Hotel Riu Palace Paradise Island
Hotel Riu Palace Paradise Island things to do, attractions, restaurants, events info and trip planning
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I wish I could leave 0 stars. We stayed at this location 02/20/25-02/24/25 for my best friends bachelorette party. From the moment we arrived I knew we made a grave mistake booking this hotel for our stay. The staff was beyond rude and unprofessional. They had horrible attitudes and to be frank, flat out nasty. We are a group of young mothers who don't get many opportunities to go away on trips like this and so we were really looking forward to this vacation. The bar staff at the pool would curse under their breath, roll their eyes, would not give us the time of day. The man working at the towel station was extremely rude and clearly miserable every day. The beach is filled with outside vendors constantly harassing you to buy products or go on excursions. While I know it's most likely due to being a public beach and beyond the control of the hotel, it was uncomfortable to constantly have to explain why we were not interested in what they were selling. It was aggravating to the point that we would just leave the beach even though we wanted to lay out by the water. The pool with the bar was disgusting, while standing at the bar it wreaked of what smelled like vomit. The next day it made sense because a hotel guest was throwing up in the pool. When they got her out all they didn't even clean up after her. They continued to serve her alcohol and she proceeded to throw up all over the pool deck. The staff didn't seem to care or try to help that situation. However, when my group went inside for brunch we were told we were not allowed in the buffet. We were dressed the exact same we were when we were there for breakfast. We had out cover ups and shorts on. We were mortified by the hostess and then the manager came over and told us we were fine to go in. Making reservations was a joke. When we arrived we were told we needed to make reservations as the restaurants fill up quickly, only to be told over the phone when we called that they had nothing available for us aside from the buffet. Then we tried to be proactive and book our reservations for the remainder of the weekend, only to be told again it was too far in advance and we had to call the morning of. When we walked by the restaurant we wanted to go to later that night it was completely EMPTY! We booked an ocean front suite and when we got to our room there was a CONCRETE WALL right in front of our balcony. We couldn't see anything!! When we called to explain the situation we were basically disregarded until we went downstairs and explained how much money we spent and what we were expecting per our booking and showed them our confirmation. It took an entire day to switch rooms. Every day calling down for towels was impossible. We must have called over 30 times to get towels and no one ever showed up. e tried hanging our used towels to dry since we couldn't get new ones and the room (even when AC was shut off) was so frigidly cold the towels would never dry. It was exhausting. We had no choice but to use towels from our friends rooms which caused an inconvenience for the bride. The tip of the iceberg was the multiple cockroaches we found on our last night. We ran downstairs to show them one that we killed and they basically jumped at the site of it. They told us they wouldn't move us to another room and did not have any sister locations on the island. All they did was give us an email to send our complaint for a refund too. They told us they would send housekeeping up to clean. When they arrived all they did was change our sheets.......We felt super uneasy sleeping in the room so we went down to the bride's room and 7 us us had to squeeze into one king bed. We had early flights in the morning and it was just a nightmare of a situation. After sending our complaints to the email address provided it took 20 days to receive what was basically a (Chat GPT) generic response. I know this because "Deborah F Jane" sent us all the exact same response. I am appalled by this "resort" and I write this once again in tears because my best friends dream bachelorette was a disaster!
Gianna Tummolo
00
My husband and I stayed at the RIU Palace Paradise Island in a junior suite with an ocean view. After checking into RIU Palace, we arrived at our room to find that it was not thoroughly cleaned: the glassware were not changed and had watermarks on them, the bed covers that detail the foot of the bed were dusty, and there was dust on many of the surfaces like night stands, counter tops, etc. Don’t get me wrong, the room “smelled clean” when we first entered but wasn’t actually cleaned with intention. However, after the initial cleaning before check-in, I will say house keeping did her best to keep up with the room when we asked (but I did tip her to do so). The room itself is a bit dated. There’s corrosion on many of the metal features in the room such as the wall lamps and mirrors. The balcony on-looked the pool, another building, and part of the ocean and had two chairs but was barely large enough to fit the chairs. If two people were to sit outside, one chair would block the balcony door. The bed was made up of two full beds, which is larger than a king but exposed a large crack down the “middle of the beds”. Every time you got on the bed, it would shift — it made for a terrible sleeping arrangement through the night, especially for romantic partners. I essentially slept on one side of the bed and my husband slept on the other. The gym is sub-par with some equipment broken and falling apart. The stock photos you see online of the rooms, pools, and beach are not accurate to what you’re actually paying for, so do your research! This “5-star resort” consists of 2 small outdoor pools (one pool with a built in pool bar) and a short stretch of beach that closes at 6pm everyday (very surprising). Since the lounge, pool and beach areas are so small, people are literally sitting on top of each other. There are more private spaces to lay out down the beach stretch, but you can’t bring the loungers there because it’s outside of RIU’s property lines. The pool and beach areas are located in between two large buildings which block a lot of Sun. There’s only good sunshine at the highest point of Sun (from approx. 