Riu Palace Tropical Bay - All Inclusive

I would love to say I loved this place but I can't. The rooms are beautiful although you have to climb three flights of stairs to get to the top level of rooms. My wife and I like to walk and so it was fine for us but if you have problems with stairs...there is no elevator so book the ground floor. The staff is exceptional. They make you feel like family and they all go above and beyond especially Amoy and Andre!!!! They are amazing. The food in the buffet is not so amazing. It is average at best. The **** hut, Italian restaurant and Japanese restaurant had the best food. The most annoying part of all is that the air conditioning in our room was 24 degrees (Celsius which is 75 degrees Fahrenheit) the whole trip. The hotel claimed that they were working on the problem...I guess that was for the next set of guests that have our room because it never got fixed while we were there. Additionally same issue with the air in the restaurants...kind of hard to eat while you are dripping sweat. The drinks were great...not watered down. Again aside from the staff being exceptional the rest was just about average. The beach was beautiful (they need to do a better job of cleaning the bird poop off of the loungers though) and it was kept clean. All in all, my wife and I wouldn't go back as Couples and Sandals are right nearby. We are Riu club members and yet I think we would pass on another stay here.

We just came back from Riu Palace Tropical Bay. To be honest we will not be back. We were family with two kids ages 4 & 6. Let me start with positive. - Beach. Still baby blue water, very shallow. Not great for swimmers as there is a line which you can not pass still in shallow part of water up to chin. Great for kids though. No waves at all. Lots of chairs and shade on the beach, no need to reserve chairs as in other resorts. However empty plates and empty cups are all over the beach full of bees flying around and dont get picked up and cleaned up till night. - Rooms. Large & clean. Ocean front was definitely upgrade worth the money. We stayed in room 4313. Close to all restaurants and beach and amazing view. - Cleaning service. Absolutely awesome. Lovely smiling ladies that get the job done. - Front desk. Quick, barely any line up. Jameson at front desk is absolutely Awesome. He should teach rest of the resort staff how to do customer service. Now lets get to the points why I would never come back. Restaurant/bar service: I mean forget it. You will be way faster getting drinks yourself if you could. Waiters look annoyed and tired. Mind you I spent 150 USD in tips. That did not help with faster service. Food. Mediocre. Not a one lemon or lime with your seafood. I asked: sorry we dont have any. This is a 5 star Riu Palace without any lemon/lime. Specialty restaurants waste of time. The worst lobster I ever had. One server 50 people. With small kids this was a nightmare. Doctor on the site: there is none. They have 3 party nurse on the site that is working for resort. Yeah she can get yoi doctor on the call "God knows when" and then you wait hours if not day for pharmacy to mix you antibiotics and all this for 350 USD. Nurse looked bothered by seeing us. If you re traveling with small kids try to bring your own medication And antibiotics if you can because nurse on the site can not do prescriptions And is pretty useless. Kids club and kids entertainment. Forget it. Pay more if you can and go to Beaches Negril. I wanted to drop my kids off for 2 hours a day to take a break, shower eat in peace but that did not happen. Their kids entertainment is 11 am- 11:20 am . Ends there. However the kids club staff girl named Diamon was awesome and she did great watching my kids twice. One of few staff I remember from this vacation. For the money we paid (7,500 cad for 4 people 7 days) service is simply not there. As a couple I would not care but as a mother with kids who wants small break from running around this ain't a good choice. One last thing: on the beach there are lots of vendors selling. Look for a Nicole with dark blue hat. She gives a massages and she gave me one of the best massages I ever had.