Riu Vallarta Hotel Nuevo Vallarta

My wife and I checked into this hotel last week and checked out after a few days because of the aweful conditions. If we could not find another room in PV, we were prepared to cut our vacation short and return to the US. The hotel advertises itself as a 4 or 4 1/2 star hotel and that is why we booked there - if we would have known it was maybe a 2 star (on a good day), there is no way we would have booked a 2nd honeymoon in this hell-hole. Issues:

1. The hotel was extremely over-crowded with mainly non-US/European guests. To say that the buffet lines were over-crowded is generous. There were lines just to get basic eggs/bacon/etc. of up to 15 or 20 people. Also, the locals don't really form lines - it is more of a free-for-all.
2. Other than the really long lines, the breakfast was OK. However, the dinners were terrible in the buffet. Very much like dorm food done really bad. Yes, I would have preferred my old dorm cafeteria to this stuff. Seriously, I am not very picky, so for me to complain it must be really bad.
3. You can choose to stand in line for 20 to 30 minutes between 8am and 10am in sort of a lottery to get "upgraded" to what is supposed to be higher quality food in the specialty restaurants. Just what I wanted to do on my vacation - stand in line and waste that time. You can only make reservations for that ONE day, so you have to come back every day!! What a joke. I did complain the manager (Javier) and asked him if he was ok with these long lines. He said no, but that he would have to take someone from somewhere else to man the table. I did notice that there were actually 2 people at that table when we were checking out to go to another hotel, though - possibly my bi****ng actually helped?
4. OK, this is one of the funniest, but also saddest experiences we had: On our last night before we evacuated, we were upgraded to the Chinese restaurant. I was actually hopeful when I saw the waiters dressed up really nice and the cooks had chef hats on. Maybe this was going to be good and my wife would not be so miserable. Nope. Do you have those cheap $5.00 China Buffets in your town? Well, that's what we got, except not really very fresh. My wife and I just started laughing when we realized what was going on - that was the funny part. The sad part was that a new family had arrived and were sitting down to eat. I felt so bad for the Dad (with wife and 2 young children) when I saw the looks of disappointment on their faces when they started eating that swill. They just got up and left. Imagine bringing your family so far hoping to spoil them and then this happens :(
5. Relatively minor: Yes, they do have a fitness center. The catch? They don't run the air conditioning in it (like the bathrooms, main lobby, and restaurants). Also, the equipment is in BAD shape. I tried to use the stair stepper, for example, and the right peddle kept slipping/collapsing. If that happens in my gym in the US, they get that thing out of there right away and fix it - little bit of a liability if someone gets hurt. At the Riu Vallarta fitness center, the idiot who was in charge of the center just kept trying to convince me that I was using the thing wrong and that she had been using it herself for "3 years" without any problems. I just laughed and said "whatever." She returned with the person she called the "engineer" who spent about 30 seconds "evaluating" the equipment and also concluded that there was nothing wrong with it. There were other issues in the gym, too, but I will stop here.
6. OK, I know that resorts often water down their alcohol, so you just drink more, right? Well, I have medium tolerance to alcohol. If I can actually walk upright after drinking 6 whiskey sours in 1 hour, something is way wrong!! In fact, I hardly had a buzz at all. Some Americans resorted to just drinking straight shots because of that.
7. The swimming pools - not tool bad in shape/size and swim up bar. However, it was so crowded with non-Americans/Europeans (ie locals), each of whom seemed to have an endless supply of children, that it was extremely loud and you couldn't seem to move without kids and their toys all over the place. I don't hate children for sure, but it was like living in an ant colony and the locals seemed to be so loud. Hopefully, they are using extra chlorine :( They do have a decent beach. If you look down the beach from a balconey, you can see a few people in the ocean in front of each hotel. However, there were so may people in the ocean in front of this hotel that it looked like an invasion!
8. Another funny thing was that someone from the hotel called us almost every day asking how things were going - survey. Each time we told them that their hotel sucked and suggested that they refund us our money and help us find another hotel. You would think a manager would get involved and try to resolve - I know I would if I was the manager. However, that certainly did not happen and shows how clueless they were.
9. One major issue: They had a show in the evening and then disco until about 2 or 3am that was really, really loud. We were not in the interior of the "horse-shoe" and the noise didn't really keep us awake. However, we did run into another American couple (few and far between at this hotel!) who said they were upgrading to the Riu Palace down the beach because they couldn't take the noise.
10. Water sports: Yes, they did actually have kayaks and catamarrans for free. However, every time I tried to reserve one, the waves were supposedly too high (looked the same to me every day), not enough wind, too much wind, etc. We were not able to reserve a cayak or cat any day we were there - what a joke!!
11. The fruit juice was served warm and the soda had no carbonation.
12. Good luck trying to find a chair out by the pool after about 11am! It was so bad that people were leaving towells and other things on the chairs overnight to reserve a spot.
13. The people at the front desk were so incredible clue-less!
14. To make a call out from the guest phone in the lobby with an international calling card, you have to pay about $1.75 just to get an outside line - for every call.
15. I have become so upset about our experience at this facility that I am going to post these comments on every web site/blog I can find. I don't usually do this, but I want to help someone else avoid this trap. I just noticed today that on their Riu home page, this hotel is being advertised as 5-star - WRONG!

My family visited RIU Vallarta on May 2009, and overall the place did not live up to its standards. To begin with, the food was mediocre. Out of the two main restaurants that were open throughout the day, had few healthy options, did not maintain cleanliness, horrible service, and food was scarce at times. None of the restaurants are vegetarian friendly, let alone for vegans.
Even thought we asked and paid for a room for 3, we were a room one queen sized bed, and after asking for a room change they seemed reluctant and in the end did not do so. The also removed some of the utilities from our room, such as the iron.

The staff lacked professionalism and organization on the reception desk, blatantly ignoring people sometimes.
The directors are also unfriendly and arrogant, not kind to their staff and unapproachable for customers. Also, they did not respond to complaints given about the food service.

There are very few options for night or daytime entertainment, being that the hotel is about 45 minutes from the centre or strip in Puerto Vallarta, and that the entertainment staff was scarcely active, had few activities such as playing loud music by the pools, card games and pool aerobics. The night club seemed more like a birthday part than a club, even children were on the dance floor, and they played the same music all of the nights we were there.

In the end our group’s experiences was disappointing, being that they have nice facilities, but lack quality of service and food.