I was hit by a large beach parasol just above my right eye as precautions hadn't been take with a hurricane in the area. Hotel doctor said I needed to go to the hospital but then all help from the hotel stopped. The care at the hospital was very good but the bill, including a head scan, due to a possible fracture, came to more than $2500. Even after contacting the hotel after returning from the hospital, no reaction was received how I was or if any assistance could be given even though a duty manager promised to contact me. Safety doesn't seem to be of importance to this hotel,
My wife is Japanese and we have never had such a bad Japanese meal at the so called "Japanese Restaurant" as appararently, no one has been trained at a real Japanese restaurant.

Riu Cancun Hotel -14 September to 28th September 2008


Before I start, I would like to confirm at the outset that I had a good holiday! I didn’t spend all that money and fly all that way to have a crap time, but by some of my comments below you might think that I didn’t enjoy the holiday and I’m one of those ‘moaners’! I’m not; I’m just giving you my honest views of MY holiday at the Riu Cancun Hotel, Cancun Mexico.

This was my first long-haul holiday and also the first time that I had had a ‘fully inclusive’ holiday. What this holiday confirmed for us/me, is that we are not really ‘Hotel and fully inclusive’ type of people!

The Riu Cancun Hotel was/is very good. As most reviewers have already said, it is kept immaculately clean, sometimes there seems to be as many staff as guests.
Most of the hotel staff are small local Mayan’s and in the main they were quiet and efficient. One thing that did surprise me was that the majority of them didn’t speak or understand much English. I just assumed that they would, what with the USA just up the road and them using Cancun for decades.

Our room was the basic room, on the twelfth floor and it was spacious, comfortable and cleaned every day that we wanted it cleaned. If you leave the ‘Do not disturb’ sign out, the cleaner won’t bother you at all. The room was well stocked with drinks, four bottles of spirits and a fridge full of beer and soft drinks. Our balcony over looked the main pool area and the beach, and although we didn’t go there for rain and cloud, we had some spectacular views of the rain and cloud coming in!

Although we were on the twelfth floor we could here the entertainment staff around the pool, on the microphone announcing the days activates so clearly, I thought they were on our balcony! This normally happened at 0930-1000am every day. We were normally getting up at this time anyway!
Several times we were woken up at 5am by extremely noisy, drunken bums coming home, shouting, singing and banging doors etc. But I guess that comes with the territory of a large Hotel type of holiday.

The beach and the sea are fantastic, as good as some we have been to in Greece. The only thing to worry about is the lack of sunshades. There are about 15 times more sunbeds than sunshades and if you get a really hot day you will want to get in the shade.

There are four ‘restaurants’ in the hotel and I can’t fault the food at all. The quality and choice is impressive. One of our party (there was four of us) doesn’t like fish, pork, salad, vegetables, rice, pasta, but still found something that he did like. Two of the restaurants, the two main ones, La Mision and Don Juan are run like huge canteens, you wander round the buffet selection, take your food back to your table and the waiter staff take your drinks order. You can eat as much as you like, and looking at the size of some people there, they did just that! I found myself putting beef, calamari, white fish fillet, curried beans and pasta all on the same plate!! Why!? Because you can!!
The problem I/we found with the two main restaurants was not with the food, but with the setting, the lack of atmosphere, the same scenery every night. As already stated, the food and the choices are excellent, but there was very little to surprise or excite! You end up going there because your ‘Fully Inclusive’ and have already paid, not necessary because you want too, but because it’s time to eat!

The Brazilian restaurant was worth one visit. It’s just a meat feast! And the meat is available at the two canteens.

For no particular reason, we didn’t get to the Japanese restaurant. Actually, the main reason we didn’t get to the Japanese was because you had to book it before 1030am and we could never make our minds up that early.

There are several bars within the Hotel complex.

The swim-up pool bar was always very popular, but the ‘pool’ that it is in, is the smallest of the pools and appears to have been fitted in just to accommodate the pool bar. There are even booths and sunken stools all around the edge of the pool. I couldn’t see the point of it myself, but lots of others did, so what do I know!

The main bar is the La Punta bar in the main part of the Hotel, behind the reception lobby, where some bloke plays the piano and sings, badly! There was also an outside bar next to this one which we used most of the time. The reason we used this bar was because we all smoked and any bar that was inside you couldn’t smoke at. If you don’t smoke you will obviously be happy with that! If you do smoke, you will get a little pissed off, because just like the restaurants, the bars lack atmosphere, character and stimulation.
The best way to counter this was to get drunk, which we did and so did lots of others. Most of the smokers and hardcore drinkers use to congregate at this bar. This is the bar we had the most fun at, mainly when we had drink in us!!

There is a sports bar which is open 24/7. Yes, that’s right; you can drink 24 hours a day if you want to! BUT, you have to go out in the corridor to smoke. We spent a couple of late, or rather, early mornings in there. I even watched Chelsea vs. Man Utd at 0800am, with a beer in my hand. Terrible really!

La Mision canteen also has a bar which is open during the day, so we use to have a couple of sundowners there on the terrace, and watch the clouds gather and the rain advance over the sea. That’s not fair really. We did also watch the volleyball!

The main entertainment was in the Fiesta Cabaret room and the hotel entertainment team put on some really good and funny shows. They deserve a lot of credit for all the hard work and good stuff that they put on.
There is a small bar just inside. We use to sit just outside so we could get to the bar, but also partake of our nicotine addiction.

All the bars except the Sports bar shut at or before midnight.

Oh, I nearly forgot! There is also a disco called Pasha. This opens about 11pm and shuts at 0200am. It’s a very, very, very dark hole with a small bar and an equally small dance floor. We gave it ago, twice!