12pm-4pm); otherwise you’re constantly moving around to follow the sun or you’re sitting in shade. If you sit by RIU’s beach, be prepared for an influx of local vendors asking you if you want to parasail, ride jet skis, get your hair braided, buy souvenirs, pineapple and coconut drinks, buy cigars or weed, etc. The local vendors are not regulated by RIU staff and will enter the beach through public access routes and try to sell you things every 15-minutes — it can get annoying for some people, especially if you’re just trying to relax by the beach. One of my biggest annoyances with the pool area was the constant presence of seagulls in the outdoor eating areas by the pool, called the Jerk Chicken Hut, which was open during lunch times. There were several dirty/empty plate drop off bins by the trash but they were not regularly cleared so the seagulls would flock around those areas or wait for an unsuspecting person to walk by and swoop down. This was my first trip to RIU Palace and the Bahamas, and there were a few things I really did enjoy during my stay here. Overall, the people at RIU have been very kind, friendly, and helpful from the front desk, bellmen, entertainment staff and housekeeping. My husband and I visited downtown Nassau a couple nights to tour the area and check out their annual festival, Junkanoo, and the temperament of the Bahamian people did not change; very friendly, relaxed. At RIU Palace, I was able to try all of the restaurants during my stay which included: four restaurants Tengoku, Bahamas, Kulinarium, Krystal, the Jerk Chicken Hut, and buffet, Atlantic. All of the restaurants were enjoyable with good food. As a sushi fanatic, the least liked restaurant was Tengoku since it’s not necessarily authentic Japanese, which I expected.
Naomi Ashley
00
I just returned from my first trip to the Bahamas. I booked the escape on the fly and selected the Riu Paradise Island based on positive reviews. The resort was wonderful. Every staff member I came into contact with was exceptionally helpful, friendly and an expert at their job. I was traveling alone and they made me feel like family. The main buffet was very good. The specialty restaurants were also good. My favorite was the Kulinarium. The specialty restaurants are quite hard to get a reservation at and they only seat by reservation. However, If you can't get into them I wouldn't worry too much, The buffet, quick bites at the Calypso Sports bar and nightclub (open 24 hrs) and poolside barbecue grill as well as room service can fill in the gaps nicely. The swimming pools were nice and the beach was amazing. There is lounge chair and umbrella service on the beach and it seems to be limitless. The only downside is that there is no food or beverage service on the beach. You have to rinse the sand off in an outdoor shower then then proceed up and down probably about 12 stairs each time you want a drink. I jokingly nicknamed the stair deck down to the beach as the "sobriety test". 😳🙏🏼 I loved that the guest population was a mix of young adults to seniors. Mostly couples. Since the resort isnt too big (in my opinion,) I likened it to a cruise ship where you see the same folks each day. I met so many wonderful people! I'm not sure of the reasoning behind it but the room service menu was too limited for me. Especially the breakfast. It was basically continental breakfast items. It would have been really nice to have been able to order something hot, like eggs and sausage or even a breakfast casserole to the room. Check-in and out was a BREEZE! My only other experience with all-inclusives was in Mexico where every check-in and out experience has been laborous and timely. Riu was great! I extended my stay three times and they handled it wonderfully. My room was nice! and clean. I absolutely loved the shower. I'm very particular on shower faucets, wands and water pressure. The shower passed with flying colors! I saw several evening shows which were top-notch and after the shows the Calypso turns into a nightclub. I danced the evening away on several occasions. People just get out there and dance, even solo! Everyone was welcome and it many times a dance circle or line would develop and all of the guests would encourage each other! It was very fun and often times hilarious. I utilized the Riu app to manage everything with my stay. I utilized MCP for seamless and express immigration and customs. I also utilized the Welcome Pickup app for airport transfers. The Riu app introduced these services and I will definitely use them again. I've seen a couple of negative reviews about housekeeping or dining. I think some of the negative experiences guests had were probably related to the fact that maybe they were not using the Riu App throughout their stay. I could request anything with tap on my phone. I would click to request towels and they would be there in minutes. If you ran low on anything it would be there in minutes and you could request it on your phone. It even gives you a list of the things you might need like shower gel or shampoo, you just have to click it. Ordering room service and many other services using the app was super convenient and easy for even the most novice smartphone user. I feel bad for guests that did not take advantage of the technology. Please consider that may have been the issue when you read negative reviews regarding misinformation or customer service challenges. The information is very detailed when you're using the program and the responses are almost immediate. I will definitely be back soon!
