Riu Palace Punta Cana - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

3537 reviews

• 

  Good stay!

  The hotel itself is beatiful, the outside, the lobby and restaurant areas and grounds look like they are well maintained and look just like the pictures. Our room was on the ground floor, I believe the front desk lady arranged it for us so that we don't have to lug the kids wagon up and down the elevators. Our room was ready at 310, just 10 mins after the check in time. Room 120 was very clean and the maids did a good job daily, however there is a bit of a musty smell and some of the fixtures are surely ready for an upgrade. Most of it is cosmetic and nothing major. The two issues I had with the room was the toilet does not flush properly, takes 3 tries to flush anything down. My husband solved this issue by adding water to the tank several times but this is not something you should have to do at a hotel. My second issue was the fact that although the grounds are maintained daily, we saw the palm trees being trimmed and them spraying for pests, but nobody throughout our whole stay bothered to remove the garbage that falls under the balconies. There's a ton of bottle caps, wrappers and other various things. Someones swim shorts must have fallen off onto the bush and they were there the whole entire week we were there. Otherwise the room was good and the beds and the fold out couch were comfortable. Moving onto the service, I have to start by saying that we do tip so there is a chance that may have been why but the service at all of the restaurants, pool area and bars was great. Everyone was super friendly and they took great care of us and our kids. The Food- we only tried the buffer ( la isabella), the beach restaurant ( la altagracia) and the sport bar and for the most part the food was great ! Up to the Riu standard and they tried to have new dishes or desserts every night. One day they even had red and black caviar which was delicious. ( La Altagracia) could use a bit of an upgrade, some days the food was just average and they had too much of one thing, like 10 variations of rice. It would be nice if they did more grilled meats and fish as in many other carribean getaways or even if not it would have been nice if ( La Isabella ) was open for lunch as well. But overall the food was great. Better then I expected. Pool and bars. We didnt go to the adult swim up bar as we had kids but the other pool was good. Yes it is cleaned daily, my issue was that drinks and smoking was allowed in the pool. Those who smoke and want to drink in the pool should maybe do it in the adult only pool or just get out of the water and enjoy it by the lounge chairs. The little toddler spash area by the daycare was nice, however they should have at least one waiter there so parents dont have to walk all the way to the bar to get drinks. The one major issue with the resort is that the toddler splash area towards the back smells like sewage. Seems like the water is not draining properly somewhere or I dont know what is happening but for sure they need to renovate that area. The beach was great sand wise but obviously being sargussum season the water was a no go for me. Some people were still swimming but if you are a beach lover don't go during sargussum season. They try to clean it up but its honestly pointless, it literally washes up on front of your eyes. Entertainment- very basic, especially kid friendly entertainment. We stayed in Riu Dunamar in Mexico and the kids were allowed to go to the Riu parties and the entertainment there was great. Here it was just the same show every night with minor variations and periodically balloons. Considering it's a family resort, the kids are a bit overlooked. Overall we enjoyed our trip to Riu Palace Punta Cana and if it ever gets upgraded in the areas I mentioned we would love to come back. It was a good trip but for the price that we paid, there are better options out there. I do have to say great job on the food and the service.

  Sep 13, 2025
• 

  A great trip but the ambience has changed

  Stayed as a family for two weeks in August. This was our second stay at the Palace having stayed at the Bambu twice before. We took a taxi from the airport which took about 25 minutes and cost $30. On our last trip, we were left waiting on the bus for an hour and then the journey was an hour so we decided to cut that out this time. We had a junior suite which we’ve had before, only this time we were closer to the entertainment venue which meant a lot of loud noise until around 11 at night. The suite was fine and we encountered no major problems other than the toilet continually filling and being blocked on one occasion but both were easily resolved by us. The beach is lovely with lots of natural shade and it was quite empty with most people gathering around the pool. We’ve been to the Dominican over a dozen times and this is the first time we have encountered the seaweed problem so it was a bit of a shock when we walked to the beach on the first day and saw mountains of it. I completely understand this is natural and out of the hotels control but their management of it was completely lacking which impacted our stay. Massive swathes of it were left on the beach for days on end at one point there was a 3 foot high wall of seaweed which was beginning to rot and had a horrible gassy smell. It was however cleared when storm Erin had passed. The pools were packed and water very hot, we use the large pool in the Bambu next door which was a five minute walk and a lot less busy. The service in the pool bars is very good. The waterpark is good fun and a 10 minute stroll from the palace. The hotel and restaurants are very well kept. We had no complaints about service or any of the food that we had and always found something we liked. We did not use the speciality restaurants this year because last year it was such a pain to get a table. We were very kindly looked after by Francisca and Castillo again in the main restaurant. I really hope the hotel appreciate the dedicated staff that they have because they do a fantastic job, work really hard and are very welcoming. Although we had a great holiday, I really don’t know whether I will return to this hotel. The atmosphere has changed over the years. It now feels more like a party destination for hard-core party people. I accept that most of the action takes place in the pool bar which is child free, but it is right next to the main pool, volleyball pool, bar and the routes to the lunchtime restaurant and beach. The music is extremely loud and you can’t get away from it even on the beach. Couple that with a noisy room at night and it gets a little tiresome after two weeks. These factors along with the exorbitant cost of a trip in the school holidays will make me think twice about returning.

