RIU Palace Maldivas

Writing this waiting for the sea plane in the sports bar because I couldn’t extend my check out by 1 hour! So not a great start. Firstly the Maldives is a beautiful place, the hotel is well maintained and the staff are excellent BUT say no to alot of things with a smile! The resort is definitely not 5 star maybe 4 and the Atol side 3. Room- we stayed in an over water villa number 28, the sun set side, the room is spacious and always cleaned well, more than I can say for the mini bar that was only restocked twice and this was because i requested it! I would definitely get the one with the pool, at low tide there is good snorkelling and I even captured a string ray under water. You definitely need rock shoes though. We paid far a floating breakfast $50 which was basically the free room service breakfast with a floating tray! They forgot it and I have to call the remind them but it came quickly, some point said it was free but it not. There is very little shade in the afternoon so I requested a sun umbrella but they said they didn’t do one even though next door had one! They eventually agreed to give me one and the makes a massive difference. The sun loungers on the terrace are very basic and uncomfortable not 5 star standard. WiFi in the rooms is very hit and miss not good enough for work if you need to complete and laptop based tasks, unfortunately when you have a business work follows you around!! Food- very hit and miss! The buffet for dinner was good on my first and third nights but other than this it was more geared towards non UK guests! Maybe they look at who’s staying, mainly Eastern European during our stay. You can always find something but got a bit bored with chips, rice and some meat I could find, we are not seafood lovers but there is always some kind of seafood available. The lunch buffet was the most accommodating the best UK guest. We tried breakfast only one on the last day and it was good, plenty of choice. The staff and always very attentive, but the soft drinks are always flat except the Coke Zero which they get out of a can. The only restaurant we tried was the Steak place and they have a funny arrangement where you receive all the starters and don’t choose! It says buffalo wings but it was a BBQ chicken drumstick, the Steak was good but maybe a few more choices would help. We didn’t fancy any other the other restaurants and by the end of the week the buffet became with boring. The buffet in the Palace side is a lot better than the Atoll side can’t put my finger on it but just everything was slightly better even the service! Room Service- non existent don’t bother unless you want a salad or sandwich! How can an all inclusive resort have such a bad service choice! This can be viewed on the Riu App at anytime! Don’t take my word for it! Drinks-on the palace side you can have all the premium spirits which is great but the problem is most of the entertainment is on the Atoll side so when you go there you can’t have the drinks you want. I’m pretty sure the beer was different too. We’re not big drinkers but the cocktails looked good but I asked for a strawberry daiquiri which is frozen on the picture on the menu but when it came it was completely different, I didn’t order another one! Water sports- we did the jet ski tour which was great, guide was good little bit of a show off but what he didn’t realise was I also an a good jet ski rider! Only thing to let it down was the other people didn’t show up so a new employee can with us that was training so took him a while to get used to his jet ski so had to go slow to start. Other than this it was great. The resort is missing a coffee shop there is the sports bar on the Atoll side open 24 hours and the bar opens at 10am on the Palace side (too late). The sports bar does have snacks but when I looked they were the burgers and hot dogs from the w Palace buffet that you had to warm in a microwave!! Not very 5 star! I always look at things to assess if it was worth the money we paid and unfortunately I don’t think it was, we had come straight from the F1 at Abu Dhabi so I can’t work out the exactly cost of this part but the hotel there was amazing and this one just isn’t. I would say upgrading to the Palace side is definitely worth it everything on this side is just a step up but make the whole experience very strange walking across a bridge only the be faced with a slightly worse experience. The place isn’t bad and more of the affordable ways to experience the Maldives but if we ever came again this isn’t the hotel is choose. If you haven’t experienced 5 star before then MAYBE you would think it’s five star but it’s not, compare this to a Sandals resort and there is no way this is 5 star. Read less

We had a wonderful 12 days at the 5 Star Riu Palace. The island and accommodation are stunning and the beaches breathtaking. It is probably the cleanest hotel we have ever stayed in, with meticulous attention to detail both indoors and out. The customer service is outstanding and the food exquisite in both the A La Carte restaurants and the buffet with regular delights such as lobster readily available. It was great to have access to the slightly larger 4 Star Riu Atoll island and the more lively entertainment and activities that took place there. We chose to walk across the bridge most of the time but the chauffeur driven golf buggies go up and down continuously so you always have a choice. On the more active days it was so nice to return to the more serene and tranquil atmosphere of the Riu Palace - known to the Atoll guests as "the private island" - they are not allowed to visit it :) If I had one very slight disappointment it would be that some of the activities - specifically beach volleyball - did not always take place as scheduled. Sometimes we chased up the staff and they then organised it. Other times they were simply just not around. This was particularly annoying when we had walked all the way across from the other island to play. But this was just a small annoyance when compared to all the other amazing experiences we enjoyed. This is the one hotel and location from all around the world that we have ever said we would like to return to someday soon. And we have been to lots of locations over the last 20 years! To me that says it all! Read less