Riu Palace Jamaica Adults Only - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

4803 reviews

• 

  Lynda

  Amazing hoilday staff food are room only down was the noise from people coming in at night early hours making a noise as we where near a lift all america

  Mar 08, 2025
• 

  Amazing holiday - cannot fault it

  We are just back from a 1 week stay at the Riu palace JA. We are a couple in our late 20s who travelled with my parents (mid 50s). My parents are staying for 2 weeks. Overall: The hotel far exceeded my expectations. I had hesitations given some of the mixed reviews however this was one of the best holidays I’ve ever had and I’m quite well travelled, having seen much of the Caribbean. The hotel is immaculate and so are the grounds and the pools. Food hygiene is also great which is amazing for me as I often get sick when travelling. Riu reggae & Riu MoBay access: If you stay at the palace, you get access to all the activities at the reggae and mobay, however you don’t get access to their a la carte restaurants (tui website advises otherwise). You can go to the reggae buffet for 3 meals a day however only the MoBay buffet at lunch. The Friday night parties are held at the mobay and are HUGE, like literally probs near 1000 people and are like a proper club night. The mobay side is HUGE as well, like 6 pools, waterpark and constant activities etc. the reggae side is also big but not comparable to the mobay side. Hotel & rooms: The palace is actually quite small with only 2 pools but there are only a few rooms so there’s more than enough space for everyone at the pools and beach. The beach is stunning at all 3 but the palace beach is by far the quietest. Walk round to the reggae beach for an amazing sunset (usually about 6-6.30pm is best). The beach at the palace had seaweed on one day which wasn’t ideal and it’s not great for snorkelling, however it’s clean and warm. The hotel rooms are very large and clean. Plenty drinks in the room and in the fridge. Cleaning ladies are lovely and come twice a day. Sheets and towels can be changed whenever you like. The hotel rooms are also very sound proof which is great as you don’t hear noise from the neighbouring hotels or the pools. Beach/pool towels however can only be refreshed once daily which is one of the few downsides in this whole holiday, however not the end of the world at all. You need to download the app as soon as you arrive or beforehand to ensure you can book restaurants. If travelling with more than one booking (ie across 2 or more rooms) you need to all individually book the restaurants and declare in the notes that you’d like to share your table with another room. This is fine but made the availability a bit trickier to find. However, we would book one table for 6.30 and another for 7 and show up both at 6.30 and that would be no issue. There’s not a huge amount of walking green space in the palace however there is plenty across the 3 resorts if you like to get your steps in. All the staff are incredibly friendly and go above and beyond. Special shout out to the VERY GOOD entertainment team, string bean, genius etc, who are constantly dancing and bringing up the atmosphere, without being over bearing or making you feel obliged to join in. Food & drinks Cannot stress enough to ignore the bad food reviews. I ALWAYS get sick on holiday and didn’t this time, the food hygiene was impeccable and all the chefs, even in the buffet take huge pride in what they are putting out. My mum is gluten free and the head chef regularly came to check on us to find out what special dishes she’d like made each day on top of the already very good gf selection. Fresh gf pasta, whenever she wanted. The gf bread is more like a muffin/crumpet so you could avoid this, they also use this to make the gf pizza and so would avoid that too but the pasta is 10/10. Fresh meat and fish grilled and roasted every day, 3 times a day. Food always fresh. Can’t complain. Krystal was the only restaurant I wasn’t overly impressed with as the portions were a bit small, however the other asian, zen, was really good with loads of choice and done in a tapas style so you got to try a few dishes. The Italian was good, it looks like there’s no pizza available however they have that on the buffet inside the restaurant for you to help yourself to on top of your main and desert. Staff wise- shoutout to all the buffet staff, providing great service and entertainment in every meal. Singing constantly. Special shout out to dr phill. With the drinks, we think they got stronger as the day went on. And stronger at mobay and reggae, however you just need to ask for your drink to be extra strong and they’ll add to it no bother. The wine was also far better in the palace than the other rius. Activities: The activities here were constant, during the daytime, the entertainment team are constantly putting on activities and games and even a foam party on Wednesday. You can join in with group activities or play games on your own. Water sports - palace guests can access them at either the reggae or the mobay side. At the reggae there are 2 kayaks, a 2 seater peddle boat and a 4 seater peddle boat (however 4-seater was faulty), and 2 paddle boards, one of which doesn’t have a fin so can make navigation challenging. There’s also the same at the mobay side. I had one negative experience using these at the mobay side where the staff member continuously messed us around and I ended up not getting to go out as he gave the kayak to someone else who came after me. When going to the reggae side, it seems like this is only an issue with this one staff member and not the general experience. The ladies at the reggae side were always very helpful. They also sold us a half day catamaran trip for $80pp which picked us up at 9am and took us snorkelling off doctors cave beach and then to tropical bliss private beach, which was stunning. We returned back at 12.30. Pick up and drop off are both from the reggae beach which made this even better as no taxi time. We also got very lucky and got the whole catamaran to ourselves (group of 4) when the boat was meant for 40. The night activities were decent. The aqua ballet and circus show were questionable, however decent if you want something to do/watch. The steel drum band however were incredible. They put a huge show on, dancing and playing for an hour. This was one of the highlights of our whole trip. Jamaica as a destination: STUNNING. VIBES. LIVELY. 10/10 I cannot fault Jamaica at all. The country is beautiful, the people are all so vibrant and happy, and everywhere we saw was exceptionally clean. I can’t stress enough how safe I felt. My mum and I went for a walk to the nearby shopping mall and literally had truck drivers helping us cross the busy road both times we tried to cross. Everyone goes above and beyond to help out. Even when we went into mobay for a day, everyone was very friendly and happy to chat and help us out. Weather: Ignore the forecasts that say rain every day. It really does just rain for an hour or so, torrential (don’t get me wrong) but then it clears and you’re usually grateful for the rain as it reduces the humidity. The resort are proactive in adapting any entertainment to accommodate the weather as well. Overall we had great weather, clear skies and 29 degrees consistently with uv of about 7-9 at midday. Airport: The airport is literally 10 mins away from the hotel. We prebooked a taxi for our arrival and paid $35usd for this which seemed reasonable. Apparently the tui bus took a while to leave the airport. We did get the tui collection on departure and got picked up at 2pm and our flight was 4.30, we thought this wasn’t a lot of time however was definitely proven wrong as we arrived at the airport by 2.15 and had got through security and bag drop by 2.50. There is loads of really good shopping at the airport and also plenty seating. I heard people booked the lounge as they were told there’s not enough seating however this is definitely not true and we were there at peak time.

