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Hotel Riu Palace Aruba

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  • J.E. Irausquin Boulevard 79
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jmariep
jmariep
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3 out of 5
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Worst Experience Ever. Audio Clip of Fight with Hotel's Manager.

  • June 15, 2009
  • Rated 1 of 5 by logan1155 from Columbus, Ohio
Worst Experience Ever. Audio Clip of Fight with Hotel's Manager.

This is a slightly long review but I promise if you read all of it, you will never stay at this hotel or likely any Riu. We surely will not after this experience...

To preface, every year for the past 6 years since my dad retired we have gone to a Riu Palace hotel and rented 4 ocean front suites. Every year prior to now had been an enjoyable experience. However, after this year we will never set foot in a Riu again.

Early in our stay the two white folding plastic chairs on the balcony broke in one of our rooms. One of them collapsed under my weight when I tried to stand on it, which I admit was my fault and we later offered pay for both chairs. I did not witness the other one being broken so I'm unsure how it happened. This is what set the following chain of events in motion...

My friend and I, both 24, were in the room with the door opened when a woman from the staff, either maid or maintenance, walked in without saying anything. She proceeded to swing open our blinds and begin snooping around the room. She then walkie-talkie'd for another woman to come up who began asking questions about what happened with the chairs. I told her and she said she didn't believe me and that the chair should have held up to my weight. I weigh 185 pounds, pretty on par for a 6'1" male. She began to walkie-talkie others so we simply left to go down to the pool.

I later returned to the room to find we had been locked out of our room as well as my brother's room next door. When we later met up with my brother and he told me that him and his friend had been escorted to the lobby to talk with the general manager of the hotel, Richard. He said that it was like being called into the principle's office in high school and that the GM simply called them into his office to yell at them, letting them get in few words edgewise. Moments later, a member of the security staff came to get my friend and I to escort us to his office. He followed us the entire way door-to-door to ensure we went.

This is where the story gets ugly, within SECONDS of walking in the door, Richard was screaming at us about all of the below.

I explained what happened with the chairs and his interpretation was we were wild spring breakers trying to destroy the room in some sort of drunken tirade. I was completely sober when the chair broke.

I explained to him how we have rented 4 suites every year at a Riu Palace and have gone every year for the past 6 years. That's what I would call a loyal/valued customer. His response was that "I don't care if you have a lot of money, you can go to a different hotel." Bear in mind, I said nothing about our financial situation, simply that we are loyal customers that come every year.

Richard then began to show us pictures on his computer that he had a member of the staff take to show the room that as he put it, "we destroyed". We took our own pictures when we checked out and will be providing them to corporate. His main complaints beside the chair were...

"There was beer all over the room". In reality, there were empty beer cans that were on the bedside tables and coffee tables. The resort is 24-hour all-inclusive and the hotel stocks every room with at least 6 beers. Since our two rooms were adjacent, we would only drink in one room. I explained to him that he probably couldn't count more than 12 beers in any picture and across our 4 people, that would be no more than 3 a person. Clearly we partied pretty hard in the room.

The next complaint was that there were dirty clothes on the floor. These were in two piles next to the bed. I've never heard of a hotel with any policy about dirty clothes. Perhaps things are different in Aruba.

Finally there were scuff marks on the wall of the patio, these were easily wiped away with a wet washcloth.

He then proceeded to tell us that he was charging us for the chairs, which we had already agreed to pay, and an additional cleaning charge to handle the scuff marks (which we wiped away before we left), picking up the empty beer cans, and I suppose not tripping over the dirty clothes.

To finish, he said that we had nothing further to talk about and that we could leave and he would speak to our parents later.

