eww.

SERVICE:

I checked in around 2:00pm local time and had to wait 2 hours to get my room, whatever. The room wasn't ready so we just walked around and had a few drinks. The first night, I put the air conditioning to 68 and woke up in the middle of the night sweating. There is nothing worse for me to try to sleep in a hot / damp / musty room. I talked to the receptionist the first thing in the morning and let them know that the air conditioning wasn't working. They seemed to look at me like I should be whispering to them so no-one would hear that I was complaining. I went to the lobby a total of five separate times over the next few days to try to get them to fix my air conditioning. The average room temperature in my room at night was around 78-80 deg. They finally told me that what I wanted was unreasonable and that the air conditioners were working fine. After the fifth time asking and having people in my room flipping switches and looking at window cracks and door cracks, I decided that I was better off not asking anymore. I talked to a few other guests that had problems with their AC units as well, and others that the A/C would freeze them out if they set the temp to low. The air conditioning problem tainted the whole trip for both my wife and I after spending most of the day in 100 degree weather and wanting nothing else but a cool room. My wife and I didn’t go out to the bars in the evenings this trip and we were usually in our room by about 9:30 hanging out. At least 4 of the nights we stayed at the RIU a staff member would start hammering on the door between 9:30 and 10:00 pm bringing more towels. They just open the door without any notice like it is normal to go into people’s rooms late in the evening. It was beyond strange. I almost want to believe that they were delivering the extra towels in the evenings just to keep an eye on the guests and make sure no-one got to rowdy. Maybe…maybe not?

POOL:

The quite pool was reasonably clean and quiet in the morning and only started showing signs of bits of trash and sand (but still quiet) in the afternoon. The pool with the swim up bar was absolutely raunchy on any day after 1pm. Imagine a bar room floor where a hundred people were getting drunk and smoking with not enough ash trays, then add drinking games and as much free alcohol as everyone can handle. The last time I actually got in to the "party pool", I waded through an abundance of straws / limes / trash, and almost ran into what looked like a wad of "snot" the size of a yellow post it note. Don't get me wrong, I’m in my mid 20's and got rather smashed a few times on our trip and drank every day I was there. The hotel party staff seemed pretty good at what they did though... This is a party hotel. Don't bring your kids or yourselves if you don’t mind loud music and people getting hammered on a daily basis.

STAFF:

Front Desk: So long as you didn’t want anything or have any complaints the hotel staff at the front desk were perfectly nice. Other times they seemed to act as if they knew you were at there mercy whatever happened.
Bar, Restaurant, Maids, Etc.: Everyone else was very helpful and nice.

RECOMMENDATION:

I won’t go back to the hotel unless it is remodeled, and wish I would have gone back to the Cancun Palace for my honeymoon. This hotel has an amazing beach and looks really neat from the outside and in the lobby. If you decide to go anyway, remember to post your review here after you get back. I hope this review was helpful and have a great trip.

Wedding – After months of research, we chose this hotel for our beach wedding, and all the research paid off…the wedding was absolutely breath-taking! Since the Cancun beach is public, I was really worried about sunbathers being right next to our ceremony, but there is a pretty rock formation where they have the ceremony and they do a great job of clearing out the beach-goers (although there were a million people watching our wedding from afar….it was kind of cool, we all felt like movie-stars!) It was a nice hotel for an affordable price for our 32 guests. The wedding coordinator was great when we arrived (although it’s a little nerve-wracking because there was not much communication prior to arrival!). We used their photographer and videographer – Luz y Sombra – and they were PHENOMENAL – I can’t say enough wonderful things about them!

Pools/Beach – Pools are very nice – 1 for relaxing, the other for having fun! Both have infinity edges looking out at the pristine white sandy beach and turquoise blue water, one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen

Hotel Condition – this resort is beautiful with its ornate interior, Spanish style architecture and feel…I could definitely tell however that it was a bit of a weathered…a big part of this being the strong musty odor in our room. Even though we had a huge suite and walk in closet, they smelled so bad, truth be told, we never wanted to be in there….which there is plenty to do at the hotel, so it wasn’t that huge of a deal. Some people from our group also had this smell, other rooms were fine.

Food – we ate nearly every meal at Don Roberto which is the giant buffet they have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food was good, with a wide selection, but it did get a little old by the end of our stay…getting reservations for the restaurants was not easy even though we were there for 5 nights. The restaurants only seat 30-50 people at a time and they only make reservations for 6:30 pm or 8:45 pm. El Romero steakhouse was FABULOUS (wedding reception was here), Tapas rest. was great, and the Brazilian was good. Krystal (fusion cuisine) and Sakura (Japanese) were always booked and those were 2 we really would have liked to have eaten at.

Hotel Service – was inconsistent. Maybe I’m crazy, but we really thought that by bringing such business to their hotel we would feel special, receive a warm welcome, and consistently good service. We are very friendly, smiley, outgoing people and would think we’d get the same in return. This was not the case. There is a huge staff there, and there are some are wonderful! Others, just seemed tired and annoyed by tourists in general, and so used to having weddings that its nothing special at all.

Coco Bongo - YOU MUST GO! Its $50 and a late night, but was one of the highlights of the trip! AMAZING shows for all ages (Austin Powers, Beach Boys, Elvis, Beyonce, etc.)!

My husband and I booked the RIU for a long weekend over Fathers Day. We had a great stay and would go again, however, there are a few things that I will comment on. If you are reading this, you are trying to gather all the info you can to make a good decision on where to stay in Cancun! I use tripadvisor as my major source of information when researching my vacations.

