Hotel Riu Palace Santa Maria — Hotel in Sal

So much is excellent here: the service, the food, the accommodation and the facilities, I have to give 5 stars, though it probably wouldn't get a 5-star official rating in Europe or North America. We stayed for a week in March.

A few small things could be better. I was surprised and disappointed to discover that the only decaff coffee in the restaurant and coffee lounge is instant. The staff were surprised that I refused this. They don’t give powdered coffee to regular coffee drinkers, why should I drink it? I had no coffee for a week.

The towels in the bathrooms could be larger and thicker – the beach towels were far better.

When I asked at the desk how far it was to walk to the ‘party’ in the RIU Funana, I was told “3 minutes”. If my less mobile partner had known it would take 15 minutes (it was still 10 mins for me on my own), she would have got a taxi.

I found most of the chairs throughout the hotel were uncomfortable and exacerbated my back problems. The ones in the theatre were the worst. This is, of course, a subjective judgement.

To return to the positive. RIU clearly have good management and training, staff numbers seem sufficient and processes are followed. Staff were nearly all very friendly and helpful.

As an example, we realised that we needed to change rooms as ours was on the first floor, and the stairs challenged my partner. We'd thought that a 5 star hotel would have lifts (elevators). Although the hotel was fully booked, the desk did some juggling of bookings and met our needs with minimum fuss. Other requests were also satisfied quickly.

The food in the general restaurant was brilliant, if you don’t mind self-service and a little queueing. The choice and quality were both superb, and the Praia bar was equally nice for lunch. Occasionally, drink requests were forgotten but mostly they came reasonably quickly. We ate two of our evening meals in the specialty restaurants, which were quieter but not as good!

The food labelling was frequently bizarre, bearing little relation to any of the dishes underneath. Many dishes were not labelled at all. However, as it was all inclusive and self-serve, if one thing disappointed, you could go back for another. Ingredients were not shown.

I’d have been able to eat more starters, salads and other dishes if raw onion was not added to so many items. As there were containers of onions present with the salads for people to add their own, surely other dishes (such as various salad vegetables) could have been onion-free? But there was still plenty for me to choose, with some extra care.

The rooms are spacious and well designed, with good lighting options and black-out curtains. The quality of fittings in the bathroom is excellent, but the storage furniture in the bedroom seems cheap and tacky. There’s plenty of hanging and drawer storage, but take care that a broken drawer doesn’t fall on your feet as you pull it out; everything else worked well. The beds are very comfortable.

The cleanliness in buildings and gardens is immaculate.

The beach was lovely, never crowded, and the loungers and shades were fine. Swimming depends on wind and currents. Unless you are a very strong swimmer, I’d advise staying close to the shore. The pools looked great, and some never seemed that busy. I think most younger children kept to the Splash Aqua Park at the other end of the complex.

For older and less mobile guests, it’s quite a walk from the reception, and nearby accommodation, to the pool area (250-300m?). It would be wise to arrange a mobility scooter if this affects you. Or the hotel could introduce a buggy service down the ‘main drag’. The complex seems wheelchair friendly, except for the upstairs accommodations.

Day time poolside and beach games looked fun. I discovered that I wasn’t very good at pétanque!

The first night dance show was pretty good and we enjoyed a couple of hours at the ‘White’ party (clubbing, in essence). The other evening entertainments which we sampled didn’t appeal to us.

There's not much to see or do in the nearby town, at...

🚨Honest Review🚨

The Riu palace is an excellent hotel, lots of great things about it.

✅ Pros

Lots of different pools to choose from, quiet pools, entertainment pools, pool bars and of course the sea. 🏊 Pool bar creates a great ‘mingling’ place and can quite easily get lost with the time when having a few beers. 🍺 Lots of Varetity in drinks, a few drinks I can think of is house beer, Pino Colada, Muddlide, Espresso Martini, Sex on the beach, Aperol Spritz and the list keeps going. They can even go off menu! 🍸 Entertainment during the day is top notch, French Bowls, Schooling, Beach Vollyball, Water Vollyball, Football and many other activities. ⚽️ Sports bar (pt.1) is great for a break in the sun, fully air conditioned. Food including Beef Burgers, Chicken Burgers, Doritos, Sandwiches, Soft and alcoholic drinks served 24/7.🍔 Sports bar (pt. 2) is a great place for football lovers. Every screen has Premier League / Championship / LaLiga etc games on 24 hours a day (Saturdays always best for this). Also equips with pool tables and other games. 📺 Cannot complain at the rooms, we had a room overlooking a building site of another hotel and was still perfect. No noise from the builders and the sea was still in view. 🌊 Rooms fully stocked with Bacardi, Vodka, Rum and Gin. Also has mixers in the fridge which is filled every other day - Fanta, Sprite, Coke Zero, Coca Cola, beers and Tonic. You also get lots of bottled water filled daily. 🥂 Bars are great, very fast service and really pleasant staff. The Coffee shop is also a very unique touch. One hangover day I just needed a latte which they offer hot or iced.☕️ Dogs on beach and hotel are perfectly safe and friendly. They wander round the hotel or sit on the beach front. They don’t lick you but do love a good belly rub. 🐕 Food has been excellent - only used the Buffett so far and got the Steakhouse booked for Thursday. They have a huge variety such as soup, steak, chicken, lots of different stews, Chinese food, chips, pizza - they also have a restaurant at the main top and one near the pools. 🌯 Some entertainment on a night time was unbelievably good! We will rock you were amazing and the on site entertainers dragged you up to dance - the service on an evening was fantastic too. Service to your tables, plenty of room too for the size of hotel. 🎭 Waterpark was actually really good! Plenty of slides to pick from and even has refreshments and sun loungers to watch kids / boyfriends / girlfriends play on the slides. 🛝 The place is beautiful, the beach is amazing and you cannot get a better location. I took my drone up on the beach and got the most beautiful shots. You feel like you’re on an island. 🏖️

