Nice, but not nice enough (Riu Tropical Bay, Jamaica)

Member Name: kingseany

Product:	Riu Tropical Bay, Jamaica
Date:	29/12/05 (2025 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beach, location, food & drink, entertainment

Disadvantages: Service

After losing almost a day of our time at the RIU Tropical Bay, due to delays we were somewhat relieved to finally arrive. We had chosen this hotel as we stayed at another RIU property in the Dominican Republic last year, and thought it'd be up to the same standard we expected.

The hotel itself is situated on the West coast of Jamaica, on the Northern end of Negril, Bloody Bay. It's 90 minutes by road from Montego Bay, or just 15 by plane. Negril is known to be one of the most relaxed resorts of the island, with fantastic beaches, beautiful clear warm waters, and hotels to suit all budgets. If you want to get out and explore the area, a cheap short taxi or bus ride will bet you there in minutes. I'll be writing more about Negril, and other places on the island - our adventures off the resort in seperate reviews.

The RIU Tropical Bay is a 400+ room 4.5 / 5 star a all-inclusive hotel, meaning once you are there, money is optional. The only things you'll need cash for is shopping, excursions, some water sports and tips at your discretion. So eat as much and drink as much as you possibly can, and take advantage of all the facilities they offer.

Price wise, it's probably a mid-range hotel, being neither budget nor luxury. Through Virgin we paid £2300 for 2 weeks, for the 2 of us, but this included return air-fare with Air Jamaica and island transfers. No doubt late deals can be had for less than this.

It's worth mentioning that if you stay here, you can also eat and drink at the sister hotel Riu Negril, which is a stroll along the beach, some of which you'll need to wade through the water. Guests at the RIU Negril however cannot take advantage of the facilities at the Tropical Bay! The RIU Negril is the newer of the two hotels, and we found it to be very nice too.

Grounds
^^^^^^^
You are never far from the beach, no matter where you are in the hotel, as it's spread where almost everyone has at least a partial ocean view. The lush tropical gardens are lovingly maintained by a handful of gardeners. Pathways lead you from the rooms to the pools, restaurants and bars, and on the whole everything is tidy. There are water features, wedding gazebos and plenty of artwork in the form of statues. There were times when we saw discarded glasses and plates, which hadn't been picked up, still I think guests should be more responsible for their actions in this respect. On the whole it was very clean and well looked after.

Eating
^^^^^^
On the whole, food was of a good standard. Breakfast was always plentiful with fresh fruits, cereals, meats and cheeses, fresh bread and pastries, and of course more traditional ackee and saltfish as well as eggs and bacon, omelettes and so on. We did find that the service for teas and coffees less than satisfactory, some days we had to make our own. You could eat breakfast in the buffet area, or outside on the patio. If you missed the main breakfast, a continental was served later in a different restaurant by the pool. Then it's time for lunch! Choose from the jerk chicken hut on the beach, or the retaurant by the pool for a selection of hot and cold meals of all varieties. There's also the pizza place just off from the reception which offers waitress service for drinks. As well as pizza they serve a variety of other dishes, although we found it a bit bland at times - plus once there was no pizza!

For evening dining, you have more of a selection. The main buffet restaurant still caters for all tastes, with plenty of meats carved there and then, some lovely fish such as snapper and tuna, vegetables, pastas and rice. Various theme nights during our stay gave us a taste of all sorts of different cuisine. We were there at thanksgiving, and the turkey was plentiful. The waiter will bring you your drinks, and top up your water glass constantly. We found the service here very good on the whole, and the staff mostly happy. Next, is the steakhouse, serving really fabulous steaks any way you want, plus a buffet service for your starters. The french onion soup is a must. This is a waitress service, with wine from huge glasses, a very well presented meals in a timely fashion. You do need to reserve a table here, in the reception area outside the pizza place at 11.00am.

Sir Anthony's is the top restaurant here, again bookings need to be made. We ate here on our last night. The menu is somewhat limited. We both had swordfish as a starter, which was very strange indeed. Soup was on offer but we went straight to the main course, for the life of me, can't recall what we had now! Service was reasonably quick, and the environment is quite cosy. The wine was quite acceptable here. We didn't stay for desert. You'll need to dress up a little smarter here. It's worth a try one night, and of course if you are still hungry afterwards, you can always go to the pizza place which is open until 2am. The other restaurant we didn't try is the Japanese, again reservations are required.