  Mar 08, 2025
• 

  Great stay in a beautiful location.

  We had a great time at the RIU Palace! The staff was very friendly and welcoming. The resort is nice, the rooms could be a tad nicer with maybe nicer pillows and bedding. Also, the lighting in the bathroom for doing your makeup is terrible and there is no ventilation in the bathroom. Yikes! The light bulb went out in the bathroom the day before we left and you don't get any natural light in there without the door open. Oh and the mornings are rough if you are not an early riser as people are loud in the mornings in the hall and the side road is busy that is in front of our room because it is open air. There were also a couple dogs across the street that would sleep all day but bark at night lol. It didn't bother me too much though. Overall, those were small things for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our trip and stay at the RIU. You don't spend much time in your room anyway!

  Mar 08, 2025
• 

  Girls trip 2015

  My stay was very eventful and I was very pleased with my stay and hospitality. Dr. Phil and Janeil was amazing at taking care of us. There was 11 in our group.

  Mar 05, 2025
• 

  Loved our stay at the RIU Palace!

  We thoroughly enjoyed our couples trip at the RIU Palace. The resort was beautiful, I loved that the pool and beach were right next to one another. The service was outstanding, everyone was genuinely warm and welcoming. We also really liked the food! The restaurant reservations were so convenient to do via the RIU app. Genius was one of the most memorable people from our trip!

  Mar 05, 2025