Hotel Riu Tequila — Hotel in Playa del Carmen

Been to this hotel several times. 3 times before the refurbishment and this is the second visit since the refurbishment in 2018|The staff are still amazing, from the gardeners, cleaners, bar staff, waiters, reception and animation team and any other employee group i have missed out. Can't fault their friendliness. They all work long hours, especially the animation team, who seem to be on the go 24/7 trying to keep everyone entertained.|Rooms are getting in need of some new refurbishment but were always clean. Air con was good and the large ceiling fan was a godsend in the heat and humidity. There is a toilet and separate shower cubicle, although the shower has a glass see through door. Bear this in mind if sharing with friends. There were also 2 sinks. Also in this area, you have a wardrobe with hangers and a digital safe inside, along with an ironing board and iron. There is a large golf umbrella too. You also have a fridge stocked with soft drinks, beer and water. Also you have a cabinet with bottles of rum, vodka, whisky and tequila, all on optics, so help yourself whenever you like. There is also a coffee making machine but no kettle for tea, so bring one with you.|There are 2 queen size beds that are pushed together but they can be pulled apart if needed.|There are 5 pools, including a kids and an over 18 adults one with a swim up bar. They also have a quieter pool.|The beach is about a 6 minute walk directly across the road and through the Riu Yucatan arched walkway. Alternatively, they run an extended seated golf cart every 15 mins to and from the beach. You can use the beach restaurant for your lunch while there, Please be aware, the Caribbean have been suffering with an unprecedented amount of sargassum hitting their coastline. This June has seen the worst in their history. Although the hotel staff work tirelessly to clear it, they are fighting a losing battle. It's not the hotels fault, just mother nature at her worst. Because of this, the red flag was on display every day. People were out in the sea and we did venture out but it wasn't pleasant. The odour from the sargassum and a very strong undercurrent made it very difficult for us.|The hotel has a main buffet restaurant with an amazing selection of hot and cold foods, including many cakes and pastries. Although very repetitive, you can vary what you eat daily.|They also have speciality restaurants for the evening. An Italian, Steakhouse and an Asian. No need to book. just turn up for availability. During the day they also have a poolside BBQ grill, open 12.00pm - 4.00pm. You can never go hungry, as they also have a 24hr sports bar that has a selection of sandwiches, burritos, nachos, pastries and fruit. So if you feel peckish at 3.00am, pop down and grab a snack.|Entertainment is on all day every day. Darts, petanque, table tennis, volleyball, pool volleyball, water polo, bingo , Spanish language class and RiuFit classes. The list goes on. Something for everyone, adults and kids alike.|Entertainment every evening. Starting with a Riu Kids show and the Riu Showtime set, which changes nightly. Friday nights are Riu Party nights.|Now, the not so good bits we experienced in our three weeks at the hotel:|I gather, because of the issues with the sargassum, many guests were not using the beach. This meant the pool areas were very busy. This time round we opted for a 3 week chillout. We've seen and done most of the excursions Mexico has to offer on previous trips. We usually visit in November but thought it would be quieter in June. How wrong were we.|On previous visits, you could always find a sunbed anytime throughout the day around any of the pools, especially the quieter one, that always had loads of spare beds, as most people opt for the activity pools. The first week we managed to get sunbeds around the quieter pool at midday and after. By the second week there was a massive influx of guests. I wake up around 5.00am every morning and i sit on the balcony watching the hotel wildlife. By the second week, i started seeing guests putting towels on sunbeds around the pools before 8.00am and before 10.00am all sunbeds were gone. As the days went on, the towel brigade got earlier and earlier, until i watched people putting towels out at 5.30am and nearly all the beds gone before 8.30am. |By the second week the quiet pool was anything but. It was full of noisy people playing with footballs and using floats etc. The pool was not big enough for all of this. Also there were some very drunk people swearing quite loudly and at one stage, someone very drunk had their shorts pulled down getting out of the pool. There were lots of young kids about. |In the buffet restaurant, it seems that the waiters now have a lot more tables to look after on their sections. This resulted in tables not being cleared quickly enough and drinks not replenished. I cleared our table on several occasions. It's clear there are not enough staff to cope with the volume of guests. The staff are on the go constantly and we saw them trying to train up new members while still attending to their sections.|The evening entertainment wasn't the best to be honest but the crew do their upmost to put shows on every night and work long hours whilst trying to rehearse in between. |There were lots of moments in the shows where no one was on stage, as they were all off changing costumes and some acts ended, leaving the audience in a dilemma as to whether it had finished and they should clap or not. |Friday nights are party night. Either a neon party or white party. I would call it more of a rave. Coaches bring in guests from the other Riu hotels in the area. They remove all seating and put in tall tables for your drinks. They set up pop up bars and cram thousands of guests in. If its not for you, then its best to pop over to the Yucatan or Playacar hotels for a quieter atmosphere.|Really they should be advertising and selling this hotel as a lively party hotel. Pool foam parties, pool drinking comps and Friday night raves. We used to love this hotel and no, we are not party poopers. We love loud music, but not loud enough to burst your eardrums and strobe lighting that blinds you. We also love cocktails and shots and lots of them but we do know how to behave, many people didn't. We saw people throwing up, falling over and apparently people had thrown up in the swim up bar pool too, but we didn't witness that, we were told by another guest. I would expect that in the middle of Benidorm or on an 18/30's but not here.|The Riu Tequila has changed a lot over the last few visits, unfortunately it's no longer for us.|The staff are great and we've made some nice friends over the years. We'll still continue to use Riu Hotels, just not the full...

