Trip Report: RiuYucatan/RPM, October 14-21, 2006

[Topes!]

Day one:
Let me first say that I am the clumsiest person ever. Fifteen minutes after getting to the airport, I broke my toe on the baggage scanner at security But, I was bound and determined that nothing was going to keep us from having a good time on this trip. So, two tylenol and at 7:30 a.m. we were off.
Thanks Frontier for the free tv and great flight. We got there ahead of time at 9:25 a.m. We finally got through to baggage at 10:30 a.m. At baggage, we met the zoo. The lines were so long, airport personnel was actually spiraling lines around one another. It was crazy! We had finally gotten up to the baggage scanner/stoplight area when a family decided they were going to cut line and get through quickly. We let it slide, because we were there to relax. Karma stepped in for us and they got the RED LIGHT! Ha, ha. We were greeened, so off we went.
We bypassed all of the baggage guys and timeshare people. We had our own luggage tags on so that no one would know we were with GOGO/Olympus. We made it right through to where we needed to be. (Thanks everyone for giving us the downlow on the airport mess! We never would have made it through so easily!)

[Topes!]

I know a lot of people have complained about the transfer vans, but since this was our first visit to Mexico, we welcomed the chance to see all of the different resorts. We went by Grand Occ. Xcaret, GPR, and Royal Hideway. Wow! They were all so beautiful.
We arrived at the Riu Yucatan around 1:30 p.m. We were just so excited to finally be there! At check in, we were coldly greeted by a woman named Nina. She was busy and wanted to check in three families at once. She scolded us for not getting our bags into the pile for delivery to the room quickly enough. She handed us a pamphlet, quickly put on our bracelets, and told us to come back at 3:00 for our rooms. Anyone in the three groups who asked anymore questions like, "Where can we change?" was met with less than friendly responses by Nina.
Another staff member saw what was going on and offered to show us where we could change. He told us that since the rooms weren't ready fr any of the three families, we didn't need to have our luggae in the delivery pile. He said we needed to put them in the luggage room. He showed us the changing rooms, too.
We went straight to the bar and got drinks. Then, we went to see the most beautiful beach ever.


We hung out at the beach for about an hour. Then, at 3, we went to the front desk, as directed. Still no rooms. We were to check back at 3:30. 3:30 came, but still no rooms. Finally, when we checked back at 4, they had a room for us. The other two familes were still sitting in the lobby area waiting. They had been at the beach with us, and then finally gave up. They had some children and the children were restless and needed a nap. So, they did what they could and let them sleep on the couches in the lobby. We wished them luck and went to see our room.
6310! Yes! Building six gave us a chance at having a partial ocean view and was close to the beach and pool. Unfortunately, it was a smoking room, I guess. It smelled like someone had been chain smoking in there. I called the front desk, as I am allergic to smoke. They rudely told me that the hotel was at full occupancy and nothing could be done. I thought this was a bit odd since there were chairs and palapas readily available. So, I asked about being moved the next day. Nina again said there was nothing to be done. I went to the front desk and tried to slide them $50 to find me another room. But, Nina just looked at it and said it would be $100 a day to be put in an available suite. Fine. We got it. We were just going to have to deal with it. We slept with the glass door open and screen door closed.


Day 2
The next morning, I woke up sick, of course. I had a sore throat and was coughing something horrible. My asthma was starting to act up, as my chest felt like someone was sitting on it. But, I was still determined not to let anything ruin this vacation! Then, we saw that the fake door knob had been pulled off. Someone could have been watching us in our room all night! I called the front desk and the acted like it was our fault that the fake door knob had been pulled off from the OUTSIDE!

[Topes!]

Day 2 continued:
Finally, they came and fixed it. But, by this time, between the door debacle and sleeping late, we didn't really have time to get a good breakfast. So, we decided to hold off and have a snack by the pool about 10:30-11 a.m. I had some plain nacho chips. My husband had some with cheese. We took the vacation to REST. So, we said, "No thanks," when the entertainment staff came over to invite us to do water aerobics. Now, I am a size 10-12 depending on the clothing company. I don't think that's huge. My husband is a big guy, but is definitely not fat.
The animacion staff passed by annoucing water aerobics would be starting in 10 minutes. "Water Aerobics... 10 Minutes." As the staff member passed by us, we said, "No thank you." But, that wasn't enough for this staff member. She waited until she thought she was out of earshot and then instead of saying, "Water Aerobics... 10 Minutes," she said, "No more nachos... Put down the nachos." Everyone around us heard her. They couldn't believe she said it. And, they also could not believe she said it in the WAY she did. We all started talking about the comment.
Now, I am not the kind of person to take an insult personally. BUT, for a member of the staff at the hotel we were paying $2000 to stay at for a week to INSULT their GUEST??? It was just not acceptable.
Can you imagine paying thousands of dollars for a vacation only to be insulted by a member of the staff? We couldn't. So, we complained to the manager, Carlos. He quickly shifted us off to the Public Relations manager. She tried for 30 minutes to convince me and my husband that the staff member was just joking with us. It was hard to believe that she was actually trying to convince us that nothing really happened. The people around us even said they heard it. She kept saying it was only a joke and that we were being too sensitive. She even told the other guests who heard her the same thing. They were shocked. She told us that we needed to go to the Riu Playacar because it was smaller and we would feel more comfortable about ourselves in front of less people. We told her no. We didn't want to go to the Playacar. We had done nothing wrong here. And, the Playacar was ruled out by us and our travel agent to begin with because it was not as large and had less amenities than the Yucatan.