❌Things to note - and this is me being really picky!

Humidity totally takes any energy out of you. If you can’t handle heat then it’s not your holiday - for us, it gets to 30/31 degrees and doesn’t go below 26 degrees even at 5am! Air condition is great but walking out of your room feels like walking into a sauna. 🌤️ Entertainment on a night has been up and down - we really enjoyed ‘We Will Rock You’ and the Rui Party are excellent - but we found ourselves walking out of a few of the shows to find our own entertainment on the balcony or sports bar. It was very busy but just wasn’t our cup of tea! 🎭 Breakfasts had lots on offer, but for me I love a good English breakfast and there were a few things missing - No English Sausages, No hash browns (they had dry potato and chips which I had but chips for breakfast got a little boring!). I ended up having pancakes, bacon, poached eggs, beans most days - Which by the way was more than enough for me!🧇 Lots of walking - many people would really like this but if you’re looking to role out of your bed and onto a sun bed then you might want to request a pool room etc. we averaged about 10,000 steps a day just walking around the hotel (and we left our phones when walking on the beach too).🚶‍♂️‍➡️

I could go on but I’ve hit the Character count! All in all it’s...

Everybody complained about the smell of damp on trip advisor so noticed the smell straightaway.. the smell was coming from the drains throughout the hotel.thry encourage you to use the waste bin for toilet paper..so obviously a drainage problem.our last day they were suctioning the drains to clear them atbthe toilets by reception. Drains smell throughout the hotel especially by the pool..room was spacious.. cleaned to perfection daily.staff worked super hard.our air conditioning was not working great and we thought it was because of the control panel until we walked past someone's room and realised ours wasn't actually working.the last night the noise from air conditioning was horrendous. But we didn't report until check out due to happening at 1am.abd feeling cool temp in other rooms the same morning..the staff used a lot of bug sprats in the rooms but we didn't have any ants in ours.the rainfall shower was perfect but the smaller handheld wasn't staying well on the pole.the shower gel had also broken off the wall..we were assigned to room 4114 due to me having recent surgery on knee..reception were great with me abd I had a partial sea view.they put us here due to the block being central to everything. The staff looked after everyone.bar staff.restaurant staff.reception and entertainment team.we would have preferred to have been informed more about allergy options.a member of the party has coeliac disease..restaurant staff did not understand this..language barrier and ignorance of this allergy..more education is required. There are a lot of newer staff that are still learning and we completely understand this. It would be a great idea if there was a learning opportunity about coeliac disease..we were given gluten free bread in the Italian.and asked the maitre'd about the bread for a packed lunch on the last day to take yo the airport. We were provided with a gluten free baguette.if only we knew about this during the rest of the holiday we would have been extremely happy.the gluten free baguette was the best gluten free bread my family member had ever had..and when you cant estate normal bread with wheat it is something that you really really miss..breakfast consisted of different types of egg.cheese.ham and bacon.as was unable to eat anything else off the menu.even cautious getting fruit due to cross contamination from other holiday makers..evening meals were fantastic at the restaurants. The allergies were on the menu qr code at each table. The appetisers allergies were not listed on the a la carte menu.we were provided with gluten free bread here as well as the Italian.the dessert for the a la carte also contains wheat.again staff did not understand. So we checked onnthe qr code menu.fruit was an option but it was brought in a sweet sickly sauce. So remained uneaten..the steakhouse restaurant didn't understand gluten free and no bread here we had to double check each item and as the beautifully presented desserts wee cross contaminated with crumbs and wheat based desserts it was a no go..so separate ice cream was provided. The bars were fantastic and staff worked tirelessly to look after everybody. Pool bars included. Holiday makers did not clear away their plates after eating at pool side from.pepe's which i thought was disgusting as birds are eating the leftovers.. I noticed staff going around clearing up each hour.the sunbeds are stained. 4 star hotels in Europe scrub the sunbeds orcwadh them down each night but rui don't seem to do this..the beach looked lovely but the location of the sea is a bit too far away.previous visit to cano verde had a beach bar and closer sea..however, the sea had extreme riptides that the British don't seem to take serious.explanation of this should be put in notices to the beach access.felt safe with security and police nearby.the entertainment team was superb.we missed out on the white mostly as overslept missing the tui rep.did not realise the party was at the funana hotel. So disappointed.spa massage wasn't great.but best...