This was probably one of the most unprofessional, rude, obnoxious, one-sided lectures I have ever encountered. Let alone while on vacation. I was so aggravated that when we returned to the room, I decided to download a voice recorder for my iPhone and return to his office under the guise of asking for a supervisor's name/number that I could discuss the incident with. I recorded the entire conversation, which, sadly pales in comparison to the one we had prior. However, you still get a taste for the level of professionalism and service. You can find the entire conversation at the link below, there is about a 10 second delay as I'm walking into his office.

http://2.recordertheapp.com/624d103d5132db62f718/

In our conversation, I ask for his supervisor's name and he tells me he is the general manager, the man in charge of running the hotel, and that surely any complaint I filed through him would make it's way to corporate. YEA RIGHT!

He sent a note to our parents room asking to speak with them. They tried to stop by his office but he was gone so they left a note saying that they wanted to speak with him as well after hearing our account of the conversations.

Later my parents were at dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants and a member of the staff came to their table to make sure they were still coming to see him. They said they had already left a note for him and would come up after eating. As they were leaving the restaurant, they were again confronted and asked if they were coming. Imagine trying to relax on vacation when you're being harassed and watched like a hawk.

My parents met with him, offered to pay for the chairs, and tried to deal with him but apparently they received a similar, if not slightly more polite, level of professionalism.

When we checked out this morning, my parents were told they were charging us over $300 in "Cleaning and Painting" charges for 2 rooms. My mom said she wanted to dispute the additional charges but Richard was not there, again. We decided to pay it but wrote on the bill "I don't agree with these charges and will follow up with corporate" we also asked for a copy with this note on it for proof.

I honestly can't imagine how Richard could have made our stay any worse. 6 of the 8 members of our party were called into his office to be verbally abused. We were constantly being watched by members of the staff. The room cleaning and service dropped off significantly following our conversation, leading us to believe we were on some sort of blacklist.

Ordinarily, I would not expect people to believe such a ridiculous story but thanks to the iPhone I have a recording of our whole conversation. We have spent a considerable amount of money at Riu's over the past 6 years and surely we will never spend another dime there. I would recommend you avoid this hotel, if not any Riu following this experience.
Editor Pick

The Good, the (not so) Bad, and the Beautiful

  • May 30, 2009
  • Rated 5 of 5 by jmariep from lebanon, Indiana
The Good, the (not so) Bad, and the Beautiful

I’ll start with the good (pretty much the entire hotel)

My husband and I stayed at the Hotel Riu Palace for 5 nights the last week of May. We had been planning this trip since January or February, and took our time reading all the information we could find. There were very mixed reviews, but as we looked at them we felt that we would enjoy this hotel. We reserved this as a package in which included our airfare, transfer and room, so I’m not sure what exactly we paid per night. Looking online at the end of May for 5 nights in July lists that for two adults the price would be around $2,000. That being said, July is in low season, but when we went there was also the Swine Flu panic that is effecting hotel prices considerably.

Our vacation agency, vacationstogo.com, used De Palm Tours for the transfer from the airport. The bus took us to several hotels before ours dropping other people off. After stopping by other smaller hotels, the Riu is almost overwhelming to approach. The best description that I can come up is that it feels like an Arabian Palace was picked up, and placed right on the beach. It’s beautiful, but intimidating at first.

Check in was flawless, we waiting for maybe 5 minutes as 5 couples arrived at the same time. Because it is all-inclusive, it takes some time to check in, but the front desk clerk The front desk person handed us a map, our room keys, and our towel keys. The room keys were swipe cards -- a plus after Riu Sante Fe in Cabo only gave us one big old fashioned key. We also didn’t get the lecture or warning over paying $20 if we lost our towel card. So I’m not sure if there was a charge or not. After we got our things, we headed up to room 718, our home for the next 6 days.

After riding up a very small elevator (it made me a little uneasy at first, but after one night I was used to it,)
We walked into our room and were extremely pleased. There was a largely appointed bathroom to the left our the entrance, an entry area separating it from the bedroom -- an extremely large bed, and down two steps to a sitting area. The sitting area had a table with two chairs, a coffee table and a love seat. Beyond the sitting area was our balcony which looked directly out over the pool to the ocean. Our balcony had two plastic chairs and a plastic table. The outside was less fancy than the inside, but if someone would cite that as a complaint as the looked over the ocean, I personally would wonder if they were focusing on the wrong things.