The pictures you see on this site are exactly what you see when you arrive. The hotel is beautiful. When you enter the lobby the first thing you see is the breathtaking view of the infinity pool and green/blue ocean. The landscaping is immaculate. The employees worked day-in and day-out to keep everything looking pristine. It was very very clean. The hotel, rooms, and grounds were great.

Check-in was a breeze, I think the entire process took 5 minutes. The staff is very friendly and accommodating.

As we went to our room, I will have to agree with others who commented on the smell in the hallways (and room). It is a chemical smell (not musty). You tend to get used to it while you are there , but when we arrived home and opened our suitcases, the smell was overwhelming. Even after washing, the smell is still in our clothing. It is not a musty smell, it is like a cleaning solvent smell. Another thing to note is that we actually had a king size bed in our room (some people mentioned they had two doubles pushed together). The bed was BRICK hard. I did call down for a mattress pad, and one was brought up, but honestly, it didnt really help. Maybe the double beds are softer? I don't know, but I can tell you that I am not picky about where I sleep, but this bed was HARD. We had an oceanview Jr. Suite (rm 235).
We loved our balcony and enjoyed having drinks outside in the early evening while watching the people at the pool and enjoying the view of the ocean.

The pools were nice, but in order to get a place at the "quiet" pool, you had to get up at 4am to "reserve" a spot with a towel or some other personal belonging. IF you were lucky enough to get a spot at the quiet pool it was fabulous. The staff puts large cushions on the king size loungers and it was so comfy. There is plenty of room to rest, nap, read or just enjoy the setting. Very very nice. You can usually get a spot in the late afternoon if you have had enough sun and just want to relax. The activity pool had the same issues with loungers, most were "reserved" by 8am!! The staff at the activity pool did a great job keeping everyone entertained. They had volleyball tournaments, name that tune, bingo and a variety of other activities for everyone to enjoy.

We stayed on the beach during our stay and did not have any trouble finding a chair on the beach. There is a towel hut and you can exchange towels all day long for a new ones if yours gets wet or sandy. The water in the ocean was calm and warm. The ocean floor was sandy (not rocky) and the staff raked the beach each morning so there was no ocean grass or seaweed in the area. There was an area of rock/coral off to the side, and you could check out snorkeling equipment at the activity hut if you want to. We checked out a kayak and had fun rowing out in the ocean (but my arms are sore!!). The staff on the beach literally ran back and forth to make sure everyone had a drink in their hand. They were excellent.

Now for the food. There is one large outdoor restaruant that you can enter in beach attire. This restaurant had hamburgers, hot dogs, nachos, fruit and a variety of other "easy" food options. There is another restaurant (connected to the outdoor one) that is also casual (and airconditioned) that has a breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffett. The food was OK. The other restaurants required the men to wear slacks, and with a sunburn and 90 degree temperatures ,we just didnt want to do that. We did try to make reservations at the Steak House one night, but by the time we got to customer service desk (8:45am) it was already booked up. So remember to bring slacks if you want to go to the specialty restaurants, and book early!!

The location was great. We walked to an area about 5 minutes away that had a RainForest Cafe, Coco Bongos, Carlos and Charlies, Starbucks, shopping, flea market and more. It was fun and you can walk without worry. We went during the day, so Im not sure what it is like at night. There is a bank with an ATM right across from the hotel that dispenses pesos, and the ATM by the restaurants actually gives US dollars.

We booked a Jungle Tour with Olympus and it was fabulous. We had so much fun driving the 2-person speed boats. Take the time to look at the tours and see if one might be of interest. They are worth the money, give you a bigger picture of the area, and make for great memories!

What we liked best about the hotel was the friendly and accommodating staff, the cleanliness of the facitlies, the beach, and the location. What we liked least about the hotel would be the food choices at the buffett, the dress code and reservation system at the specialty restaurants, and the HARD bed.

Overall we had a great time. Drinks, sun, and smiles were plentiful. We would definately return to Cancun and the RIU Las Americas.

As many of you TripAdvisors readers have likely done already, I did my research too before my visit: you know, you get over informed about this hotel and others before booking. I had high expectations and virtually knew from the websites what the rooms lobby, pools, and restaurants looked like. Everything lives up to once's expectations, the place is grand, spotless, elegant, decadent even. That was anticipated from the research. What I was not expecting is the level of service. It is really bar none the best I have ever had. From the moment you get there, you're welcomed and you're told: "we have been expecting you" and you are given a welcome cocktail. Regardless of who you are, the whole staff is always there to greet you, assist you, help you and pamper you and the best part is that it feels so natural and sincere. The restaurants in the hotel are wonderful with food choices that make your head spin. Since it's all inclusive you literally never have to spend money on food oustide of the hotel if you wish, which is wise since some of the finer restaurants in the the city can be ridiculously expensive. My dissapointment comes not from the amazing staff at the Riu Palace but from (shall I say it?) some of the patrons...Yes, it's all inclusive but TIP people, TIP! the staff is bending over backwards to make it the best visit you can have, just give back, isn't fair? My only complaint about the hotel itself would be the smell in the rooms which if of course with ocean front rooms has to be humid, but this one was a little bit more than I expected. There must be a way to neutralize it. Also, your minibar is always stocked with beer, water and sodas at no additional charge, The location of the hotel is prime. You can walk anywhere nice and there are also beautifully landscaped walking paths in front of the two Riu's which are right next door to each other. To recap: outstanding service, stunning facilities, very clean, prime location and cute rooms. When you get off the plane you start seeing "Welcome to Paradise" signs everywhere. It is paradise! Everyhwere in Cancun you get the same professional, punctual, smiling people making your stay amazing...we should tip accordingly and respect what they have built and work so hard to keep spotless. Cancun is paradise. Go.