Rating:
"The Hotel was clean, the staff was helpful and friendly. If you love to snorkel it is a great place. Just walk out to the lovely white sand beach and there is two reefs for you to explore. The food was excellent. Took some effort to get into anof the al a carte. Strongley recommend you get a Taxi driver name Wyne. He gave us a great tour of Jamica. He is a retired History Teacher so you will learn alot about the area. Slow but safe. We had a wonderful time and loved that we where not hasseled on the beach by vendors. Great vacation."
Reviewer: reviewer6610
Date: Apr. 17, 2012

Rating:
"If you are expecting typical RIU quality in terms of food and drink, you will be disappointed. I found one or two meals that I enjoyed, many many more that you would need to be starving in order to consume. I am by no means a picky eater, but if you go here you will see what I mean. No top shelf liquor at all, just generic brands. I'm not sure how important that really is, but I'm only comparing it to other RIUs. Grounds are beautifully kept, rooms clean and entertainment staff energetic. The beach is very nice, ocean water is the warmest we've found yet. All in all, this place is nice but if you want great, or even RIU good....try another. We were without hot water for nearly 4 days. Whatever. We won't return."
Reviewer: reviewer8342
Date: Dec. 15, 2011

Rating:
"Spent 7 nights at Riu Ocho Rios - late Aug/early Sept 2011. Had an amazing time with family and friends - a group of 20 people. The hotel staff are very friendly and accommodating, very clean and well maintained. Beautiful surroundings. Great beach - lots of trees provide some shade. Clean, clear water with snorkelling nearby. Food selection is great with a local corner in the Buffet restaurant. Would highly recommend."
Reviewer: reviewer3100
Date: Oct. 14, 2011

Rating:
"This was our first time to Jamaica. The hotel is nice & clean, staff are always very friendly & smiling & no there is no waiting @ the bars. Our room was clean and housekeepers came every day, the food was excellent and everything was perfect @ buffet. We couldn't reserve for the a La cart restaurants.
They had programs @ the beach & swimming pools. Every evening & night they had a show, dancing, games, etc.
The beach was clean and there are always chairs available. non-motorized water sports were available but you have to take turns with other guests. you can snorkel right there!!!
the only thing we didn't enjoy was the safe box & key and we had only one key for our room, very inconvenient."
Reviewer: reviewer839
Date: Dec. 26, 2010

Rating:
"
The RIU Ocho Rios is nice, and good value for the money, but I suspect it is really a 4.5 star, not 5 star resort.

Would we go again? Probably not. Reasons -

1. much too far from airport - the bus ride at 90 minutes is tedious and slow, and coaches are not washroom equipped. This resulted in the bus having to stop by side of road next to a field so a female passenger could go to a shed about 500 feet away to use the "facilities."

2. the early morning [645am] Friday departure from hotel to airport is not warranted. We got to airport at 830am, 3 hours before the flight. The resort's St. Ann's dining room was not yet open for coffee or breakfast service that early [prior to 645am].

3. the internet cafe is underground in the Sports Bar, at $9US per half hour, and only 2 of the 6 computers were working in the 5 days we were there. The attendant there told me to "go to the Gift Shop" about the situation. The computer wall and desk area was home to a family of mosquitoes so I came away each time with bites on my feet and ankles.

4. our hotel room [in the 300 series] was maybe a 4.5 star. Too small overall. The bathroom door is open in its bottom half [you can see thru the slats and carry on a conversation with occupants of the room]. In the bathtub shower area, the towel rack was loose and coming off the wall.....

5. as others have noted, the pillows are rock hard and uncomfortable.

6. restaurants seemed not up to other RIU standards. For lunch the choices for us were the small Italian Restaurant [nice] or the Plantation [not nice], which was crowded and busy and had wasps crawling in the food and pigeons walking on the tables.

7. beach was TOO small, way too small/narrow, we like to walk a few miles, and we could not leave the beach property to the east, due to a large wharf, and to the west was no man's land, with aggressive "illegal" vendors selling drugs and artefacts, and even the front-desk manager said he has never traversed that sandy area to the west.

