My husband and I have just returned from a 6 night/7 day stay at the Riu Palace Las Americas. I cannot say enough about the FRIENDLY staff. Our flight was delayed so we arrived much later than we had planned. They were very accomodating (understanding we were exhausted and ready to settle in) - they had everything ready and sent us straight up to our beautiful ocean view room even though we didn't pay for it! The buffet and restaurants were very good even though I'm slightly picky. They serve breakfast for a LONG time - so lunch isn't started until 12:30. We found the food was better the earlier you came.
BE PREPARED FOR THESE THINGS:
ROCKS - when getting into the ocean but very gentle and pretty water
NO CHAIRS in the shade or otherwise unless you put your towels down before 9 or so.
RIDICULOUS MEANS of making dinner reservations. Beginning at 12:00 on the dot, find the woman on the patio right outside the indoor bar area. You have to stand in line to make ONLY 3 nights reservations at a time. And guess what, tonight AND tomorrow night are going to be BOOKED already! They have like 3 different seating times and do not fill the restaurant to capacity at any of those times. Anyways, we were only able to eat at the Steak House, Japanese, and Brazilian ones. DO e-mail a day or two before you arrive and they will allow you to make one reservation ahead of time! On a good note, the buffet is actually VERY good - many people we talked to didn't even bother with reservations because they were so pleased with buffet. We had reservations for the Gourmet one but missed it because of the UNprofessional Photo Shop people. Here's the deal on that - right outside the gift shop there is a table set up advertising beautiful pictures. It cost $100 and you get 10 pics printed and many more on CD. I convinced my husband to sign up for 6:15 on Saturday even though we had dinner reservations at 6:30. It was the only day available during our stay. She said we could easily be finished in 15 minutes. So, we arrive at 6:10 and wait for the photographer to show up - haha, over an HOUR later (after being promised a discount) we're told that we can go out to the beach and a different "Prof. photographer" would take our pics. A very nice lady did take several very good pics- even though the sun was already going down by this point (NOT as many as promised) and they assured us that if we WAITED until Monday to pick them out, they could photo shop some people out and stuff and have them printed the same day - PLENTY of time before we LEAVE on TUESDAY. Well, we picked out the pics Monday even though they hadn't been photo shopped and the RUDE RUDE RUDE skinny girl told us we could pick them up right after 6. We started hanging out in the lobby checking every few minutes from about 5:45 until dinner at 6:45 - NO ONE WAS EVER THERE! AH! So finally on Tuesday we found the girl around 9:30 and she was like, I don't have them, I thought you got them! AHHHH! So we started getting upset and she started being all fake nice saying, I'll find them, I'll find them - come back at 11:30 (check out is 12:00). So finally she comes out with the pics and we ask how much since we had been promised a discount. HAHAHA, of course she had to go "call someone else" because she had not been told of this and could not authorize it herself. She finally came back and only took off $20! Oh well, I really wanted the stupid pics so we paid it, but I vowed to tell my story so that atleast others might be prepared for such a mess.
ALSO, be warned that excursions are expensive with everyone you talk to - and I think they even go up by the day!!
My husband and I used American Express to book a private snorkel trip - we had a couple of issues - first, the rep told us to walk down the beach to the marina at Coral Beach Hotel - we tried - it's all blocked off by BIG waves and HUGE rocks. So we tried to cut through the hotel and they treated us like criminals but wouldn't tell us another way to get out there! - they finally walked us down! We finally get there and they are about to put us on a boat with 3 other folks, when we clearly paid extra for private ($72 for the two of us)
So we basically acted like jerks and ended up getting our own boat after having to stand around for 20 minutes listening to a bunch of Mexicans argue and try to work it out! We finally got on the boat and it was VERY NICE. Our driver and guide were AWESOME, our guide was a shorter older man who was very eager to help with every single little thing. He made us feel quite special. The snorkeling was not so good, the current was VERY strong so instead of staying in the water an HOUR, we were only in about 20 minutes - so the driver took us on a FANTASTIC boat ride! We were both pleased except for getting a bit sun burnt. Bring your sunscreen!!
We also rode the bus down to the Ferry entrance. Ask the hotel for the ferry schedule.It cost about $2.00 each to ride the bus - and $15 each roundtrip to ride the ferry. We went to Isla Mujeres and rented a golfcart ($30 for two hours) and we just drove around all over the island. It was SO neat! There are villages, locals, shops, restaurants, all of it! Oh, and the Ferry ride is beautiful! Definitely a highlight!
Back to the hotel - my ONLY complaint would be that they don't have confined areas for smokers - like, I expect to smell it at the bar, but NOT ALL OVER the lobby :( The wireless internet only works in the lobby also.
Again, I can't say enough about the beauty of the place, or the friendliness of the staff. Alan the head waiter around the lobby/bar is AWESOME! There were several very good waitresses but I cannot remember their names. Alex - the darker skinned gentleman around 20 years old was WONDERFUL at the steak house. There is a comedian waiter in the Brazilian that was VERY good as well. He will tell you that each meat is something crazy like elephant or his former pet iguana. Overall our trip was very good - we spent a lot of time laying around the beach and pool. Everything was always very clean - and there were times when it was faster to get drinks by just going to the bar instead of waiting for someone to ask you. There were also times that 5 people would ask if they could get you something without about 10 minutes...The maids are excellent and friendly as well. We left some quarters on the bed one day and got two towel heart swan thingies that were kissing -with real rose petals on the bed! Another day we got a cute little towel fish! Note about flying - if having to land in Miami beware - I HATE Miami - first off the "weather" there delayed our take off and land from Atlanta. THEN we RAN through the entire airport only to realize they let our connection leave with us and about 6 other people that we know of. We were only a few minutes late - but then they tried to put us on a flight that was SEVEN hours way - I was very upset so they changed it to one that was TWO hours away - which of course got MORE delayed! Oh, and THEN, we FINALLY get on the stupid plane and guess what, they sit and WAIT on several passengers so that our plane gets BUMPED out of line for departure and we end up riding around WITHOUT air for OVER AN HOUR!! Oh, but that's not all! Guess what MIAMI airport did to us on the way HOME - they didn't put one of our bags on the PLANE!!!! You should have seen the people from our flight behind us in line with NO luggage! So, like I said, avoid Miami airport - it's nothing but disaster! (although I guess I should be thankful that we were atleast safe.) STILL waiting on airline to call us and say they found our bag :(
Sorry I rambled - hope you found this slightly helpful - enjoy your stay. Oh, and the bar tenders will work with ya a bit on the drink selection!

