Hotel Riu Palace Maldivas - All inclusive

Closest thing I image heaven to be for me . We did splurge on a private over water villa with pool but worth every penny , the surroundings are beautiful , we had the best weather and could watch little baby black tipped sharks in the shallows right from our pool . The palace is laid back at night but a beautiful bar right on the beach what more could you want . For more lively evenings there is the atoll . I didn’t want to come home and had some fantastic snorkelling experiences . Missing it already . The staff are super friendly and I couldn’t fault any of it . Hope I will be lucky to go back . Special thanks to Mechelle for looking after us food wise .

I have been so lucky & travelled all over the world in some luxurious hotels, the Riu Palace Madivas is another level it is utterly total paradise. The staff make this hotel Rumesh, Desy & Puja work tirelessly & are so so friendly with the guests. The quality of everything on this property is outstanding, having the Atoll side for a busier experience is a bonus however the quiet & extra luxury of the Palace is worth every penny. I cannot receommend this hotel enough & will return very very soon.

The Riu Palace is a wonderful place to relax and unwind. Simply doing nothing becomes a true luxury here. The entire resort is beautifully maintained, and many friendly staff members work tirelessly throughout the day to ensure that we guests feel completely comfortable. The employees truly make the difference! Riu Atoll would not be the same without these warm, dedicated, and attentive people. I sincerely hope the management knows how valuable they are. I especially want to praise Anu, Puja, Gita, Shah, and Sanjay. They always greeted us with a smile and were exceptionally courteous and professional. The restaurant offers a good variety, and you can always find something to enjoy. My only real criticism concerns the juices: they taste like sugary flavored water. They don’t need to be freshly pressed, but a 5-star hotel should offer better quality beverages. The Riu complex consists of two islands, but all sports activities are located exclusively on Riu Atoll. Riu Palace does not even offer a billiard table or table tennis. The club cars also do not run as frequently as promised, and they are often full, so walking becomes necessary. More than once we walked the 20–30 minutes over to Riu Atoll only to find that billiards or table tennis were unavailable. This is definitely an area that could be improved. My conclusion: I would book the hotel again, but I truly hope management takes these few points of criticism seriously. The overall experience is wonderful, and with a few adjustments it could be even better.

We’re coming to the end of what has been an amazing 10 nights at this beautiful resort. HOTEL & ROOMS As this was our honeymoon, we did spend some money a chose to stay in an overwater bungalow with private pool, and it was worth every penny! Not only do you have the beauty of a private pool, but a ladder into the sea which is brilliant for snorkelling. We have seen some incredible fish, including reef sharks, rays, trigger fish and a barracuda. If you’re thinking about booking a bungalow then request one of the sunset side, as the sunsets are truly magical! The room was cleaned daily. Mini fridge and bar topped up every day too, with soft drinks and bottles of water, as well as Gin, Rum, Whiskey & Vodka. Fresh towels every day too. Plug sockets are either USB or UK. Hairdryer is ok but not particularly powerful. Iron and ironing board are also available. The staff have been amazing! Everyone is super friendly and welcoming. There are golf carts regularly travelling along the causeway you can hope on if you don’t want to walk between the two islands, but the walk itself is 10/15mins max. We’d like to say a special thank you to the hotel staff and security team for helping my husband find his mobile phone when he lost it one evening. FOOD & DRINK We tried every restaurant on both the Atoll & Palace sides. Both buffet restaurants were great and had lots of variety to choose from. We’re not really lunch people, so only ate lunch at the buffets one of the days, and just grabbed snacks from the sports bar the rest of our stay. The variety at the buffet on the Palace side had slightly more to choose from, but both were to a great standard and felt really fresh. I particularly enjoyed the Eggs Royale and Fresh Toast for breakfast. We tried all the restaurants on site, other than the Italian. Our favourites were the Krystal & Japanese restaurants. These are really easy to book using the Riu app. We also ordered room service on a few of the days for a late lunch, which again was tasty but options were limited. Lots of drinks to choose from across the resort. Cocktails like Espresso Martinis and Whiskey Sours are not listed on the menu, but if you ask the staff they will make them for you. As it was our honeymoon we treated ourselves to a floating breakfast one day. 10/10! But is an extra 50 dollars to do. ACTIVITIES You will not get bored! Water sports such as kayaking, paddle boarding, peddle boats and snorkelling a free to do. You can also pay for additional experiences such as jet skiing and various tours. We highly recommend the jet ski tour and dolphin watching tour. There is always some form on entertainment on in the evenings. We opted for more chilled, live music, but the Atoll side hosts a white party once a week which is a bit more lively if that’s the sort of music you enjoy. WEATHER We visited in November, and yes we have had some rain/cloudy days. But as a typical Brit I still managed to catch the sun even on the days that were over cast. It’s been 28 degrees every day, and even when it has rained it’s only been for a few hours and then back to beautiful sunshine again.

