My wife & I went to Jamaica for a 1 week honeymoon and we stayed at the Riu Ocho Rios. We had the most fun we have ever had on a vacation. The food was excellent and of a great variety. There buffets had lots of choices, and we thought the food was very good. The best food was from there Jerk Hut which served Jamaican Jerk on the beach, and that was absolutely delicious!!!!!! The also had nighly shows, which we attended every night. The shows were very fun and entertaining. They have games throughout the day, which were fun to play in and to just watch others play. The pools are great with a nice bar in the pool. I would definitely recommend to everyone I know to come and stay at the Riu Ocho Rios.

This hotel was our top choice for getting married and we loved every second of our trip. We had a total of 50 people with us, 6 of which were children from the ages of 20 months to 6 years old. The entire group stayed here May 12 - 19 2008 and then my husband and I stayed an extra week (until May 26). We highly recommend staying an extra week if you are getting married on a resort. It gives you time to relax with eachother and enjoy the excursions. With 50 people travelling for your wedding, you will definitely be busy. Trip from the airport is long however what do you expect, your in the carribean staying at a 5 star resort. Check in when smoothly. They actually upgraded our entire group to junior suites just because my husband and I had upgraded. With the wedding package you are upgraded to the next level of rooms upon availability. This was tough to get but after going to the front desk 3 times and being understanding we were upgraded the day before the wedding (2 days after arriving) and stayed in the suite the rest of our trip. The room was awesome, very big, jacuzzi tub, living area, large bathroom, large balcony, etc. All of our other guests enjoyed their rooms too. The only complaint was the bug problem. There were quite a few mosquitos and some of our guests got bitten badly. Not sure if that is the time of year or if its always like that. The resort, pool, beach, and food are all amazing. The wedding went smoothly. The only thing that wasn't perfect about the wedding was the weather, it was overcast for that day, but what can you do right. Chandlyn the wedding coordinator was really sweet, made everything seem to easy. All of us girls got our hair and make up done in the salon. The salon girls were lots of fun and did an amazing job. Photographers were great too. Set up of the ceremony (on the beach) was awesome. We had our dinner reception in the upper part of the plantation restaurant (I think there is normally a fee for this but they didn't charge us). We also added a steel drum band to ceremony and rented the disco from 9 - 11 to do our private party and first dance. Both were well worth the money, we had a blast. Excursions were awesome. We did the Dunn's River Cool Runnings tour. You climb the falls, go snorkeling, and get a on a catamaran boat which turns into a party booze cruise on your way home. Definitely a must if you are travelling with a group of people, and you don't get sea sick of course (the boat does rock quite a bit). We also did the Heven Sent zipline tour ... awesome. And the bob marley jeep tour, also really good, especially if you get captain crazy as your tour guide. The weather was good, especially seeing as we found out may is rainy season. It was overcast the day of the wedding and then rained off and on the next day too, but every other day was hot and amazing. All in all we had an awesome time, can't wait to go back to Jamaica, the peole were awesome, and we loved every bit of it.

This is kinda long but worth the read if you are considering going here:

My husband, I and 8 of our friends (party of 10) stayed at the Riu, Ocho Rio Jamaica property May 30-June 4, 2008. My husband and I had previously stayed at this property in 2006, and per our recommendation bought along 8 additional friends. We were sorely embarrassed by the demise of quality of your property once we arrived.
First, check in was a disaster. Not only were we traveling with friends, this was our wedding anniversary. We booked an ocean front room, however thought we would like to upgrade to a Jacuzzi suite when we arrived. The front desk clerk said he was upgrading us for free- our entire party. However the rooms were terrible once we finally got into them. No Jacuzzi. Our anniversary suite had 2 queen beds, and a roll away bed still dirty from the last person who stayed in it. After requesting that it be removed several times, our friends help my husband move it in to the hall so that we could have space to walk around in the room. The bed linens left a lot to be desired. They were not comfortable and seemed worn. Finally, the mosquitoes! My husband started to keep count of the number of mosquitoes in the bedroom he killed each day. He killed on average 35-40 mosquitoes a day. That is pretty outrageous. It was so bad, one morning in our sleep we must have rolled on a mosquitoes lying on our pillows because it was covered with blood in the morning. Pretty gross. I sprayed the bed with Off Bug spray every night going forward. We were unable to enjoy our hotel room due to the critters that had taken over. The hotel did nothing to remedy this.
The services are average. The Spa seems to have decreased in services since last time, but over all it is average. Our entire party order massages at some point, but the spa attendant made a big deal about us all sitting in the spa hot tub area together, even though some were sitting in chairs and some in the tub.
The bartenders and hosts are generally good. They seem to work very hard to keep everyone entertained. No complaints about them-they made it fun.
The restaurants need some work. Sir Richards is not good. The menu is quite disgusting. The service was good. The wine list needs work. The Chinese restaurant was good. However when you have party 10 it is hard to be silent. There were several severs and guests asking us to be quiet, which was unreasonable.
At the Japanese restaurant the server was VERY rude to my husband. We were 10 minutes late for our reservation and 4 people from our party still had not arrived. The server rudely responded that if they don’t arrive here in the next 5 minutes they WILL NOT EAT. We are totally reasonable people, buy think that when people are on vacation more emphasis should be placed on making their vacation memorable and relaxing. Being 15 minutes late for a dinner reservation should be manageable... No one told us upfront about this policy, and frankly the server was rude. Our friends did show up in the next 5 minutes and everyone was able to eat without any additional drama. We also ate at the steak house-which was our hands down favorite. The food and service was awesome.
The facility needs some upgrading in general; the sports bar smells disgusting and indicative of a mold problem which probably is not healthy for anyone to be in there for a second let alone long enough to play a round of pool.
Speaking of pools, the quiet side was our favorite but the pool didn’t have enough water in it to cover the jets in the hot tub section of the pool, but the water was cold so guess it didn’t matter anyway.
We hope the RIU will rectify these issue and not continue to allow it’s property to decline in quality. We bought a group of 10 adults, but will not return without a guarantee that measures have been put in place to ensure that patrons will receive quality services they paid for. I will not recommend the hotel to any of our other friends that visit Jamaica and will be heitant to stay at ANY of the RIU properties throughout the world.