We stayed at Riu Tequila for 12 days in August. We travelled as a family of 6 (4 Adults & 2 young teens) and had an amazing holiday. |To give context; we have travelled the world, stayed in high end and also budget accommodation and have now stayed in 8 different Riu hotels on 4 continents. With this in mind I am very glad to say that Riu Tequila has actually been one of our favourite . From the responsive contact with the hotel before arrival, recognition of our room request and delivery of adjoining rooms in a quiet area of the grounds, to the Bar, Restaurant, Entertainment, Cleaning & Garden staff, everyone was so friendly and helpful we could not have asked for more.|Meals in the main restaurant were made extra special by Arturo & Polo - although to be honest all the restaurant staff were great. Food was also very good (as we have come to expect from Riu) and the variety available is mind boggling every day. The Italian and Asian specialty restaurants were great too. Our least favourite was the Mexican restaurant down on the beach, but not because of the food (it was very nice), just that it was an open restaurant and did not have air-con and the heat in August is quite oppressive. |Drinks were great. If you want branded liquor just ask for it! Plenty of known brands and very drinkable wines including sparkling. Optics, beer, soft drinks and plenty of bottled water in your room too, and the first Riu we have been to with working ice dispensers in the room blocks, so very easy to make a drink and relax on your balcony in the early evenings.|Time spent at the pool came with good drinks served so quickly by amazing bar staff, a decent snack bar making fresh taco's and a regular Ice Cream trolley visited most areas. What more could you ask for! We only found one block of toilets servicing the 4 pools, but I have to say they were always spotless no matter what time of day you used them.|This is also the first Sports Bar in a Riu Hotel where the food was good, varied, hot and plentiful 24/7 - some Riu sports bars serve up very dubious offerings, but not at the Tequila. It was nice to pop in when back from a trip to pick up a snack of hot pizza, popcorn, pastries, sandwiches etc and a cold drink from the bar in lovely air-con!! |Our rooms were very similar to other Riu hotels we have stayed in, just with a few extra nice touches like regular towel art and decorated beds. We had quite a menagerie of towel animals by the time we left! The gentleman who looked after our rooms did an amazing job (especially on the teenagers room!!) |The entertainment team were excellent too, some in our group took part in everything going, while others just wanted to chill. They kept my husband fully entertained!! (a big thank you from JohnMikeJohn) Events happened as scheduled with full enthusiasm despite the heat and the staff were still working late into the evening taking part in the evening shows & quizzes. Evening entertainment was the standard Riu offering (Michael Jackson, Abba, traditional shows) not to everyone's taste but we had a laugh and enjoyed the Kahoot quizzes at the end of the evening each night. We were there for the white party and it was epic, the best we have been to. Top notch singer, DJ and dancers. An excellent night was had by all our party young & old(er) |The wildlife at the hotel was amazing too, coati's in abundance and also visits from monkeys, racoons, an owl, woodpeckers and many colourful birds and lizards of varying sizes. Just watch your bags by the pools, the coati's are very bold and they managed to snatch a pack of mentos from my nieces unzipped bag after emptying its contents on the floor. They are a joy to watch (especially the baby ones) and seeing them muck around in the top branches of the trees was always entertaining. |The location of this hotel is good for getting about by taxi, find a reliable driver and as the trips are a set price it takes the hassle out of it. We went all over the place with Angel as he has a van that could take all 6 of us. (If anyone wants his number just DM us) We would normally use local buses to get around, but the only downside at Riu Tequila is you are quite far from the main road so can't get the local busses that go between Cancun & Tulum unless you first get a taxi to Playa del Carmen. So we just used Angel and his local knowledge helped us find a beautiful but quiet cenote which we only had to share with a handful of fellow visitors (Cenote Eden) so it all worked out well in the end. |Its great you can use the beach & facilities during the day at The Riu Yucatan and there is a couple of convenience stores in the little shopping centre a 10 min walk from the front of the hotel (turn left as you leave) the Mini mart is a bit cheaper than the 7/11 and does souvenirs at a great price too. |Overall we had a great holiday. We have found the world over that a great hotel has to have great staff and Riu Tequila has them in abundance. We don't normally return to the same place twice as there are so many places in the world to visit. But this time we are very tempted to break this habit and book again - Thank you Riu Tequila we had a great holiday and maybe somewhen soon we will see you...