Drinking
^^^^^^^^
You're never far from a drink here! There are four bars, one by the pool, steps from the beach, one in the pool (swim up bar), and two by the entertainment stage. Drinks are also available in all the restaurants, and of course in your room too. All this is free and unlimited. Each day, there is a special cocktail to try out, but the bartenders will make anything you want of course. The rums are great, Appleton being the best. The Red Stripe beer is great, although you don't get this in the room fridge for some reason. Many branded spirits are available, such as Gordons Gin and Absolut Vodka. There's no Baileys, but try the Rum Cream instead which is even nicer. All sorts of juices and soft drinks are available, some self service if you are in a hurry to quench your thirst or dowse the fire caused by the hot jerk sauce you've just eaten. Service is generally pretty quick here. Some people do tip, although we never found it made much difference if you didn't. There are some great bartenders - ask for their own special. Once the bars close, the disco opens, and you'll find another bar here. It's usually pretty uncrowded in here, sometimes just you, the DJ and the barman, so no sooner you've finished your drink, it's topped up again. We found ourselves drunk quite often!

Beach
^^^^^
Possibly one of the best beaches on the island. Lovely powdery sand, hardly a rock in sight. Plenty of shade if you want it by the palms dotted over the beach. The sea is fantastic, just how the Caribbean should be, warm, clear and with a soft bottom. Fish swim around your feet, and to our surprise a You can wade out quite some distance before you are out of your depth. There were days when the beach was somewhat crowded, but not by Spanish resort standards. It was always possible to find a vacant lounger, drag it down to the waters edge and relax with a rum from the bar just moments away. Snorkelling gear is available, but there's not a huge amount to see, you'll need to take a short boat trip for better sights. There is a single massage bed on the beach, although didn't see many people making use of it, and rarely did we see the girl with the magic hands.

Entertainment
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
While not being Vegas, the nightly entertainment was very good on the whole, and the entertainment team work day and night and are always full of energy. Almost every other night it seemed to be reggae night, which suited us fine, as we prefer this to the dance shows. Generally this was of a high standard, playing well known tunes, a little overkill on Bob Marley maybe. Usually there would be some audience participation, maybe reggae lessons or adult games of some kind. There was a magic show one night, a beach party twice once a week, which was a definate highlight. This involved a bonfire, fire eater, drinking competition, lots of reggae and dancing - all barefoot on the beach. The kids entertainment was similar every night, but there weren't actually that many kids there anyway. During the day, you could take part in aerobics in the sea, bingo, volleyball and various competitions where you could win bottles of rum. We managed to win three with out even trying. Make room in your suitcase! Tennis courts are available, book (for free) with the reception. The rackets are a bit tatty, but it's ok for a bit of fun.

Pools
^^^^^
To be honest, with such wonderful sea moments away, there's not much of a temptation to jump in the pools. They aren't that big, not that warm, and often full of drunken Americans. The area around the pool had many sun loungers, but only four umbrellas, so there was very little shade available - we therefore spent more time away from this area. There is also a childrens pool. The towel hut is just by the pool, and you can pick up dry towels whenever you need them.

Room
^^^^^
The design of the hotel gives almost everyone an ocean view of some sort. Our view was partly obscured by palms, but true enough we had an ocean view. We were on the third level (the highest), which we had requested - less risk of insects and animals coming in. There are no lifts, so the climbing of stairs gave us a bit of exercise each day. The rooms basically consist of the bedroom, bathroom/shower, bar area, and a very nice sized balcony on two sides of the room. The beds were two king sized beds pushed together, and were clean enough and reasonably comfy - never as nice as your own though. There were plenty of cupboards and drawers, and a wardrobe with enough hangers for all my girlfriends dresses, as well as my shirts. A colour TV with quite a range of stations was provided, I'd like to have had a CD system personally. The bathroom had both bath and shower, and was nicely fitted with marble effects. Everything seemed to work here, including shaver socket and hairdryer. Between the bathroom and the bedroom was the mini-bar. Four litre bottles of spirits, plus a fridge with beers, water and soft drinks, restocked supposedly every 2 days, although this didn't always happen. A lockable safe was also free to use. The maids came daily, and on the whole the standard of cleaning was reasonable.