Stacey Morgan
00
Hey Everyone, It’s been about a week since I’ve been back home, so I’ve had time to recover from my stay at this hotel. I’m going to walk you through the list of issues I encountered while staying at Riu. Day 1: They had roaches! I didn’t see any in my room, but I did kill a spider or two and one of my friends found 3 roaches wrapped up in a blanket the hotel provides, another friend found one crawling up her shower wall. It took a full day for them to move the friend with the roaches taking a nap in the blanket to another room. I should have left then, but apparently I’m color blind because I ignored the red flags. Day 2 My friends and I decided to go to the hotel’s steakhouse. It was extremely difficult to get a reservation through the app, but some staff members at the front desk advised us to try to speak to the host when the restaurant opens in the evening, so we did. The host, Terrence, gave us the rundown on how we could possibly be seated when the restaurant is fully booked on the app. The instructions he gave us were to return at the top of each hour (or half hour) to see if guests would show up for their reservations. After 15 minutes of no shows, walk-ins would be seated first come first serve. Initially, my friends and I were the only people waiting to be seated. We decided to wait until the 8:00 hour since it was about 7:15 when we spoke to Terrence. Toward the end of our waiting period, another family who missed their 7:00pm reservation came in at 8:00pm and pleaded with him to be seated. He denied them several times, then the pleading then turned into arguing. The conversation got so heated that one of the family members stormed off and said “forget it, I don't like steak anyway”. After waiting for everything to settle down, Terrence came out to tell us that he was going to accommodate the family since it was their last night at the resort. According to him, my friends and I would be there for a few more days, so we would have plenty of time to go another night. Fifteen seconds later I was at the front desk complaining about the unfair treatment and unnecessary rule bending. One of the front desk attendants had the manager, Grandy, come out and speak to me. In his defense, he did start out very calmly, and stated that Terrence should have just told us that there were no more seats available, despite that not aligning with the restaurant rules. We walked back over to the restaurant where he asked Terrence to come out and speak to us. Terrence aggressively says “tell me everything you just told him”, as if I would lie to sit in a restaurant with a rude host. He claimed that he was using his discretion on who to assist because they had a reservation already, even though they missed it by an hour, and that it was our decision to wait and he didn’t tell us to. I managed to look past his careless and accusatory tone when I expressed that my issue wasn’t us waiting, but him choosing who deserved to be seated based on how much time they had left at the resort. Unfortunately, neither Terrence nor Grandy were very solution-oriented people; the best Grandy could come up with was having us wait for an additional 30 minutes to find us a seat at a restaurant we did not agree to go to. He didn’t even bother to ask how we would like to resolve the issue. When I asked him if he could provide any other resolution, he said no. I was beyond annoyed with how both of these men handled the situation and confused as to how either one of them could be in customer-facing or managerial positions. I decided then that the bar for customer service at Riu was in Satan’s lair. *Stay tuned for days 3-5
L. S
00
Day 3 actually wasn’t too bad. We decided to eat at restaurants off of the resort for dinner and the sun was out for the majority of the day. I mean my friend did say that her breakfast omelet tasted like cleaning products, but hey our expectations had dropped by this point so she just decided not to eat it. After breakfast we went to the pool and relaxed a bit, but when I returned I had no towels in my room. I didn’t even have the sign on my door to have the room cleaned but someone did it anyway and took everything I needed to dry my body. So I stood in my room fully naked for 20 minutes waiting for housekeeping because once the bathing suit comes off, it's off. Later that evening we enjoyed the hotel’s entertainment and had drinks at the bar. But wait, did I mention the roaches??? Here are two baby ones on my cup! When the bartender gave it to me I just looked at the cup and left it sitting on the bar, I was so irritated. He came back a few minutes later to ask me why I wasn’t drinking, so I told him to look at the cup. He pretended not to see the problem and showed another bartender. The other bartender said “oh it’s two ants” so casually I just got up and walked away. Two ANTS??! Sir, you know full well they were definitely roaches. I ordered titos and lemonade, no roach on the side. To act like roachade is not a problem should be against the law. Day 4 Again, after the pool, I returned to my room to no towels! This time I had to reach out to housekeeping twice and waited 30 minutes. Just standing around naked and afraid, looking crazy. 🙄 Later, I checked the Riu app all day and was able to get a reservation at the steakhouse. My friends and I decided to see what all the fuss was about since they were always booked. The server was very kind, so when he did the drumroll on the plate covering I was expecting something magical to make up for the past 3 days. When I tell you I could not have been any more underwhelmed I am not exaggerating. I was thoroughly annoyed, and it’s nobody’s fault but mine; I shouldn’t have lifted my hopes off the ground after almost drinking the baby roach cocktail the night before. Look at the plate. We had to beg for that side of undercooked shrimp because the lobster tail was the size of a middle finger. The fries were dry and overcooked, the two carrots and broccoli had absolutely no seasoning, and the steak that I requested to be medium well was tougher than my last relationship! Fast forward to the hotel’s Karaoke event that night. It was fairly entertaining, but I’ll be damned if one of the guests who went up to perform didn’t stomp a roach dead mid-song. She literally yelled “Is that a F*#$in roach?!” in the middle of Sweet Caroline. Everyone in attendance laughed like they knew it was a common issue. Day 5 I was more than ready to head home, but instead of making a scene, I chose to spend the rest of my time at the pool, soaking up the sun. My interactions with some of the hotel staff made it clear that fighting wasn’t worth the effort. Ultimately, I’m sharing this to help y'all when deciding on a resort in the Bahamas. Riu earns a 1 out of 5 stars from me—definitely would not recommend. Save yourself the money and the trouble. *P.S. The Online Reputation Director for Riu responded to a review claiming that the presence of insects is inevitable due to the hotel’s proximity to lush vegetation. We know what the Caribbean is like, but insects should be outside, where the vegetation is, not inside trying to take a nap with paying guests. I’ve visited plenty of Caribbean resorts where insects were not a problem—Get an exterminator!
