Riu Palace Pacifico Adults Only - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

7423 reviews

• 

  Searching for my Mexican home.

  We recently stayed at the RIU Palace Pacifico. My wife and I had a great time. We met a lot of nice guests. As far as the food and drinks are concerned they were hit and miss. I don’t think the drinks are watered down but rather the servers may have given us the wrong drink. The pool side servers most times had two trays of drinks. I couldn’t keep everything straight if the roles were reversed. The restaurants were also hit and miss. We enjoyed the Asian restaurant. We dined there 3 times during our 2 week vacation. On one occasion the food was really salty. I calked that up to a different chef who likes cooking with salt. It was too salty for our taste but another guest may like that. Another favorite restaurant was the steak house. It was brutal trying to get a seat there. I would line up at 515pm joining about 20 other guests. The restaurant opened at 6pm. We dined there 3 times during our two week stay and we had one occasion where the food was cold. All of the staff are great! They work hard to make our stay enjoyable. I would like to point out a superstar in my opinion. Janet from the morning and lunch buffet. We didn’t always sit in her area but she always had a smile and friendly greeting for us. When I was in the main buffet Janet would come up and greet me. We hadn’t sat her in section for a day or two. We shared some personal family stories. Our relationship was closer than to other staff. Janet knew me by my Mexican nickname “guapo ” Her attitude, professionalism is the reason I come back to some resorts and skip others. We have stayed at the Cabo Riu Baja California as well. There garden view rooms are very different compared to the room we had this time. What I don’t like is the “upgrade speech” the front clerk gave us when we asked about the room we were getting. I felt like just a number to the RIU company! We kept our room it’s what we paid for. If RIU wanted to impress us make us feel like family they could have “upgraded” us if they had empty rooms at no cost. I’m not sure if I will go back to RIU however to whoever is reading this review you need to try the resort for yourself.

  Nov 22, 2025
• 

  Great staff and building, but poor food and plenty of drunks

  Mixed feelings. Great hardworking and friendly staff everywhere! Beautiful building, green areas and beach. It was my 1st time at Riu and my last one. I thought they will have a 4 or 5 star level per the reviews, similar to an upscale Hyatt or Hilton, but the food and guests environment was a 3 stars hotel. Loud drunks starting after breakfast in elevators, outside restaurants, comon areas, and of course at the pool bar, they are loud, smelly and obnoxious. Also, cigars and smokers all around the beach chairs, you'll have to move around to avoid their groups smoking for hours non stop. The food is 2 or 3 stars, no flavor, even at Guacamole, the mexican restaurant. The restaurants are meant to feed the masses and provide alcohol non stop instead of taste and quality.

  Nov 19, 2025
• 

  Nice hotel, decent food but a few customer service issues

  Beautiful resort, the beach access is excellent. Clean beach with chairs always available. However, too many people trying to sell wares, sometimes it’s 10-15 in a span of 30 minutes. I don’t think they should be allowed access to a private beach. The buffet was excellent, there were a few dishes that were stale however that’s on par with any buffet. Excellent seafood. The American night wasn’t great. The sports bar has great wings but the service isn’t always the best, we sat for 20 minutes without service. They also don’t play any sports besides Mexican league soccer and American football. We were hoping to catch a hockey game or a World Cup Qualifier game but they didn’t have it. Not really a sports bar. I would give this resort 5 stars but on the Friday night they held a staff party which included closing down the pool and beach area to guests early. They blasted music until 1am, keeping all the guests awake. Not great optics for hosting a customer service event. The music was so ridiculously loud that the inside of our hotel room was rumbling. I’m all for the internal celebration of staff but don’t do it during peak time at the expense of the guests who spend a lot of money to be here.

  Nov 16, 2025
• 

  Customers are #2

  It’s best to avoid this place. They put themselves ahead of customers. Nice building, some friendly staff and decent rooms but that’s it for the positives. The food is extremely mediocre verging on poor. The pools are far too small for the number of people at the resort. There is constantly noise with loud music and construction. The bathrooms are not convenient to the pool area, so it seems that not many use them (uh-oh). To top it all off, they had an internal RIU employee party for two days during our visit. This event took over part of the pool area and included a band playing at mega volume until close to 1am, keeping everyone awake. The management apparently thought it was ok to put a small group of employees above the hundreds of paying guests at their hotel. Without warning to anyone, of course. Here’s a little business tip RIU…rewarding your employees should not come at the expense of your customers.

  Nov 14, 2025
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  Doesn’t care about paying customers

  Horrible experience at Riu Palace Pacifico in Nuevo Vallarta. This resort is having an event for RIU STAFF and the PAYING CUSTOMERS have been blocked out of restaurants and pools for this event. And now we are being subjected to very loud live music blasting until midnight. This is unacceptable.

  Nov 14, 2025