This was our second time to Cancun both hotels were very nice first one was for our honeymoon three years ago at Cancun Palace this time we stayed here. Both were very nice hotels the staff at the Riu was VERY nice did not have to look very far at all if you needed some help. The only thing that we didn't like was the rocks on the beach and the waves are not big at all, but for kids and familys or people that are not looking for waves this would be a very nice beach. The bar did do better service if you tipped but there were a couple of the bartenders that were always very good. We enjoyed our stay here and would recommend this hotel to anyone.

I spent many hours reviwing all Cancun All-Inclusives and the Riu Palace Las Americas was perfect. Any negivite reviews you read about this place, just take with a grain of salt. They must have been written by very hard to please people. We were treated like royality. The food was great. Staff did way more than was expected. I only wish they have a greater slection of beer. All they offer is Corona. But you can get all kinds of mixed and specialty drinks. Its more adult oriented but the kids I did see were having fun. Highly recommend.
Dennis

So my husband and i just returned for the RPLA we were there from June 14-21 a week, and it was awesome. We have been to the caribean a couple of times and our last vacation was to Punta Cana and this place blows that resort out of the water. The staff was all very nice. We booked our vacation through Orbitz and used Entertainment Limo for our transfers back and forth with the airport and they were awsome also. When we got to the resort our room was reason which was great because we were eager to go to the beach. The beach is soo beautiful, i do like how every morning they clean up all the seaweed that washes up throughout the night. The only down fall was that there were no cabanas our umbrellas or anything with shade on the beach but if we wanted to we could go next door to the RIU Cancun and they had the cabanas on the beach. Another downfall was the reservations for dinner had to be made between 12-5 and you could only make 3 at a time so we waited like 1hour the first day which was horrible but that is all the stupid people that ask a million questions. The room was great, the resturants were great, we ate at the brazillian, (awesome), French (awesome) and the steak house which was ok. and the spanish which was ok. we did not get to eat at the japanease one though but we heard that was very good. i would say the french was my favorite one. We didnt' do anything but beach, and pool everyday except take the bus to the ferry to the island of isle majaria, where we rented golf carts and went around the island drinking corona's. we looked this resort and i am sure will return again.