It is an absolute garbage pit. This hotel cannot even be considered a 3 star hotel with the state things are in. This trip was my 30th birthday trip and my honeymoon. It was absolutely RUINED by Riu Tequila.
The staff at this location is for the most part, rude, lazy, and completely incompetent. The worst offenders are management, who are never around, and when you finally do get one (Patricia) they apologize, but do nothing to change things or fix the problems identified... and in fact Patricia asked me "What would you like me to do?". I don't think I should ever have to tell a manager how to do her job while on vacation.
Check-in was exceedingly unhelpful and uninformative. No one offered to take our bags to our room (which was quite a distance from the lobby).
We had ants in our room and IN OUR BED for our entire trip. I called three times, visited the front desk, and also spoke to Patricia about it. Please see attached photo of the ants I killed in 10 seconds after finding two on my toothbrush, as well as the two ants in my bed. The only person to help was Antonia (who I adore), our housekeeper, who felt bad enough that she gave us a can of raid to try and get it under control ourselves. I have bites all over my body.
The food at the buffet was almost inedible and made both me and my husband ill after almost every meal. I spoke with other guests who had also been falling ill after eating there.
We were told when we checked in to contact Gerardo to schedule a "special honeymoon dinner". We attempted to schedule it FOUR TIMES only to be told:
1. Gerardo was on vacation
2. No managers were around to take the reservation
3. To just give it to the staff at the front door of the buffet in the morning, and timing didn't matter. (I even asked if we needed to get there early in the morning and was told I did not need to)
4. Told by Patricia that there were no more reservations for that day, and they could not do anything about it. That I was too late... even though I explained that I had tried four times to make sure that we had a celebratory dinner on my birthday. Nothing. We changed our plans the following (last night of our stay) just so we could have a decent meal... which I told Patricia would have to be at ATLEAST 9pm. She told me no, and that 8:30 was as late as it could be. After getting stuck in traffic caused by an accident in cancun, we did not get to the restaurant until 9:15, where we were told "No. We are closed."
Apparently the entire time we were there, you could go to the specialty restaurants and wait for a table. No one told us this, and the paperwork said you could only do a "first come first serve" reservation the day of your desired reservation. We like to sleep on vacations, so for 6 days (after throwing up from dinner) we slept in and missed this opportunity each day due to the lack of communication by staff.
The beach is SO crowded that it might as well have been a public access beach. My husband goes to get drinks for us, and accidentally goes into Riu Palace where he was treated like a public trespasser, told "NO.You can't be here." and was very rudely pushed out the door. Mind you, a main riu selling point for RT is you get to use the other hotels.
The pools at riu tequila are disgusting. There is a layer of filth on the water, the water's temperature was EXTREMELY warm (like at least 85-90F), and it was cloudy. The bar pool was literally slimy. Absolutely disgusting.
The air conditioning in our hotel room was a joke. Several times, I would open the door and feel no difference between the room and outside... which is MEXICO IN JULY.
I have stayed in hotels all over the world, and I have NEVER had any experience that even rivaled this level of unacceptable service. I have stayed in Tijuana in hostels and had better experiences than this.
To top everything off, I asked to speak to Natalia upon check out, where I was informed that she, and all other managers were in a meeting, and that I would need to wait 30 minutes until they returned... at Noon...check out time... when customers with issues will need to speak with managers. I refused to pay for the 3 days of Internet that I ordered until I spoke with her, and left my name and phone number. We NEVER received a call from Natalia, or any other Riu Tequila management member.
We extended our trip to try and salvage our honeymoon and paid 75 usd a night for an entire beautiful suite in downtown cancun, overlooking the ocean, with great AC, included breakfast, a clean (and temperate pool) and everyone I've encountered has been helpful and lovely. Riu Tequila cost us more than 3x as much, and gave us anxiety and stress rather than relaxation. (The place we are in now is called Malecon Suites in downtown cancun- it's been a delightful experience)
I am not a difficult customer to please, and I speak spanish, so this was not a language barrier issue. I feel as though Riu Tequila stole my honeymoon, my time, and my money. read more