We stayed at the riu ocho rios for a week from June 28- July 7th

Our trip started out really slow because our flight was delayed and instead of getting to jamaica at 9 am we got there at 1 am so we basically lost a day....

We booked a private driver through Lee's Tours and it took us 1 hr and 15 mins to get to the resort....

When we got there, it was dark ... so we checked in and went to our room...

The first thing I noticed was a slight musky odour when we entered the room...but after a couple of days it went away ....

the room was nice we were on the second floor ...looked like a typical riu room...in room bar and stocked up fridge...the first night we had trouble sleeping because of the sound of birds and crickets outside out balcony...even with the door closed...(not sure if anyone else has heard this)

-the balcony we got was huge
-the bathroom was clean
-no bugs
-no iron but we called for one and got one in the morning
-fridge stocked up with water, beer, and pop

FOOD:

the food was good...the breakfast buffet always had something for everyone...

lunch we always had jerk from the jerk hut on the beach!! it was delicious everyone must try it at least once...

the a la cartes were Great..we could only do 3 because we were just regular room guests......reservations weren't as hard as I thought it would be, we just called down 9:30 ish and booked...

the asian one wasn't worth the wait at all....we ended up eating at
the buffet afterwards....

BEACH:

-the beach was beautiful, the water was calm and clear....
-always plenty of sunbeds

POOL:

-we only went into the pool once....in the suite side....the water seemed clean a lot quiter than the other pool...

Excursions:

we did 3 excursions..and we book them with LEE'S TOURS


The bob marley tour (9mile)

It was a great experience, especially if you are a bob marley fan...but be prepared to be offered ganja, if you don't want it just say no ....everyone there is very nice...you see the kids on the fence singing along with the tour guides..after the tour we went to a field full of ganja .and we got to meet CAPTAIN CRAZY...look him up on youtube...he's a character!!

Dunn's River Falls

This was a Crazy experience ...It felt so unreal ...the water just rushing down while you try to climb .....definitely a once in a lifetime experience..I would suggest to buy swimming shoes if you plan on doing this because the rocks are slippery and it costs 5$ to rent them ...some parts get deep so I wouldn't suggest this excursions for kids who don't really know how to swim....

Hooves:

This excursion was sooo much fun...great for all ages....
we went down a trail through st Ann to the bottom...by the ocean once we got to the ocean we took a break they gave us complimentary limeade and then we got back onto the horses and rode them into the ocean...it was great! my husband was last so when we were in the water ....some of the horses ahead would poo, and it would go to him so he didnt enjoy it too much!! but it was exciting ...cause the waves would push on the horse and you would be trying to stay on it while it gallops faster to keep up with the other horses...


We also went Snorkeling but just with scuba caribe with the resort....

it was okay....we went on a glass bottom boat to maybe a 5 min ride away ....got off the boat...got to see some stingrays....tiger fish...blow fish ....and some other fish that I wasn't sure of the name ...but plenty of them for sure

Overall it was a lot of fun....the staff was friendly.....the place was clean....I felt safe where ever I was....the FOOD WAS AWESOME!!
and nothing was really that expensive ..just remember nothing is the last price in JAMAICA!!


I would Highly recommend a Private driver....
-it gets you to the resort faster
-you can take your time when your on excursions
-you basically have your say in your whole vacation

go to one of the bars and TRY A MIAMI VICE....it'sdelicious ...

just go there with an open mind....

and you will have the time of your life!!