This was the first time I have been to Mexico for a five-day trip; we normally go for a week or two. Four days was absolutely enough time for me at this resort. We love PV and Mexico and have stayed at Riu's multiple times prior; hence my review title.
I will break down everything by location/space or item within my review.
ACCESSIBILITY - the resort was very level and I could get to almost all restaurants without assistance. The ramp to the main building and the Lunch buffet / Evening Steak House restaurant could be managed with my manual wheelchair but I am very strong and I almost did not make it to the top. Electric wheelchairs / scooters would have no problems.
The floors were marble or tile throughout the hotel and down the main outside corridor then it switched to paving stones. The paving stones stopped before the end of the resort and turned into sand, which left you a far distance to the ocean. They do not have any paths that lead to the beach area, thus also not giving you access to the water activities, the massage hut on the water or the lunch BBQ take away counter. The tiles and paving stone were in good shape with no cracks or missing pieces. There are only some spots were they are extremely bad: very deteriorated pavers, which left large gaps and holes. So bad that going over them loosened my front wheels on my chair causing them to lose the screw and the wheel came apart. We sat next to that section for most of our vacation and the Management team who made their rounds walked right over it and headed straight to the pool bar for their inspections. I saw many people stumble due to those missing stones. It really needs to be repaired.
POOL: No wheelchair accessibility into the any of the pools. No ramp, no lift. The water appeared to be clean and the pool maintenance man was there daily. I did not go in, but did sit by the pool and dangled my foot in. The sun loungers surrounding the pool were not cleaned once during our five-day stay. The one chair beside the spot we were in daily still had the same bird poop mark on it all week. The deck surface and paths were not cleaned as well. They would come and rearrange all of the sun loungers every night, but that was it.
The towel situation… so you have towel cards you hand them in to the towel hut in the morning, you get one towel per card you hand in. You are to hand in your towels BEFORE 7pm and get your card back. They do not want you to keep your towels overnight and exchange them in the morning. However, the pool closes at 8pm. So this is a conflicting policy. But, if you want to get dry or clean towels during the day because yours got wet or dirty, no more towels for you. You only get one towel per card per day.
Saving chairs is very much a written policy only, and not enforced. We watched two sun loungers being saved for people for 5 hours and 30 minutes before they came to sit in them.
There is no adult pool. Children are allowed in all three pools; the children’s pool, the quieter pool with the water slides (which 2 of the 3 were shut down because the paint was peeling off of them and kids were cutting themselves on the way down), and the largest pool with swim up bar. The large pool is a loud (and in my opinion annoying) area. On Wednesdays there is the Foam Pool Party with blaring dance music. Which can be heard in the hotel rooms. You could have moved, you say? No I could not, it was so loud you heard it everywhere and remember half the other sun loungers are on the sand and were not accessible. And half of the other loungers, as you can see on their promo photos were so close to the pools ledge I could not fit past them.
You will find NO SERVERS around the pool. No roaming drink serving carts like ANY of the other Riu’s we have been to.
ROOM: Our wheelchair accessible room was a nice size. The space between the bed and the entry to the sink/closet/bathroom area was a bit tight but you could move the beds over a bit to have more room. CONS: no lower peep hole in the door, no lowered clothing bars and the lock for the deck door was at the top of the door, ceiling fan had a two-inch pull cord which could only be accessed if you stood on the bed, the alcohol dispenser was not accessible (but that okay, the alcohol in the room is undrinkable). PROS: Barrier Free entry to deck (best I have seen at any hotel ever except for the lock being at the top of the door) great high toilet, nice roll in shower and they supplied a proper and sturdy shower chair, hand held showerhead and nice grab bars, the bar fridge was very accessible and the room had very accessible power outlets. I do not require it but the bed had enough clearance for a power lift. Our room was on the ground level, which made it extremely accessible to all the restaurants and pools without having to utilize the elevator.
According to the booking agent we were to have an amenities kit in the room. This kit consists of an all in one body wash / shampoo cleanser on the wall and a bar of soap. No lotion, shampoo or conditioner.
The room has a wall key card operated power system. If you want to keep your power / AC / Fan on during the day bring a fake hotel key card and it will work.
The room AC wasn’t working the best during our stay, it never got below 23 C, which is still warm for us. We kept the ceiling fan on at all times due to the amount of bugs in the room. I have travelled extensively, and many times to Mexico, and I have never had so many bites.
Now lets talk about bugs, these small flying biting bugs were everywhere. We spent about an hour killing dozens of them every night before bed. The easiest way to do this is to turn all the lights off and turn on the TV. Then pick them off one by one with wadded up toilet paper. Press hard, they are a bit harder to kill. They would get sucked into the room whenever the door opened because they were hanging outside of the door all the time. These bugs were flying into your food, drinks and face all the time. I have never in all my travels seen bugs like this. The restaurants were burning some sort of deterrent so the smoke would be floating all over the food. You would literally have to swipe bugs out of the way before take the bite of food off your fork.
THE FOOD: I am not a picky person, I am an adventurous eater and I have never complained about food on a resort until this one. The food was 90% uneatable. It was glaringly apparent that their food prep and their quality control was extremely lacking. When you found something you could eat one day, you were excited and then went back to have it again the next day and it was made differently, had no flavor or was over or under cooked. Their bacon was burnt to an absolute crisp or was barely cooked every single day. The fruit looked amazing, but had no taste at all. And again … the bugs were all over everything. Less so on the hot stations, but I think it is because so much steam and heat made it hard for them to settle. It was very unappetizing. On our first evening we sat outside only to see one of the white tall pillars was almost black with the amount of bugs on them. Never ate outside again after that.
The hotel description stated, “Unlimited reservation free dining in specialty restaurants”. There are no specialty à la carte restaurants at this resort, they are all buffet, but they state no shorts, sandals or tank tops for the men. But relax; this is NOT enforced at all, which is disappointing. Also you show up whenever and if they are full they will give you a buzzer to let you know when you can eat. Since they are all buffets, the people at the specialty restaurants are less reserved, less polite and makes it an unwelcomed dining experience for those who enjoy that atmosphere.
THE STAFF: Front desk staff was great, friendly and extremely efficient. Some staff would smile, say Hola and engage with you, mostly the activity staff, but most would not make eye contact or say anything to you. Again, no wait staff around the pools.
The free Wi-Fi in the room and all over the resort is AMAZING!!
Guests can enjoy access to the neighbouring Riu Vallarta with Stay at 1, Play at 2 privileges.
LOCATION: This property is approximately 20 minutes outside PV. We have been to PV many times and wanted a “stay in” vacation experience, so we thought we would adventure to Nayarit. It was only because we were so disappointed in the report that we wanted to leave that it was a longer taxi ride to get into PV.
The disco was closed while we were there for renovations. The evening shows were GREAT! The Circus Rock show was good with the acrobatics and the band afterward was so much fun and we stayed to listen to them all late. The Michael Jackson show was really good as well.
Overall, The Riu Jalisco is nowhere near a 4.5 star resort. 3 star AT BEST! Because the grounds are beautiful, they do offer a semi accessible vacation option, and their free Wi-Fi was amazing.
