Hello, Travel Bugs! Jhon and I stayed two nights at the Riu Palace Punta Cana all-inclusive resort, and this was our experience.
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First Impressions
We were impressed from the moment we laid eyes on the Riu Palace Punta Cana building. The architecture did justice to the hotel’s name, and our expectations of the resort went way up, for better or worse.
We don’t usually mention the lobby, but this one deserves the attention.
It is gorgeous and does a great job of keeping the palace illusion you get from the outside of the building going. This is one of the most beautiful lobbies we’ve seen in Punta Cana.
Since the lobby is air-conditioned, we decided to cool off here for a bit after checking in.
I did my piña colada taste test on the lobby bar, and the Riu Palace Punta Cana got an A.
Lunch Buffet
Since we arrived at 11:45 and our room wouldn’t be ready until 3 PM, we headed down to the beach buffet called La Altagracia.
The hotel has two buffet restaurants, but only La Altagracia, the smaller of the two, is open during lunch.
As it’s usually the case in small buffets, there was not much food variety. The flavor of the food was below average, which worried us a bit since food is such a big part of the all-inclusive experience.
The view from the restaurant is breathtaking, and having lunch with such a picture-perfect Caribbean background is priceless.
However, we’re really picky when it comes to poolside restaurants.
Many people enter the restaurant dripping water from their bathing suits, making the floor icky if not mopped regularly.
The Riu Palace Punta Cana needs to do a better job of keeping the floor dry to avoid the appearance of a grubby restaurant. Because of this, this was the only time we ate at La Altagracia during our stay.
At 2 PM, we got an e-mail from the super friendly and proactive woman who checked us in, letting us know our room was ready.
The room was ample, clean, well-maintained, and well-illuminated, but it felt somewhat dated. More on it later.
Main Pool
After leaving our belongings in the room, we went to the pool. The hotel has three pools, and we chose the biggest one.
It was mid-day, and we had no problem finding available lounge chairs with shade.
This is the second Riu property we’ve visited in Punta Cana, the other one being the Riu Republica, and seating and shade availability around the pools is something Riu does perfectly.
One thing to remember is that the pool water in Punta Cana is warm and sometimes the opposite of refreshing during the summer.
If you want cooler water, you should visit between October and May.
Snacking at the Coffee Shop
As you know by now, we love resort coffee shops. Capuchino Pattiserie is Riu Palace Punta Cana’s coffee shop, and it’s located in the lobby.
Here you can order coffee and sweet or savory snacks.
Pastries are not the hotel’s strong suit, but they’re better at the coffee shop than at the buffets. The tartlets were good, as was the chocolate cake; the cookies were not so much.
The Daiquiri Lobby Bar is right behind Capuchino, so we also ordered drinks with our snacks. I ordered another Piña Colada and Jhon a Cuba Libre, which were very tasty.
Smallest Pool
After snacking, we went to a different pool. This pool is small and has a volleyball net in the middle, so people mainly use it to play volleyball.
This pool is the least busy, so finding available lounge chairs was not a problem.
After a while, we headed back to our room to recharge our batteries for the Riu party we were going to that night. It would turn out to be the craziest party we’ve been to in Punta Cana.
The Room
Our room was the cheapest one available at Riu Palace Punta Cana. We booked a Standard Junior Suite with a balcony and paid $117 per person per night.
In general, we liked the room. It was clean, which is the most important thing; it had ample living space and was well-illuminated.
Bathroom
The bathroom was big and comfortable; it was separated from the bedroom by a door, which is crucial for us to feel comfortable in a hotel room.
Double vanities, enough towels, and a stand-up shower with a rain shower head made it an all-around comfortable bathroom.
The closet space was suitable for two people. We missed the bathrobes and slippers that many hotels provide as standard amenities.
Coffee Station & Minibar
The coffee station and the oversized water bottles were a nice addition to the room, and the minibar was well stocked, especially for the price.
There was an alcohol dispenser with bottles of gin, vodka, whisky, and Dominican rum.
We’ve only seen this feature in the Riu Republica out of the 20 resorts we’ve stayed in.
Bedroom
The bed was big and comfortable, but we got a stinky pillow out of the three we had. The TV was screwed to the wall at a 60 degrees angle to the bed, making it uncomfortable to watch.
The seating area had a two-seat sofa; it was clean but felt out of sync with the style of the room.
We were not fans of the rest of the furniture; we could see what they were trying to do with the palace theme, but the style felt dated instead of fancy.
The dresser in the seating area and the luggage bench in front of the bed should switch places for a more coherent room design.
The air conditioner worked great; the ceiling fan complemented the AC; there was excellent noise isolation, and the thick blackout curtains covered the entire balcony window.
These four things made the room very comfortable.
Balcony
The balcony was small, with simple furniture. You could almost see the beach from our room.
Dinner at La Isabela Buffet
For dinner, we went to the main buffet restaurant called La Isabela.
We breathed a sigh of relief after finding the food to be delicious. There was a lot of variety and surprising premium options for the price, like shrimp, octopus, salmon, and churrasco.
La Isabela restaurant felt clean and was beautifully decorated.
The Riu White Party
After dinner, we walked for five minutes to the Riu party area. The Riu complex has a dedicated space where they throw four parties weekly.
The Neon Party every Saturday, the Pink Party on Fridays, the Jungle Party on Mondays, and tonight’s party, the White Party, from 7:30 PM to 11:30 PM.
This was the most intense, fun, and entertaining party we’ve experienced in any Punta Cana resort.
