My family just returned from the Riu Vallarta. Let me start with the positives. The hotel was very clean, the staff were very friendly, and the grounds were lovely. Our room overlooked the sea and in the mornings you could open the patio doors and listen to the waves crashing on the beach. The hotel is in a U shape with a lot of the rooms being on the inside of the U, all of these rooms overlook a plaza with tables and chairs, and a bar in the middle. The unfortunate thing about this is that the entertainment is also in this area, a theatre/stage area, with shows, kareoke etc. We are not particularly party animals, and found that if we tried to go to bed before 11pm it was very noisy, some nights we had a hard time even holding a conversation on the balcony and we were on the 6th floor! I had also read someone elses review who said that the halls were loud - they weren't wrong! They are very hollow and hard so every noise echos. We did have problems with our neighbours partying until 2.30am, but a call to the front desk solved the problem. We have a teenage son, who could not go into the adult pool, but he felt rather out of place in the kiddie pool, lots of little folks and organised games. Both of the pools were also very noisy, the adult pool had loud music, so did the kiddie pool and it had the added bonus of the kids entertainment club organising games with microphones! On one of the days we were there the adult pool was actually green. Both of the pools were very busy the whole time we were there. The food was average, we enjoyed Sir Georges, and Nirvana, the evening buffet in the Don Rafael was OK. We had lunch a couple of times in the Flamingo but it had a bit of a cafeteria feeling. You can book the restaurants the day of and for the next day, the day of is pretty much booked up, so plan a day in advance. We tended to get to breakfast around 8am and by the time we were leaving there was quite a long line to get in, so go early. We did a couple of day trips that were lots of fun, we went zip lining with La Vista tours and had a blast! We also went to Las Caletas which was beautiful in spite of the tropical despression that came in during lunch, I would highly recommend the message at the spa at Las Caletas, the sound of the sea and birds is my idea of what a vacation should sound like! Overall, I would go back to the area, but not this particular hotel, if you like to party this is the place for you! If you like a quite vacation with a book, maybe not!

Let me start out by saying that you will not be too disappointed with this hotel but there were some problems. I will start out with the cons and then move onto the pros. First, we tried to call the front desk for different things not exagerating about 25 times. We received an answer just once!! After about 4 rings the phone just goes dead. Second off, don't let them fool you by 24 hour all inclusive. After 10:30pm the only food available to you is the hamburgers and hot dogs left over from lunch and stuck in the fridge. It is okay though b/c you are in PV and there are lots of good rest's. Now the good...the gourmet rest's were good. The rooms were nice with good views. The staff was VERY helpful with anything you need (if you could get ahold of them) lol. As far reviews with mold and musty smells, we never experienced any problems like that. The hotel is LOUD. The courtyard, the kids running up and down the halls in the middle of the night, it was loud but still did not stop us from sleeping. The resort is nice overall but I would not stay here again.

I would not stay here nor would I recommend this hotel unless they had a deal where the food is optional. Accommodations, features and services of the hotel were great however... customer service speaks volumes and I was just not impressed. Read on for details

Accommodations were awesome.
Great Facility... we had the Jr. suite and it was beautiful.
The hotel/resort offered services which were great. You are offered red wine or a fruit drink when you check in (great customer service as far as the front desk)

-The staff was not as helpful as expected.
We waited 7 hours to get pillows and a mattress pad (needed for the hard beds) which we requested at check in (2 pm). We called the front desk at 5pm, visited the front desk at 7 pm, and received a call from the manager at 8pm, by 10 pm the items were in the room.

- Communication to the staff was hard especially when I spoke Spanish (i.e. our room was cleaned 3 times in one day) It was a bit irritating because I talked to two maids and their manager....I just wanted to take a nap.

- Food was decent, however the meat (beef/ pork/lamb) questionable. Since we were in Mexico I expected to try Mexican cuisine ...no such luck at this place. The hotel offers food from continental food /buffet style in Don Rafael or Flamingo to gourmet food at Sr. George. The 24 hr sports bar is a joke and was stocked with hamburgers and hotdogs (again the meat was questionable).

- Good Luck to those persons who speak Spanish...
Let me just say I look Mexican but that is not my country of origin. I would rate my Spanish as conversational rather than fluent. I got a lot of looks when I decided to talk in Spanish... some folks welcomed it and some folks where a bit baffled. The comments I received where like "wow u speak it so well" or "are u fluent". When I switched to English... I got the most disturbing looks. At one point the waiter was just astonished and treated me as if I were a snob that refused to speak my supposed native tongue or not knowing my supposed heritage. The folks took it as an insult if I switched in mid sentence to English. My suggestion would be to save the Spanish for when you go to the flea market to barter.

- Noisy hotel
The hotel had several families and it was very noisy in the hallways. I would suggest the Jr. suite because our suite faced the ocean and you were at least shielded from noisy patrons from 3 sides.

A bit dissapointed with tours.
Trafic tours and other tour groups are located in the lobby. we noticed an increase in price thats on the internet vs.what they offered in person. I noticed that some of the tours were were using third party tour groups. What ever the website advertised was not the same as what was being offered at the hotel.

Stayed at Riu Vallarta for Seven nights. We were 5 families total of 18 adults and Kids. At the check in, four families got nsolicited Upgrades to Master and junior
Suites except my famuily. When I asked for an upgrade, they claim that they were full. I just wanted to be treated the same as the rest of the group.
The management Was very rude and un helpful (Typical for Mexico). The room we got was on top of the Disco and I have a four year old who goes to bed at 10:00 PM.
It took them two more days to give us a similar standard room on the upper floors. The worry free rep couldn’t do any thing about it. The hotel is only two
years old but it’s already run down. It’s extremely crowded and loud. You could easily hear next room noise.
The pool is not very clean. This Hotel is Over rated and too expensive for what you get. The Beds are etremely uncomfortable. The entertainment was great. The food was O.K but Not much Sea food at all.