Fantastic stay with my partner. We had an even numbered beachfront room and would recommend this - means you can walk straight onto the beach. The staff are excellent and really do go above and beyond. This was the best service I have ever had on holiday. A special thank you to Desy and Puja for their attentive service in the bar, to Rumesh for his Bailey's iced coffees in the pool bar, Rafa for being so kind and friendly in the restaurant, Cindy for making sure we were always looked after and for her excellent service in all three restaurants, and to Shah for attentive service in the restaurant. The staff all work very hard and to a very high standard. The cleaning in our room (140) was also very thorough and to a high standard. We enjoyed the towel sculptures greatly! The shuttle golf buggies around the two islands were very helpful when tired. We usually walked but took advantage when in a rush. The food in the buffet restaurant was fantastic. Lots of choice, including for vegetarians, plenty of variety of cuisine and variation within the stations (Asian, Mediterranean, Western, noodles, carvery). We enjoyed the Japanese restaurant (tuna steak was great) and Crytsal restaurant (steak and tuna were both good). The bar service was always excellent, with table service extending to sunbeds. Drinks options were good - whilst only one beer, plenty of spirits and cocktail options. We loved the beach - the sand was so soft we could walk barefoot. Outside our room we could snorkel in the sea and saw eagle rays, baby sharks and fish. The house reef on the Atoll side is more interesting to explore and deeper. The house reef wasn't the most colourful and appears to be in recovery post bleaching event. That said we still had fun exploring and saw stingrays and sharks. For nature lovers, well worth going to the reception area at night to watch the fish, sharks and occasional stringray swimming past. We loved spotting the sealife whilst walking around the resort - there were often baby sharks just off the beach. The gym is limited. There are three treadmills, bikes and a cross-trainer. No bench for weight training, but dumbells and a few other machines. You can run across the island as the resort is reasonably large. It's about 2k from end of Palace to end of Atoll. Watersports were fun and the staff friendly. We went on pedalo and paddleboards. We are newly qualified PADI Open Water divers and enjoyed 7x dives with the team at ScubaCaribe. Special thank you to Regi for looking after us and building our confidence on dives. The dive sites were drift dives and across our 7x dives we saw 6x blacktip reef sharks (larger than the baby ones at hotel), 2x turtles, 4x moray eels and various other fish. The coral is not as colourful as the Red Sea, and visibility varied (usually moderate). The dive sites we experienced were a mix of underwater islands, coral walls and channel dives. Niyama Faru, Maenboodhoo Thila, Enboodhoo Faru, Maeenboodhoo Faru, Enboodhoo Kanmathi, Vaanee Faru (my favourite) and Sirru Thila. Be warned that we were sold a holiday by Emirates with $460 of "resort credits", $260 at ScubaCaribe, $200 on spa. These were only redeemable as 5-10% discounts on one or two activities which we didn't want to do. I felt this was mis-selling by Emirates given the small print did not reference exclusions. Not the fault of the resort but watch out for Emirates.

Beautiful location.villas and the beach and overwater villas. Excellent staff so frendly and helpful.bar team is the best roma.chamara .sade.pasi chamika .samee.thanuka verry nice we will come back thank you all

RIU Palace Maldives - excellent and highly recommended if you are looking for a relaxing holiday in a beautiful location. The staff were superb, shout out to Rumesh at the pool bar, Anu, Puja and Daisy at the bar and Cloudy in watersports. Always greeted by our first names and a welcoming smile (how they remember everyones names is beyond me!) We stayed on the Palace side of the island which was quieter than the Atoll side. The staff work very hard to keep all areas immaculately clean, cannot fault the room cleaning and the towel decoration is a clever and lovely touch….. TOP TIP: if you have a beach access suite use one of the room bins filled with water on the patio to wash off feet and shoes preventing sand getting into the room, the cleaner will even change the water for you every day :) The food was well presented, lots of variety and very good (it’s the first holiday we have had without a glimpse of a bad stomach!) Highly recommended 5* Thank you to all at RIU Palace Maldives for ensuring we had a perfect Honeymoon :-) Miss Corina and Mr Daniel

We went as a couple, it was fantastic, please go .Yes it isn't cheap but wow you wont regret it . We stayed on the Atoll side and up graded on the last few days of our holiday £680 for 4 nights well worth it .The staff are amazing, i mean everybody, the room cleaners the bar staff ,amazing. The place is just stunning. The food is all good the buffet is really good. Yes it will rain, only last a bit, you will get wet .The white night is a bit of fun and so is the flower power night .Marchi in the 24 hr bar she is amazing always a smile ,she will remember what you drink, but they all do, in the main restaurant also, and also give good advice about drinking enough water and when to keep out of the sun .Take lots of factor 50,trust me you will need it .And a snorkel and rash vest. We both live the place .

I would like to take time to thank everyone at Riu Palace Maldivas, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, we felt safe and had an amazing experience. Everyone treated us with respect and showed us amazing hospitality. I went with the expectation that the food was going to be ok as other all-inclusive hotels that I have experienced in the past, however the food was well above my expectations and the WOW! service at each of the venues was great! my glass of wine was never empty and there was never an empty plate at my table because your staff was so quick to turnaround the tables, it was great! we also enjoyed the high level of cleanliness and how the team took great care of their facilities. However, the most impressive was the smile everyone had how they remember you what you like to drink and even have genuine conversations with you at the bar. Big thank you to Susy from the restaurant staff, her smile brightens every room she stepped in and Ilham from the bar who we always looked forward to having a conversation over our morning coffee with him. Thank you Riu, cannot wait to go back!

If the computer says no it is a no. No all day dining by pool, they clearly haven’t had anyone rate them as 5 star externally - self appointed 5 star. Staff very good but the rigid rules are ridiculous. No turndown - if you shower in the morning no fresh towel in the evening. No amenities. No hot food in room service. No change of towels apparently to protect the environment - unlike any other 5 star hotel in the region - clearly to save costs. Repeatedly chased for 36 hours about time of seaplane transfer - no reply - even BA better than this in terms of comms - that is saying something. I suggest if you have this place booked you cancel and go elsewhere!!