Of course, my husband and I no longer felt comfortable at the pool since the offending staff member was at the pool all day directing activities. So, we went back to the room. The PR manager eventually called us at 2 p.m. to tell us that she would be moving us to the Riu Palace Mexico. But, she couldn't do anything until the next day. She gave us day passes and told us to come back for dinner passes for that night.
We went for three hours at the RPM. We came back to get the dinner passes only to have Carlos tell us that Sabine was already gine and that they could do nothing about dinner. We sucked it up because we were just so happy to be going somewhere else, much less the RPM that everyone on here raves about! We went to dinner and then headed off to catch the Mayan show that night. Then, it was off to Playa for a few hours to shop.
We loved Playa. My Spanish is good enough to get us around and to bargain. We took everything in priced things in different shops. So, no buying tonight. We got chocolate mousse from the Chocolate shop everyone has raved about. IT ROCKED!
Then, it was off to bed! We were told that when we woke up, we would be taken to the RPM!

[Topes!]

Day 3
We woke bright and early. We went to breakfast. On the way back, Sabine asked if we had been told what room we would be moved to yet. We said no. She said the reservation had already been confirmed .All we would have to do was call the front desk to find out what room number.
We called the front desk and they told us they had no idea what she was talking about. They said they would not know until later in the day. We told them that Sabine had said for us to call and that we didn't want to have to spend the majority of our day in our rooms waiting for their call. They told us we'd have to wait. We called our travel agent to let her know what was happening. She was extremely upset by our story. She said she was going to try and talk to Sabine to get us moved. An hour later, we had heard nothing from Sabine, Carlos, or our travel agent. Finally, she called our room.
Our travel agent said that she had tried numerous times to get Sabine. The front desk pretended they didn't know english. They laughed at her when they thought she was on hold. They sent her around to different extensions in the hotel. They put her on hold and let her listen to music for a while. They told her that Sabine was not in and they could not get a message to her. So, she had called us to see if we had heard anything. We had not heard anything. She told us to see if we could find Sabine.
The front desk said they didn't know where Sabine was. (We found this hard to believe since she had been walking around with a walkie-talkie the past day-and-a-half.) So, we went back to our room and again let our TA know the situation. She said she was filing a complaint on our behalf with her company AND the supplier, GOGO. She said for us to call if anything happened to get us moved. Otherwise, she was contacting GOGO to see what she could do from her end.
FINALLY, around 1 p.m., Sabine bothered to call us and tell us that we did indeed have a room. It had been ready for us for a while. I asked if we could have a bellboy help us with our bags. She told us that we would not get any help getting our bags next door. She told us she would call us a cab, but we would pay for it. We told her that our travel agent said she felt that a cab was appropriate in this situation. The PR manager (Sabine) coldly informed me that they were already doing too much for us. She said she talked to the employee and we had just been too sensitive. She let us know that she thought we did not deserve what we were already getting.and that a cab was definitely out of the question. We would also not be able to borrow one of the rolling carts, either.
Fine. We just wanted to get out of the Yucatan at this point. But, checking out, they made us sign a form saying that we would not complain to our tour operator or supplier. We refused to sign anything that didn't allow us to tell our tour supplier how bad things were. But, they told us we would not be able to go back to our room nor would we be able to check out and leave until we signed it. We were so upset by this point. We just signed it so that we could leave and be done with them. Our travel agent advised us that we could honestly sign it. We would not be complaining to GOGO, SHE would be complaining to GOGO based on both her and our experiences. We ended up spending around $100 talking back and forth to our TA. So, we had to cut out our Tulum excursion.

We went to the taxi they had called for us. Like always in Playa, I asked how much it would be to take us NEXT DOOR to the Palace. Theye were going to charge us the same amount as to go into Playa. So, we politiely said, "No, thanks." A large group was coming to check-in. And, they realized that it didn't look good for two guests to be shlepping 4 suitcases and a carry-on down the sidewalk. So, they got pissed and loudly told us to just get in the cab and go and they would pay. We never looked back. Hello Riu Palace Mexico!

[Topes!]

