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Riu Ocho Rios Hotel & Resort Reviews

Riu Ocho Rios
Address: Mammee Bay - St.Ann Ocho Rios, Jamaica Tel: (1)8769722200 Fax: (1)876972-2203 Email: clubhotel.ochorios@riu.com URL: Riu Ocho Rios	Type of Property: All Inclusive Beach Location: Beach Front (Directly on Beach/Water Front) Island: Jamaica No. of Rooms/Units: 846

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Summary of All Property Reviews for: Riu Ocho Rios Ratings based on answers from a total of 5 reviews 10 is best 1 is worst
Feature	Ranking	Feature	Ranking
Cleanliness of Property	7.00	Quality of Property	7.00
Privacy & Quietness	0.00	Quality of Service	5.20
Courtesy & Hospitality of Staff	7.40	Accuracy of Website (marketing hype) VS. Actual Experience	6.00
Food and Dining Experience	6.20	Price/Value of Property	7.20
Safety Factor (Did you feel safe at property)	6.60	Quality of Beach (ranked closest beach if property is located off the beach)	8.80
Total Property Score: 6.14 out of 10 | Average Star Rating: 3.20 out of 5

• 40% (2 visitors of 5) said they would go back to Riu Ocho Rios again.
• 60% (3 visitors of 5) said they would recommend Riu Ocho Rios to friends.

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This is the third time I stayed at a Riu club hotel.
I have not one complaint. Clean, beautiful, friendly,service is excellent. Awesome rooms.
Awesome check in. Jamaican Riu I will be back again.
Your awesome. Beautiful grounds also. Loved the Beach. You didn't have to walk a mile to get to the water. Amenities in the all inclusive, also awesome.
Facilities awesome. And the staff work so hard to please you and entertain you.
I would especially like to comment on these wonderful people who made our trip a success.
Ricardo Martin
Everything you could ask for and a beautiful person inside
Michele Dobson made our meals so great. She was so sweet and friendly and would wait on you hand and foot.
She is a real professional worker and yet she i just makes your heart feel so wanted and loved.
Kimon Taylor was another great worker in the Riu Ocho Rios Hotel. Very funny and effecient. Loved to wait on us and we loved his personality and his wonderful service.
I will really miss these people alot.
They do excellent work.
Hope to see them again soon!!!!!!
Excellent job. Ocho Rios Riu and crew.
Love you all
Love Jamaica
Will be back, for sure
Yo Mon, No problem

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terrible service..... calling the front desk time and time again just to have your room cleaned for the day should say enough..... was a little disappointed b/c our stay last yr at the riu in montego bay was 5's all around.... food and drinks average.... views breathtaking..... beds not so comfortable