8. [I will say the beach itself was nice and clean and fine sand and always a chair available to sit in.]

9. the property itself is too small, nowhere to walk and explore, no bicycle paths, no pathways. I never realized how much I enjoy the larger resorts in Dominican Republic until a day or two there in Ocho Rios in a small resort.

10. management could not control the illegal [as they call them] beach vendors who would walk in the water up and down the beach bothering us as we walking in the water or as we stood in the waves. Management referred to the ocean water inside the swim-marker buoys as "no man's land," and they were unsure of the legal rights to evict the tress-passers.

11. we had a SMOKING room and our travel agent had requested non-smoking.

12. there seemed too narrow a choice of food, and it was hard to get chicken unless the hot Jerk variety, and that was served only on the beach.

13. The best part was the Thursday night gourmet dinner in Sir Richard's Dining Room. It was elegant and private, a really nice 90 minute respite. However, I got rather ill 5 hours later and then again overnight, likely from the vegetable soup.

14. Three other instances that we observed put us "off" this RIU resort, and all related to the staff.
a) At the pool, my wife observed a pool attendant [male resort worker] walk up to 2 women in sun chairs and he asked them for a cigarette. One woman said she did not smoke, and the other woman gave the attendant a cigarette. This could be intimidating for some guests, hard to say No.
b) At the pool, my wife observed the pool-exercise-session-leader [resort worker] get drinks for all the women after the session was over, then he kept a drink for himself and drank in front of the women, and when one woman said "Hey, wasn't that my drink?" he laughed it off and said "Yes."
c) At the beach front, on two separate occasions my wife and I observed the illegal vendors getting resort guests to fetch alcoholic drinks for them from the beach bars, and these illegal vendors would then stand in the water and drink in front of us.
- We never saw this type of interaction occur with resort staff or vendors in the Dominican Republic

15. We actually felt sorry for a couple from Ontario when they told us they were there for TWO Weeks...!!! It seems they had NO idea what they would do with all that time and such a small resort, they said. They like to walk and found the beach and property too confining.

If in the future I wanted to get away for 4 nights, I likely would not consider it again, even with the low price. We would NOT go for a full week there. Both the Riu Negril and Riu Ocho Rios resorts are well over an hour bus ride from Montego Bay airport, which for me is too long a ride.

All in all we had a nice vacation, but we were a little dis appointed overall, and by Wednesday I looked forward to our approaching Friday departure date .

Occupancy was 70% the 5 days we were there.

On a friend's advice, we had asked for and got a room in the 300 series building. But the front desk manager told me the '100' building would be better, closer to beach, bigger rooms, more restaurant choices, and it has "superior" category rooms, so that is the building to aim for."
Reviewer: reviewer9581
Date: Nov. 23, 2010

Rating:
""BEST HOLIDAY EVER"HOTEL & STAFF GREAT.DAY TRIPS GREAT BUT PRICEY.GOING BACK THIS YEAR JUST TO RELAX.LOVE THE FACT THERE IS STILL A RESORT FOR SMOKERS."
Reviewer: reviewer4188
Date: Nov. 07, 2010

Rating:
"Had a great time at this resort. The service & food was excellent. The Jerk chicken hut on the beach is a must for lunch! Used only the buffet because it was always different and great selection. Didn't have top-shelf liquor. Beautiful beach & location. Spa was OK. Bring your own pillow because the hotel pillows are terrible. There were a couple of great shows, but over all the entertainment was just OK."
Reviewer: crhule
Date: Feb. 15, 2010

Rating:
"Jamaica was awesome!! This resort was beautiful and the staff were very friendly. They had something for everyone and the bar staff was unbelievable!! The rooms were okay, a little musty but great views!! The food was okay. Breakfast was the best and dinner was less than stellar. Entertainment was great and did I mention the bar staff? Awesome!! Loved the pools too!! The pool bars were fabulous and the excursions were great!! I recommend the falls to anyone who travels to Ocho Rios!!!"
Reviewer: reviewer500
Date: Nov. 12, 2009