The Thomson rep Anthony was friendly and good for advice. We booked a couple of trips through him.

The Platinum Cruise, where you get to swim with Dolphins and go to Garafon-a complex where you can snorkel, go down a Zip line and have lunch. Garafon was a waste of time. It $200 (dollars), about £130 per person and although the time with the dolphins was an experience I will not forget, It was not value for money. Go for the cheaper option. I must say though, that the hour on the boat at the end, where the crew go out of there way to get you drunk, was such a good laugh. If they try to get you to drink Tequila shots, don’t refuse; just chuck it down your neck! You’ll loosen up and enjoy yourself more.

We also booked the Cancun Bar Crawl with Anthony. This cost $55 per person (£35) and was good value. We didn’t do it until the middle of our second week. My advice is to do it as early as possible. It shows you what’s out there and you won’t get ripped off because you’re with 100 other people and the holiday reps. We went to four bars/clubs, Pat O’Brien’s, Carlito and Charlie’s, Daddy’Os and Coco Bongo. I thought we had the most fun in Daddy’Os. The show in Coco Bongo’s is really quite good, but the amount of people that they pack in is unbelievable.

We also did the Captain Hook Fun cruise, a Cabaret on pirate ships with a lobster and steak meal which cost $90 per person (£50). This was overall, really quite good fun. The ‘crew’ put on quite a good and fun show and the meal was fine. We was on the Black Pearl ship with Captain Jack, he was the star of the show and quite funny. My advice is to have some drinks before you get there. You will get into the fun of things quicker.

Our friends booked two other trips through one of the many outside agents who can be much cheaper than the Thompson rep. The Thomson rep will tell you not to bother with them!

They booked the speedboat Jungle Tour for $40 instead of $65 and said they had a great time.

They also booked for Chichen Itsa and although it was a long day, said that they were glad they did it!

We (me and my girlfriend) were also booked on the above trip, but by this stage I was suffering from severe diarrhoea and couldn’t risk a three hour coach trip.

A word of warning! I had the most severe case of diarrhoea I have ever had in my life. It lasted for the best part of 4 days. I don’t know where I picked it up, what caused it, but I hadn’t been off the hotel complex for 48 hours before it started! And I wasn’t the only one.

What else can I tell you about our Holiday?

The Flea Market 5 minutes walk from the Hotel is an experience!!!!!

There are two bars/restaurants 3 minutes walk, opposite the Mexican Outlet. The first day we had a few drinks at one and it was fine. Couple of days later we did the same thing and it was fine. A few days later, I and girlfriend went back in the evening, a little drunk, and the sods ripped us off, $50 dollars for 5 drinks. You can try arguing but it won’t get you anywhere. And to add insult to injury, my girlfriend got bitten 21 times by mosquitos while we was there and her legs were/are in hell of a state, that was the only time we noticed any mosquitoes!

There is a shopping centre - La Plaza de Isla - we went for a look and found a ‘Johnny Rocket’ American themed diner. Had a really good burger there.

The best meal we had while we was on holiday was at a seafood restaurant, 300m from the hotel, called Mocambo’s. We had fantastic starters, Lobster main meal, a couple of drinks each (4 of us), and the meal only came to $260 with tip. It was a good fun evening and made a change from the same old routine at the hotel.

The local bus service is really good, a bus every 2 minutes or so. It only cost 8 Pesos (50pence) wherever you were going in Cancun, and bonus! The bus driver didn’t expect a tip! Unlike just about every other Mexican you might come into contact with. Watch the taxi drivers! They will charge you $20 dollars for a $5 dollar trip if they can get away with it.

We met some nice people Steve and Amy from Wales they were on their honeymoon and were a good laugh. Also Bill, Ben, Ralph and Brian, 4 gay’s from the states who were really good guys.

In summary! We had a nice holiday, but not one of our best. That in part is probably due to the fact that we now know that we are not the ‘Fully Inclusive’ holiday type of people. We didn’t really like Cancun that much. The hotel, as good as it was, was a bit lacking in atmosphere and stimuli. The holiday/hotel induced in us, lethargy and a bit of apathy, consequently we were in bed much earlier than we normally would be on holiday.

We made the most of it but are almost certainly going to Greece next year!

Tequila

The hotel is very clean as they have an army of cleaners on hand all day.
The staff are very welcoming and can not do enough for you, they will bend over backwards to help with all your needs.
This is my third year at this hotel and can not get enough, i will be going back next year.
This is an excellant hotel, yes it is five star but goes above and beyond five star more like seven stars in my book

This was my first time to Mexico and was a great experience. Me and my boyfriend went September 1st-6th. We stayed at Rui Cancun and really enjoyed it. They have so much to do that you would never have to leave the resort. It was really clean and the service was great. The resort was beautiful and breath taking. Remember to tip your servers and room service cause they will take better care of you. Our view was great , we were on the 6th floor. The buffets have a great selection. They try to have American type food there also. The swimming pools were really clean and have a really cool view. It was a really cool trip and my boyfriend and I are ready to go back. There were alot of people in the bar pool and yes they do stay in the pool for a long time and they do use the bathroom in it. You can tell they keep the pools really clean. All the drunk people are just funny to me and don't bother me so I don't have any issues with it. We drank ourselves so no one really bothered me. Alot of people from England are there and Cancun is a big place for them to go. We meet another couple from Texas they were really cool and we hung with them. It was a good time and the hotel was great. Again the service was great and the location you can walk to Hard Rock and some other cool places. We snorkeled and went on a Carribean cruise. It was cool. I can't wait to go back and the totally recommend Rui Cancan.