L S
00
Last month, we had the opportunity to visit Hotel RIU Palace Paradise Bahamas for our very first all-inclusive trip and experience the beauty of the country. While I had high expectations for our stay, I believe there are several areas where improvements could enhance the overall guest experience. Upon arrival, my first impression of the hotel was that it could benefit from some updates. Additionally, there was an unpleasant odor in the lobby that resembled sewage, which was not welcoming. Our room was located on the 15th floor, and we encountered long wait times due to only one elevator being available for guests who stayed on that floor. Once we entered our room, we noticed a similar odor and found that the AC was not functioning properly, causing condensation on the floor. Given the heat and humidity in our room, we reached out to the front desk for assistance. While they did ultimately respond, the wait time made it difficult for us to unpack and unwind after our journey. Another concern was the water from both the faucet and shower, which also had a noticeable odor. This is definitely an area that could be addressed for better guest comfort. While many of the staff members were polite, we encountered a few who could benefit from additional training in hospitality. For instance, when we arrived 15 minutes early for our dinner reservation, a staff member named Tula was not welcoming. I almost got hit on the face by the door as he tried to close it to prevent us from going in the restaurant. We were 15 minutes early from our reservation and were asking nicely if we could dine earlier. A more courteous approach, especially when there was no crowd at the restaurant, would have greatly enhanced our experience. The reservation system for dining could also use some simplification. We had to download an app, which only allowed us to reserve two dinners at a time in advance. This made planning our meals during our week-long stay a bit cumbersome. On a more personal note, I booked a 50-minute deep tissue massage for $135, but unfortunately, the experience did not meet my expectations based on my previous experiences with this type of treatment. I'm not sure if the masseuse is licensed or trained for that treatment at all. Plus, the person in the reception of the spa is not friendly as well. What is up with the "Im doing you a favor" look and attitude in most of the staff? Where is the warmth and friendliness? Don't they know that they are working in a hotel/resort where hospitality is a must? We also had an encounter with a bartender who was less than respectful to my husband. While I find it difficult to convey these negative experiences, I think it’s important for management to be aware of such issues so that improvements can be made. On a positive note, the stunning beaches of the Bahamas truly captivated us, and we enjoyed the natural beauty and the opportunity to meet fellow travelers. I believe that investing in staff training to promote professionalism, warmth ( more friendly smiles would be great), respect, and a service-oriented mindset would significantly enhance the overall guest experience. Given the importance of tourism to the country, this could have a lasting positive impact. Thank you for considering this feedback. Unfortunately, we have decided not to come here again or recommend it to anyone we know. It's just not worth the thousands of dollars we spent on this vacation.
Ria Massey
00
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Learn more insights from Wanderboat AIBasic Info
Address
6307 Casino Drive, Nassau, Bahamas
Map
Phone
+1 242-363-3500
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Website
riu.com
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Reviews
Overview
3.8
(1.6K reviews)
Ratings & Description
attractions: Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas, Warwick Paradise Island - Bahamas, The Royal at Atlantis, Comfort Suites Paradise Island, Paradise Islands, The Coral at Atlantis, Aquaventure, The Ocean Club, A Four Seasons Resort, Bahamas, Mandara Spa, Cabbage Beach, restaurants: Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Bahamas, Viola's bar and grill, Anthony's Seafood and Ribs, Seafire Steakhouse, Poseidon’s Table, Dune, Carmine's, Murray's Deli, The Village Burger Shack, The Dilly Club
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