The pool was very nice. The water was a little cold in the mornings, but once you stood in the water and in the sun for a bit, you forgot it was cold. In the afternoons, the sun had heated it to be a pleasant temperature. The pool bar area was the most popular area, and in the afternoon that area can get pretty crowded. The bar staff was very helpful and friendly at the pool bar, and the pool bar opened at 10 am.

Past the pool was the entryway to the beach. Riu does have security situated at this entrance, as all beaches in Aruba are public. The beach was beautiful. The water was pretty calm, and chilly. The only problem that I had with the beach was that during gusts of winds, mini sand storms that were pretty painful against your skin. (However this has nothing to do with the hotel itself.)

We were very happy with the food. We ate breakfast at Don Nicolas each morning because they served 7:-10:30. I‘m not sure what their lunch hours were. The staff who wrote the hours on my map didn‘t write this number in a form that I‘m familiar with. Nautilus served breakfast from 10:30-12, and lunch from 12-4. We ate here for lunch when we were at the hotel. For breakfast, I wore a swimsuit and cover up (ie a dress, not a see-thru piece of fabric) that seemed to be the norm. My husband mostly wore trunks and a tee shirt to breakfast. We ate at the specialty dinners on our second, third and fourth nights there. At each restaurant there are 2 seatings, 6:30 or 9:00. Each morning before breakfast, we went to the lobby, and had to sign up for dinner. A lot of people complain about this, and in Cabo I complained right with them. The reservation system here makes 100% sense. The specialty restaurants are small, and since there are only 2 seatings the reservation system works.

Our first night we ate at the Nautilus "Steak House" restaurant which was really good. For appetizers, I had a platter of seafood, and my husband got the Chicken Caesar Salad. It was all wonderful, but their Caesar dressing was the best dressing I’ve ever had. I ordered a steak, but by the time it got there, I was full on appetizers and bread, so I had about 2 delicious bites, but couldn’t finish. My husband had lamb for the first time, and was very impressed.
The Krystal Restaurant was very good, but it is very fancy and a little too cutting edge of cuisine for me. I could only eat about half of me meal. The waitress was very worried that I didn’t like it -- I lied and told her that I was full. Every one we met who ate here agreed that it is worth going here, even if only for the fusion chocolate desert.

The Italian Restaurant, Milano, was also wonderful, but we had been out that day, so I was too tired to make notes. Room service is available in a limited menu, which some people complained about. I am of the opinion that if you order room service regularly and pay for it, then you can complain. I am cheap, so just having room service included was awesome. There was lunch from 11 am-7am. There were 2 salads, 3 sandwiches, nachos, and 3 deserts to choose from. We ordered it around 1 pm, and it took about 40 minutes. To order breakfast, there was a cardboard order form. I never saw ours.

I enjoyed the casino, but didn’t seem to meet many people who won a lot. I was up over $150 one night playing Roulette, but gave it all back.

Now the (not so) bad
The bed. My husband woke up every 3 hours having to try to reposition himself back to sleep. One night he took the cushions off the love seat, but that didn’t help. Two couples that we met told us that they asked for mattress pads that helped a little bit, but not a lot, so we just stuck with it. I love a hard mattress and slept well, but woke up finding my hips to be a little sore.

And the Beautiful
I’d recommend this resort to anyone. We met a lot of fun people from all over. If I were going to generalize who seemed to come, I’d categorize the guests as mostly one of two groups. Honeymooners, or people 45+. We were there as a 29 and 33 year old who have been married almost 8 years. When we told people that, they seemed a little surprised. But we got along with every single person that we met, it was the friendliest group of people I‘ve ever vacationed with. My guess was that most people splurge for their honeymoon, and then have to wait until they have their finances are in order when they are older to get back
:-)

From journal Mi Stima Aruba!

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