Just arrived back from a 12 day stay at the Riu Palace. I have been to Cancun 2 times before this trip staying in other Hotels and I have to say that the Riu Palace had the best options for All-Inclusive eating. Krystal ("fusion") restaurant was our favorite followed by Tio Pepes. Food on the buffet was always fresh and they were continously cooking to keep it that way.

Pros: Beach in front of the hotel is very blue, clear, and clean. (much nicer than the Riu Hotel next door)

Lawn Chairs are plentiful on beach

Waiters are persistently on beach for drink orders

Cons: Not all employees at front desk speak or understand english very well (we were in Mexico anyways....we expect Spanish people to know English within the states) so this wasn't a frustrating or impossible problem..

Power blinked several times throughout our trip and one time we woke up sweating where it had been off the previous night.

Drinks at the outside bars are served in very small hard plastic cups. Seemed like a few minutes after we got our drinks we were ready for another one..

Overall we enjoyed the RIU and with the exception of the Cons listed above I would have rated this an excellent Hotel relative to the cost.

We stayed at the RPLA 5/4/08 thru 5/11. My husband and I went with his father, his sister and our best friend. We booked thru USA 3000/Apple Vacations. The only snag we hit upon arrival was that the Apple Reps did not have a "voucher" ready for us, couldn't find our names on their roster. They got that straightened out though.

Check in went fairly quickly. We arrived before noon, so our rooms were not ready. However, by 3pm our rooms were ready.

We never smelled any "musty" smell in the hotel. The staff were all very friendly and helpful. My father-in-law is deaf and the staff tried to be helpful and accomodating to him.

Our room was always cleaned each day by/before noon! We don't sleep in cause we don't "party" all night, so the cleaning crew was able to get into our room early.

We did have to reserve chairs early in the morning before we ate breakfast, but unlike others we did use them throughout the entire day.

The beds were firm, but we all slept GREAT!

The pools were relatively clean - but with all the people wearing all that sunblock and suntan oil, they did get a "greasy film" on the water by mid day. However, out of the other seven hotels I've stayed at in Cancun the pools were still clean in comparison.

Food was extremely good for an AI!!! We only ate at the buffet as there were 5 of us AND we were too lazy to make reservations. All of us were able to find things we liked on every buffet (breakfast, lunch and dinner) every day! The desserts are not as sweet as what we Americans are used to, but we usually found something we liked! Plus they always had fresh fruit available!!

We also incurred "rolling" power outages on 5/5 and 5/6, but it was not a big deal. The only big issue was that the elevators did not work at all for most of one day and it was a tough stair climb up to the 6th floor - especially for my father-in-law who is in his 60's!

The staff was ALWAYS cleaning EVERYWHERE! They were always polite, helpful and friendly - tips or not!

The beach while kind of small, was kept VERY clean and the water was fantastic!

Last year we stayed at the RIU Cancun next door, but the RPLA was much better! We would definitely stay at this hotel again.

We did do one excursion while in Cancun. We went to Garafon Park on Isla Mujeres. What a waste of money! The snorkeling was a big let down. Plus the restrooms and locker rooms smelled SOOOOOO bad that all us "gagged" from the stench!! Please don't waste your money on this excursion!!!

A friend and I just returned from a week at the Riu Palace Las Americas in Cancun. We went to escape to the sun for a week without husbands or children. We absolutely loved it and if I ever go back to Cancun I would stay there. The only small problem I had was that the beds were hard....although for my friend, this was a bonus as she has back problems and thought the beds were perfect. The food was varied and delicious especially the steakhouse and the fusion restaurants. The buffets were also excellent with a wide variety of foods to choose from. The grounds were clean and well maintained. The staff was the best!! Especially Allen the bartender and the entertainment staff.
I would definately return there at any time.

My boyfriend and I stayed at the RPLA from May 3-10th 2008. This hotel was the best EVER!!!

Rooms: We had a oceanview junior suite (room 548) and it was great! Our room wasn't quite ready when we arrived because we had an early flight, but we were welcomed with a drink and helpful information. I had pre-reserved a spot at the Brazilian resturant via email the week before we arrived and the reservation was all set when we arrived. We walked around the hotel grounds to become familiar with our new home for a week and it was wonderful! When we got in our room I was breathless... the view was amazing and the only complaint (from my boyfriend) was that the TV didn't work properly. This was resolved by the 2nd day and everything was fine after that! Our room attendant was great (Angelica) and we were never out of towels or anything. We had different towel animals and our bed was made up romantic a couple of times.

Overall Hotel: There was only 1 complaint that I have, which isn't the hotel's fault probably... The last 2 or 3 days that we were staying at the RPLA, the lights and everything kept going on and off all day. Elevators were not working for a day and throughout the day lights always flickered. Some times the blenders were not working so my pina coladas were not well mixed, which was sometimes a good thing. We always were resetting the clocks to be on time to events.

Excursions: We booked our excursions through our Funjet representative at the hotel (I forgot her name, but she was pretty short). We went to Xel-ha and that was AWESOME! Totally worth everything. Then, later we went to Playa del Carmen to the Miramosa resort to snorkel on a catameran... we went to the 2nd largest reef and saw tons of fish!