There is a direct dial telephone, although whenever we tried to make a call it didn't work and we had to ask reception to put the call through. Although our rep told us it was horrendously expensive to call from the room, our final bill was only $9 including two international calls. If you'd rather, buy a calling card although I don't think this works out much cheaper, and is certainly more inconvenient to use. There's no clock in the room, so if you need to be up early, best bring your own, and not rely on a wake up call which might get forgotten.

Air conditioning and ceiling fan give you control of the temperature, and we had no problems with this at all.

Reception & Service
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We are members of the RIU Class scheme, which promises to basically keep us happy as a RIU customer. Our various encounters with reception both in person and on the phone were however of a poor standard. On check-in, we were promised an upgrade of room, although this never happened - we decided our room was fine anyway. On a number of occasions they refused to change larger notes for smaller ones, denying even that they had any. Asking for a telephone book was an ordeal. Assistance to locate a tour company which failed to show up stressed me so much. Asking for our mini-bars to be topped up seemed an inconvenience for them - when in fact we shouldn't have needed to ask. Messages left at reception took half a day to arrive, others never arrived at all. On a positive note, I had enquired by email in advance about breakfast in bed for my girlfriends birthday, and the manager said this would be no problem. When I asked for this the day before at the reception they said they only did it for couples who were having weddings at the hotel. I asked to speak to the manager, and after several attempts at tracking him down, he said no problem, and it was there the next day - a huge huge breakfast enough for 10 people!!

Taxis are available from the reception area, but are overpriced. I'd suggest you walk the 2 minutes out to the main road, and someone will approach you offering you a ride, probably for less than half the price.

Watersports
^^^^^^^^^^^
Paddle boats are free, as is sailing and windsurfing, plus snorkelling gear. Anything more adventurous and you'll be paying for it. We decided to try out parasailing. First we were taken by boat to another beach where we changed boats, and then got strapped into our harnesses. We we offered a video/DVD as an extra and decided to go for it. In all honesty we should have taken our own camcorder up with us, as the DVD we got was pretty boring! The crew all expected tips. Jet-skiing is available, and you'll be offered this as soon as you swim out far enough. A glass bottom boat also makes regular trips out to see more interesting things under the surface of the water.

Shopping
^^^^^^^^
There are two general gift shops off the reception area selling usual souvenirs and supplies. Generally these are overpriced and the assistants are often rude if you only want to spend a few dollars. They are reluctant to change large notes. This is the place to buy stamps and telephone calling cards too. They accept both Jamaican and US Dollars. The other on site shop sells expensive jewelery, watches and perfume - the staff were nice enough in here, even though we didn't make a purchase. There is a fourth gift shop on the beach itself, selling a lot of t-shirts, hats and so on.

As well as the shops, vendors regularly line the pathways with their wares. This can get tiresome, if all you want to do is walk from your room to the restaurant. Everyone wants you to look at their products, carvings, paintings and trinkets, none of which we were too impressed by. We did buy a few items, bargaining is expected here, so don't be silly and pay the asking price. They are not there everyday, but too often in my opinion, and found myself being rather rude to them at times. They may also ask you to get them drinks from the bar, or offer you other products or services not on display.

Other services
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You'll find the Internet room just a few steps from the reception area. To use it you must purchase an internet card from one of the gift shops, cost $9USD for 17 minutes. For this you'll get a slip of paper with a username and password. It's fine for checking emails once or twice if you really need to, however it's slow and overpriced. MSN Messenger is available on each terminal too.

The nurse is available throughout the day should you have any minor accidents. I had cut my foot, and she had no problem sticking some cream and a plaster on it.

The spa has a selection of beauty and massage treatments, as well as the sauna and jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was supposedly broken though when we wanted to use it. There is a complimentary fully stocked Gym, but we are embarassed to say didn't step foot into once.

Laundry services are available for washing and ironing. You'll find the price list in one of the bedroom drawers. Prices are a bit steep but ok for the odd garment.

Overall
^^^^^^^
It's a very nice hotel, but is let down by poor service at times. Maybe it's just Jamaica in general, things move slower - but compared to the other islands I've visited - it's too slow, or it just doesn't happen at all! They've got the entertainment just about right, the food and drink selection is good, and the beach is by far the best in the area. The vendors are too much at times, and the offers of the green herb can start to annoy you after a week or so. The staff are a real mix, some very bubbly and happy, others not raising a smile.

Although we did have a great time, we did expect it to be better, and we'd choose to stay elsewhere in the future.

Summary: Let down by poor service