Day 3 continued
From the moment we stepped out of the taxi and onto RPM property we were in heaven! Our vacation completely turned around. The staff treated us SO nicely. They indeed, had our room ready. And, it wasn't just a room at the RPM, it had a courtyard view!


More later... The two-year-old has returned and it's time to go to the grocery store!

[jodiesme]

What a start to your "relaxing" vacation. Hope the next chapter changes for the better.

[jobob]

Sure hope the rest of your stay at the RPM is an improvement over the Yucatan. I have to say this is very untypical of Rius and Management. They're usually all over you with "is everything all right?" Too bad the Resort Director didn't take a little more hands on approach to the whole affair instead of passing down.

[actran]

We stayed at the RPM in August and I had a couple things happen that I found were not up to the service standards I had heard about. The first thing was there was no deadbolt in our room (the other 2 rooms had it). When I went to the front desk they told me it would be repaired later that day. But when someone called our room to make sure everything was okay and my husband said there was no deadbolt, she said that was because they were switching to key cards. It was never repaired and the "switching to key cards" explanation didn't make sense. I let it go because my husband convinced me it wasn't a big deal.

The other thing that was really unacceptable was the second night I called and asked for a blanket because there were none in our room and I had frozen the night before. They said they would send one. An hour and a half later, a total of four phone calls and one trip to the front desk later, still no blanket. They kept telling me one was on its way, but I never got one. The next morning I told the guy at the front desk it had never been delivered and it really would have been better if they had just told me I wasn't getting one and I would have gone to sleep. He said he was sorry and woould send "something" to my room. Which must have ended up with the blanket because I never got that either.

Other than this, the service was great, but really, both of these things left me feeling like they have something to learn about good service.

[sleeperbee]

Originally Posted by actran

The other thing that was really unacceptable was the second night I called and asked for a blanket because there were none in our room and I had frozen the night before. They said they would send one. An hour and a half later, a total of four phone calls and one trip to the front desk later, still no blanket. They kept telling me one was on its way, but I never got one. The next morning I told the guy at the front desk it had never been delivered and it really would have been better if they had just told me I wasn't getting one and I would have gone to sleep.
Other than this, the service was great, but really, both of these things left me feeling like they have something to learn about good service.

Not trying to be a smarta** but after even a half an hour and two phone calls wouldn't it just have been easier to stroll down to the front desk and ask for a blanket - and stand there until they give you one?

Sounds like your expectations are a bit more Palm Beach than Mexico, but then I go out of my way to keep my feathers "unruffled" when I'm on vacation. I've got 48 weeks during the year to maintain my balancing act on the razor's edge!

Sleeperbee

[Topes!]

The rest of Day 3, Monday, was spent hanging out at the pool bar and the beach. We had a wonderful time. As a special treat, the staff advised us that they reserved a space at the Steakhouse for us.
Afterwards, we went back to Playa and did some walking. Then, it was back to bed around midnight.

[actran]

Originally Posted by sleeperbee

Not trying to be a smarta** but after even a half an hour and two phone calls wouldn't it just have been easier to stroll down to the front desk and ask for a blanket - and stand there until they give you one?

Sounds like your expectations are a bit more Palm Beach than Mexico, but then I go out of my way to keep my feathers "unruffled" when I'm on vacation. I've got 48 weeks during the year to maintain my balancing act on the razor's edge!

Sleeperbee

Maybe that would have been easier, but I'm not sure how. I would have felt like I was being obnoxious standing there. I guess we all have different ways of handling bumps in our vacation roads. Having never been to Palm Beach I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I really don't think it's too outrageous to ask for and receive a blanket at a hotel.

[jobob]

Topes, the palms look like they've really come back from a year ago. Looking forward to seeing lots of shade again.
Actran, been to the Palace Mexico three times, we do not deal with reception people any longer except for check in and check out. IMHO they are the weak link in the Riu organization. And as far as the dead bolt situation was concerned, we had the same problem but it wasn't an issue because we slept with the patio door open every night (and we were on the ground floor).

[actran]

Jobob - there were a lot of amazing people at RPM. It's really too bad there were those two glitches, because it leaves a bad impression.

I thought the shade was plentiful and you would never know there had been a hurricane so recently. The grounds are beautiful.

[jobob]

Originally Posted by actran

Jobob - there were a lot of amazing people at RPM. It's really too bad there were those two glitches, because it leaves a bad impression.

I thought the shade was plentiful and you would never know there had been a hurricane so recently. The grounds are beautiful.

Keep in mind it looks like their concerns were from the Yucatan, not the Palace Mexico. There is absolutely no way they'd have been treated that way by Maria (Directora), Karima (Sub-Directora) or Tamara (PR Manager) at the RPM.

[rainbow]

...we've stayed at the riu palace mexico twice and the riu yucatan twice...in my honest opinion the reception desk personnel at both resorts have been the only occasional downsides to otherwise outstanding stays...