Lovely rooms in villas (blocks of about 16 rooms, some of which were designed to interconnect with a single front door if needed). Ours (in block 13) had a balcony facing toward the central pool area, but there was a "jungle" area between the two, which gave a lot of privacy as we were on the top floor. It was also a great place to watch the local wildlife (especially coatis), though it was noisy towards the end of the afternoon. The rooms had enough space and enough storage for the three of us. There was an extra bed in the room for our daughter and it still didn't feel cramped. The main beds were small doubles (not really big enough for adults to share one bed, but lovely for individuals). The beds were comfy and the aircon was a godsend.||The bathroom area was lovely, with twin sinks, a shower and a separate toilet cubicle. The downside is that there wasn't any privacy apart from in the toilet cubicle - the design is basically open plan between the bedroom and bathroom areas and the shower door is glass. This meant that whenever our teenager was changing or using the shower we needed to go out of the room / onto the balcony to give her the privacy she needed. On the last day I thought of using pegs to fasten a towel to the shower door, but that would only have been useful for the time in the shower, and not for changing. ||We loved the optics in the room, and the fridge stocked with soft drinks and beers. We enjoy a drink or two while getting ready for dinner and it was brilliant to have this available in the room (and regularly stocked up). Likewise, the coffee filter machine was great - and we asked for some milk in the sports bar and they gave us a whole carton to keep in the room. The sports bar was wonderful for 24 hour snacks and drinks - this was so helpful for the days when we were getting over jet lag and when we needed to get up early for trips. ||The food was amazing - lots of variety and excellent quality. The main restaurant was huge (and consequently quite noisy), but it was possible to eat in the a la carte restaurants as often as you liked - and you didn't need to book - if they were full, you would be sent away with a buzzer (which, in our experience, called you back much more quickly than anticipated - ie. a 20-minute wait, not 40 minutes). We went to the grill, the Italian and the Asian restaurants - the latter was best for my vegetarian daughter - the grill didn't have any main course she could eat (but they brought one in from the Italian next door) - the steaks in both the grill and the Italian were excellent for the meat eaters in our family. The wine in the restaurants was good - bottled, mainly from Argentina, I think. ||We didn't really see much evening entertainment, preferring to play cards etc in the lobby area (or going back to our room to take in a film – we had brought a laptop and an HDMI to HDMI cable with us, so were able to watch Netflix and Disney+ on the fabulous big flatscreen TV in our room). We walked through the lobby when the neon party was kicking off and it looked great fun - just not what we fancied. ||The daytime entertainment was excellent, with pop up shows before lunch - eg. circus or mariachi by the pool - and daily exercise classes and games. I was pleased to note that all drinks served at the pool were in recycled reusable cups. Pool bar staff cleared cups and brought drinks to guests at their sunbeds (if requested) and occasionally a trolley bar would come around the pool for poolside drinks (and sometimes even ice cream) service. Whilst the staff cleared up cups, they didn't really clear up other rubbish and guests weren't too great at clearing their stuff away either, so the pool areas weren't always as clean as I would like. Whilst talking about the pools, there is an issue with sunbeds at the Tequila. There aren't enough, so if you're getting up after 8/9am or so it's best to head to one of the other hotels that guests can use (Playacar or Yukatan) or to the beach - in those places there are plenty of sunbeds (and you can eat lunch there too - the only problem with leaving the Tequila is you lose access to the hotel WiFi, but that's not necessarily a bad thing). We did aqua-gym classes at both the Tequila and the Playacar (both great) and watched the foam party at the Playacar.||We were there in August at the height of the sargassum season, yet the hotel beach staff did an amazing job of clearing the beach. On some days the water was clearer than others. This didn't matter to us that much as we prefer using pools to the sea generally, though the pools were all very warm (too warm in my opinion), which wasn't as refreshing as the sea. ||We went on some trips and this really made our holiday - to get more of a feeling of Mexico's incredible history and geography. We chose two organised trips - one which included Chichen Itza and a cenote and one to Sian Ka'an nature reserve (where we had a boat safari through the mangroves, saw pelicans, a dolphin, sea turtles and crocodiles). We also travelled to some other cenotes...