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(Long and short of this story: DO NOT STAY AT THE RIU OCHO RIOS, their employees steal!!!!!)
Jamaica is truly beautiful and I recommend, the country to anyone looking to travel to a spectacularly beautiful country to travel to. The people of the country are warm, and most are kind and have the best intentions. However the Riu Ocho Rios is not the place to stay. I am a Jamaican, who had not been home for 15 years and the Riu distorted this momentous event, after this experience I swore I would not go back to Jamaica, but now that I have calmed down, I will just scream “I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THE RUI!!!!�
Initially I was a little apprehensive about staying at this hotel. It was a 3 star hotel and I like 4 star hotels but the customer reviews were good, so I said “what the heck�. It was all-inclusive and kid friendly, and I was taking my two little boys on the trip. The trip consisted of me, my husband, mom, 2 sons and my cousin. We booked 2 rooms and were looking forward to a wonderful vacation. My husband and sons had never been to Jamaican and I was looking forward to showing them a great time in my country.
The day we arrived and step into the lobby, I realized why it was a 3 star and not 4 … the lobby was “ok� not spectacular, chairs in the main lobby were tattered and look worn. I was also annoyed with the person checking us in he was SLOW and overly talkative. Nothing too large … I could deal with that. However, the scenery was beautiful from the lobby … the beach was a pretty white and I totally forgot about the tattered lobby and annoying representative.
When we got to the hotel rooms, they reeked; smelled like mildew … YUK. The excuse for that was “they had been closed up for awhile�. I did not fuse my boys were happy so I chilled … sprayed perfume and called it a day. I will not lie, our refrigerator was stocked; had beer, all types of different alcohols, water and soda. The rooms were cleaned daily and fresh towels delivered. The pool was okay; not the best but again the children did not care about the defects so I over looked them. We went on paid excursion off the resort to enjoy the Jamaican country side and those were our best times in Jamaica. My boys enjoyed the beach at the Riu … they ran up and down, they snorkeled, swam, enjoyed glass bottom boats etc. Some of the hotel’s staff was downright rude, but on the most part most were well mannered and attentive.
They food was not good … everything was bland and they served the same dishes everyday … and I mean EVERYDAY!!!!!! … I knew it was an all-inclusive but that does not mean they could not give a variety of dishes. Also, it is Jamaica … they could serve more authentic Jamaican dishes. Thank God for our excursion off the hotel property.
I am the world’s biggest optimist, with all the negatives of the Rui, I was still ok with the place. However, the night before we left Jamaica, someone broke into our hotel room and stole $300. It was devastating and my kids were petrified to sleep in the hotel room.
It started like this … My husband and I woke up early to make a reservation to go to one of the hotels “specialized restaurants�; their Chinese restaurant (we were tired of eating the boring buffet food). In order to make the reservation we gave our hotel room number and they gave us a specific time for our reservation. My family and I got all dolled up and went to the Chinese restaurant and expected to have a great time. However this was not to be, the food was BAD and we left the restaurant and went to the buffet restaurant (That is sad, right? Trying to get better food and ending up having to eat the same old boring food).
Anyway, I felt sick and decided to return to our room (my husband accompanied me). When we opened our room door, we noticed that the sliding door to the balcony was open. I screamed at my husband for leaving the door open and he said “I didn’t�. I said, “You had to, we are on the 3 floor?????� He went to close the door, only to look out and see our passports and his police badge throw on the balcony. We were horrified. When we check the hotel safe, the lock was open. We are supposed to be the only ones with a key to the safe, and we had the safe key with us; it was on the key ring with our room keys. When I checked the safe, there was no money in it. All our cash was gone $300 (not a huge sum; but it was mine!!!) I was so upset. The money for our cab fare to the airport was gone. Can you imagine????? The only bright side to this was that they had not broken into my mom and cousin’s room … because of course their room number was not on the reservation to the Chinese food restaurant
We called the hotel’s security to come and investigate … they came early the next morning after numerous calling. “VINCENT�, the head of security came, stated that he had notified the Jamaican police and they were coming to the resort. Of course, we were naïve to believe that the head of the hotels security would not lie. When the police did not come by 7am, we were livid. Our flight back to NY was at 9am and we had to leave the hotel or miss our flight. Vincent took our address and email address saying that he would email us with follow up information on our case. It is now March and our trip was in August. I am still waiting for a letter from the Riu; NOTHING had come so far. I filled out a complaint with the hotel’s manager knowing that nothing would come of it. I spoke with hotel staff after the fact and they said that the Riu had a problem with employees breaking into guests’ rooms and stealing money and valuables. Then when I got back to the US, I googled “Riu Ocho Rios and employee theft� and all these accounts of employees breaking into the rooms and stealing came up. I wish I had known this before I went to this hotel. I would have chosen to go someplace else.
If you are reading this review, don’t stay at the RIU OCHO RIOS … not worth it.

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We stayed at the RIU Ocho Rios from October 14-20. Reviews noting the bad smell of the rooms and the poor service had us a little nervous, but we decided to go there because the good reviews made it sound wonderful. We now wish we’d followed our instincts and stayed elsewhere.

Upon arrival at the hotel (where there was no rum punch waiting for us), we were given Junior Suite 1275. The room smelled absolutely horrible, like mold or mildew. We had taken Glade air freshener (as one reviewer had advised) but this didn’t begin to cover the odor. (We saw a housekeeping supervisor later and she said that whole side of the hotel smelled bad because the rooms didn’t get much sun.) Also, the refrigerator was empty except for a gallon of water, two lightbulbs were missing, a lampshade was missing, there was only one balcony chair, the safe didn’t work and the television was out of order. We found an employee in the hallway who restocked the refrigerator, for which he was given a tip. A housekeeper said she would replace the lightbulbs, so we tipped her; however, we never saw her or her lightbulbs again! Unfortunately, we didn’t realize the safe was broken until after we’d foolishly locked our valuables in it. We went to the front desk and were told to wait in our room, and they’d send a maintenance person up. (We had to stay in the room or they wouldn’t send someone because they were afraid we’d accuse him of stealing something.) After a half hour, my husband called the front desk and was told the maintenance man was working on another problem and would fix our safe next. Over the course of 2-1/2 hours, during which time we were trapped in our room, my husband called the front desk six times. Finally, I called. I was not quite as nice as my husband had been, and we had a maintenance man there within 10 minutes of my call. He got the safe opened but could not fix it; he did, however, find replacement lightbulbs and another chair for the balcony. During the time we waited, we were painfully aware that there was some kind of generator on the grounds outside our room which made a loud clanging noise off and on the entire time we were in the room up until about 7 pm.