  Sep 07, 2025
• 

  Best hotel ever nice service and attention above great

  I would like to thanks all staff at RIU palace special Yazmin from housekeeping and yeison from bar all them were amazing I can’t recall more names but they were amazing as well Note the only think I don’t like was the way they get mistreat by tourist I was witness of 2 time how they mistreat staff from RIU when they were provide care and amazing service to us tourist I was witness how hard they work and how rude they were treat to RIU management please address how they miss treat your co workers with no reason because we are tourist doesn’t mean they need to diminish them after all again if I ever visit RD i will choose RIU with out thinking 2

  Sep 06, 2025
• 

  Riu Palace Punta Cana, not what it used to be

  Traveled as a couple, Sep 4 -14. We found it to be very different from 2 years ago. Initially we booked Riu Bambu and transfered to Palace the 5th day...what a mistake! The room is really run down, smelly, just bad...overall a bad decision and a waste of extra money paid. The checkin was fine but the customer service is very slow to downright zero to address our needs (toilet not flushing, broken coffee maker, doors not closing, etc). Food is still OK, beach is a mess considering it is sargassum season, pools are not maintained, shall I continue? This hotel is really a pale shadow of what it used to be. My recommendation is to think twice before booking, as it is not worth the cost (quite high) compared to other hotels in this class.

  Sep 06, 2025
• 

  DO NOT STAY- read whole thing for awful behaviour

  I’ve just gotten back from this hotel, this is my 2nd time in PUNTA Cana but 1st time at a Rui hotel. The staff from our first day looked miserable and unbothered to work. They wouldn’t serve us, but just try hide away and talk to one another. The workers wouldn’t be friendly unless you gave them tips. Once we tipped them, they then became friendly and would serve us, otherwise they wouldn’t. When we arrived, they hadn’t set up a bed for me, so I had to wait for one to be bought up. The cleaners never made my bed in our room, and even took my sheet away, so I had to sleep with the blanket from the wardrobe. Half the drawers in our room also didnt open. Our shower didn’t work, only the handheld tap, so someone from maintenance came up. None of the workers speak any English, but I luckily I speak some Spanish. The maintenance man wouldn’t fix our shower, saying there was no problem, despite it making noises. The entertainment was very disappointing, the screen never worked so there was barely minimum entertainment in the evening. The fitness instructors appeared bored all the time and were unqualified. Most of their displayed classes wouldn’t even run, or they would be cancelled before and DURING for having few people. My friend even LEAD one of the stretching classes because the instructor didn’t know what to do. They also kept saying how little Rui pays them for all their hours as they wanted tips for a service they wouldn’t provide. One day, I had a local man on the beach harass me in Spanish. I was steps away from the pool and he was making sexual comments about me and trying to sell me DRUGS. I was uncomfortable and he wouldn’t go away. A woman from entertainment came over as I waved- she didnt speak any English and I didnt know how to report the crime in Spanish, so we were having to google translate our convos, meanwhile the man had run off. The woman didn’t care about the man’s crime and said he was just interested. Despite the beach being public, I went to reception to tell them how a worker had ignored a crime I went to report to her, especially as she was female, I thought she’d be more understanding. Reception told me they’d note it down and follow up, but they never did… leaving me traumatised. On our first week, a male guest had grabbed the wrists of a young boy and had slapped him in the pool. There’s no security ever around or lifegaurd’s on duty. The mother of the son rightfully spoke to the man for attacking her son, however this man starting screaming and swearing around the pool filled with children… and staff did nothing, despite witnesses. Two nights the fire alarms were also tested at 10:30, then went off every hour from 11pm the other night. I called reception, they didn’t apologise just said the first one was a mistake. People were then running and screaming up and down the corridors. Their fire alarms clearly were unreliable, and people stopped reacting to them, making this seriously unsafe in the event of a real fire. My parents had to move rooms because the noise was so loud. There was also a power cut one day, so our mini fridge went off and no worker would turn it back on. It emitted a smell of sick that no one would deal with. Our soap dispenser also constantly fell off the wall and our towels sometimes stunk of sick, like they hadn’t been washed properly. Staff members also cat called me and my friends constantly, making us uncomfortable, which was very unprofessional. Do not stay in this hotel and don’t feed into Rui exploiting staff members for their own financial gain.

  Sep 05, 2025