There are VIP areas and drinks, but we did just fine with the regular stuff. The music is varied and very good, and there was never a dull moment in the entire night.
The party does take a while to get going; we arrived at about 8 PM, and the party vibe set in at about 9. The party was well designed by Riu, and every 15 minutes or so, something new was going on.
There was a juggler, gogo dancers, foam in the pool, people on stilts, an aerial silk performer, white balloons, and many more fun things.
There was a lot of security, and the Riu staff did a great job keeping everything organized.
All the guests from any of the Riu hotels have access to these parties.
The following morning we hit the gym. It’s small and suited only for basic workout routines. After the gym, we looked at the spa, which wasn’t as pretty as other resorts.
Breakfast Buffet
Breakfast at La Isabela was also delicious; after the not-so-good lunch the day before, the Riu Palace Punta Cana was 2 for 2 in good meals.
Many people were in the restaurant, and the waiting staff seemed overwhelmed and took a while to bring coffee and juice to our table.
Our waiter was not as friendly as every other staff member during our stay.
Arena Gorda Beach
We went to the beach after breakfast. The Riu Palace Punta Cana is located on Arena Gorda Beach, which, as you know, is one of our favorite beach stretches in the Bavaro area.
There were plenty of lounge chairs; some of them could have been in better shape.
Palm trees provided shade throughout most of the day.
The water right in front of the hotel was not the nicest; it was darker due to what seemed like seaweed on the sea floor (regular seaweed, not sargassum), but the water in front of the Riu Bambu hotel, which is right next door, was gorgeous so basically the Palace Punta Cana has a lovely beach.
We were surprised to see minimal to no seaweed on the sand and the water for the time of year. Most of it was regular seaweed and very little Sargassum.
There were a beach volleyball court and soccer goals in the sand.
The hotel has a bar accessible from the beach, which is a huge plus.
The Party Pool
We then visited the third pool to get a drink and get the salt from the beach off. This pool is about twice the size of the one with the volleyball net and is the only one with a wet bar.
This was the busiest and the liveliest pool, with music playing almost the entire time.
We’re unsure if this pool is adults only, but we never saw children here.
After a quick dip, we decided to go to the waterpark.
Riu’s Waterpark
The Splash Water World is not on site, and it takes about ten and a half minutes walking briskly to get there, and it’s available to all guests of the five hotels in the Riu complex.
The park has six slides; depending on how much impetus you push yourself down with, they go from mild to extreme.
There were many people, but the lines moved at a good pace.
As people who like thrill rides, we had a lot of fun, and there was even one slide, the steep open-air red one, that we didn’t dare to try.
There is also an area for young children and fountain soda machines. The park is open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM, except Tuesdays.
Back at the hotel, while there was an aerobics session in the main pool, we were having lunch at Luigi, the Italian restaurant.
Lunch at Luigi
Luigi is the only specialty restaurant open for lunch. Since we had plans to have dinner at Luigi and the lunch menu is the same as the dinner menu, we decided to eat from the small buffet they have on display.
There is not much variety, but we didn’t want to eat at La Altagracia again, so we made it work.
Time for Dinner!
When we returned to Luigi that night, the restaurant was packed, and since specialty restaurants are first come, first served at the Palace Punta Cana, we had to wait for a table.
We were given a pager, so we went to look at the other restaurants’ menus while we waited.
There are three more specialty restaurants, La Bodega serves Spanish food; Yokohama is a Japanese restaurant; and Krystal a fusion restaurant.
The hotel is not that big, so we consider four specialty restaurants and a buffet enough culinary variety for dinner.
Our pager buzzed in about fifteen minutes, indicating our table at Luigi was ready. The staff was very friendly, and the food was super good.
I thoroughly enjoyed my vegetarian lasagna, and Jhon also liked his osso buco.
Dessert was average; the name led us to believe it would be truffled ice cream when it was just ice cream made to look like a truffle.
After dinner, we sat just outside the restaurants area where a singer was singing bachata in the amphitheater.
We ordered cocktails from a waitress while we listened to a couple of songs.
There are not many bars in this hotel, but waitpeople are always making rounds taking drink orders throughout the property.
The Night Entertainment
A few minutes later, we headed to the theater nearby, where a trivia contest was taking place.
The questions appeared on the big screen, and you could vote for your answer using an app called Kahoot! The interactive nature of the trivia made it super fun, and there was a prize for the winner.
Trivia was just the pre-show. The night’s main show was a group of three singers called Il Divo, not the internationally famous Il Divo, of course, but three local young singers.
Their voices were stunning, and their song selection was perfect for the crowd.
They are, without a doubt, the best performance we’ve seen in a Punta Cana resort. The public got super into the performance, making it even more special.
After the fantastic show, we went to the sports bar. It’s in the lobby building, and the vibe and decor were great.
Besides snacking and drinking, you can watch sports games and play pool or foosball here. You need to buy tokens to play.
Now let’s give the Riu Palace Punta Cana an actual rated score.
| Value | 20/20 |
| Beach | 8/10 |
| Food | 9/15 |
| Amenities | 13/20 |
| Service | 8/10 |
| Room | 9/15 |
| Drinks | 4/5 |
| Entertainment | 5/5 |
| TOTAL SCORE | 76/100 |
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Click here to see where we rank the Riu Palace Punta Cana in our Punta Cana resort rankings.
Click here to see our YouTube video tour of the Riu Palace Punta Cana facilities.