Because of the broken safe, we were told we could have another room at noon the next day. We kept checking the next day from noon until 4:30 pm, when a room was finally available. I did notice several people in the lobby still waiting for their rooms. (Note: Check-in time is supposed to be at 3 pm.) Rum punch was being given out, so we had our “welcoming drink” then!

The new room was a definite improvement (#1131). No smell and the only thing that was broken was the hairdryer – and once again, the refrigerator was empty except for water. Although we reported these problems ( in fact, the housekeeping supervisor called about the empty refrigerator for us), they were never fixed. I had taken my own hairdryer, so it didn’t matter to me – I hope the person who got the next room, however, doesn’t mind wet hair. The refrigerator was STILL not restocked by 1 pm the next day, so we went to the front desk and ended up carrying the soda, water, etc., up to the room ourselves.

We left a tip for the maid, and the result was that we got fewer towels than we had upon our arrival in the room, no shampoo, conditioner, or lotion (which were all in the room when we got there, so I would assume these were supposed to be supplied to guests). Therefore, we left no tip the rest of the week! The sheets were never changed during the five nights we spent in this room. (I know this because there was a stain on the sheet when we checked in, and it was still there when we checked out.)

This brings us to the food. My husband generally eats anything and is affectionately known as the “family garbage disposal”. The breakfast buffet wasn’t too bad; however, lunch and dinner were abysmal, and even he had trouble finding something that was appealing to eat. We ate in all the specialty restaurants except the Japanese one and Sir John. (You can’t eat in Sir John if you’ve eaten in Sir Richard.) The food there was better than in St. Ann’s buffet or the so-called Italian Restaurant; however, it still left much to be desired. This was, by the way, a complaint we heard from all of the people we met at the resort. And in spite of the wonderful reputation of Jamaica’s coffee, don’t expect to get any at this hotel – they serve Nescafe! We went into town one day so we could go to the Hard Rock Café; this was the best meal we had all week. The jerk chicken hut on the beach was pretty good – but how many days in a row can you eat the same thing?

The drinks from the bar were delicious; however, there wasn’t much alcohol in them. A joke among the people we met was that you could drink all day and still be totally straight by nightfall. You could ask for an extra shot of rum or whatever in your drink, but why should you have to ask for extra alcohol just to get a normal strength drink?

The location of the hotel was also a disappointment. There was absolutely nothing to see within walking distance, so if you wanted to do any shopping or see the town, you had to take a taxi. This is not the hotel’s fault, of course, just an observation and a warning to those who don’t want to feel trapped at the hotel or pay everyday to go someplace off the grounds.

We celebrated our anniversary while we were there. The hotel knew this two weeks before we went; they acknowledged this verbally when we got there; when we made a dinner reservation for Sir Richard for our anniversary, the reservation taker mentioned it; when we got to the restaurant, the waiter mentioned it and tried to get the hotel to give us a cake or a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Despite their knowing it was a special day for us and our waiter’s efforts to do something special, the hotel did nothing.

On the positive side (and the only reason I’ve rated it a 2 instead of 1) is that the beach is beautiful. Vendors were not a problem as there were plenty of security guards to keep them from bothering guests – and if one did manage to approach you, a simple “no thank you” did the trick. The water was beautiful, and there were plenty of chairs for everyone on the beach. We were always able to get a spot under a tree when it got too hot.

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I have never traveled outside the USA and they made you feel like you were home. Except for the beautiful beaches and tropical atmosphere. The entertainment staff was fun. The food was excellent. Will go again!!!

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The hotel opened in 2005. Very new and very clean.
Rooms are VERY nice... in room compliment bar (rum, rye, vodka) and a small fridge full of pop.
The hotel is very large, so line ups (queues) for food, drinks and water sports is a normal thing.
The beach is very clean with plenty of chairs to use.
On beach burger bar, for burgers, hotdogs, chips etc.
Reservations are required for the Hotel restarants (which is nearly impossible because of the large number of people staying on the property, requesting reservations) The Buffet resturant has no line ups, however limited hours of operation. The Buffet food was okay but limited selection.
Property was handicap excessible, but one elevator seems to never work.

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