Hotel Riu Cabo Verde - All Inclusive Adults Only

Just the standard RUI Hotel setup…unable to get a booking in any of the specialty restaurants. Buffet restaurants the same repetitive food. Polite cleaning staff. Reception staff need to be more customer focussed I arrived at 8pm given a keycard and a map and pointed in the direction of the room…no one to help with baggage. Requested late checkout on the RUI app had it confirmed and then I find keycard not working on the day after spending the morning by the pool headed to reception was told I should have requested this at reception…at no point in time did the app state this. I was told that the bell boy had put a note under my door..that’s ok if I could actually get into the room to read it, but there was no note ! Would not say this is a 5* hotel more a 4*.

I went to this hotel with my daughter on 13th June 2025, we travelled on her birthday and emailed ahead to get something nice in the room. Nothing was sorted when we got there so it was a disappointment. The hotel is not the best very dated and definitely not 5* more of a 3-4. The room was clean but the air con was old and very loud so we couldn’t have it on during the night. The staff were friendly but we and many other guest have had money and items stolen from our rooms. The food was just awful, it had no flavour, the meat was either overcooked and hard and dry or undercooked and raw, they didn’t know how to season food. No food theme nights like in the other RIU hotels we have stayed in. Cups were dirty and chipped. Cutlery was dirty. Glasses filthy. We had to hunt the spare tables for clean ones. If you said anything to the waiting staff they just rolled their eyes at you, they had no enthusiasm for the job. Towards the end of the holiday we were really struggling to find things to eat. It tended to be chips and salad as you knew there were ok. The fruit juice in the morning was concentrate and awful. The look situation is a joke.. people queuing from 8am with towels to get a bed by the pool when it opened at 9am, we only went the pool once because your like sardines and beds are butted up together. The sunbeds are filthy. You can’t get any more beds around the pool. They have plenty of open space within the grounds to put an additional pool to cater for the number of guests there are. We went the beach everyday, which is nice but the beach bar is not great, you can only get fanta, sprite, coke and beer. No cocktails or other mixer drinks. The pool bar wasn’t much better. Think they can only make around 6 cocktails. Very limited choice. Evening entertainment not the best. We asked for a pornstar martini and they said we don’t do those, only at the Riu palace, we don’t have passion fruit ?? What’s that all about. We stayed 11 nights and couldn’t wait to get home. Very disappointed. Will be making a complaint. This was my last holiday before starting my chemotherapy for breast cancer, i desperately needed a good rest but was so disappointed and upset about the whole holiday. Would not recommend and definitely would not return. If you follow the Facebook group for this hotel you will see all the negativity and complaints. I don’t research this hotel enough. We have always stayed in 5 star hotels and some of those being Riu and this is nothing like a 5 star hotel.

Our fourth time here, so good. Rooms are spacious, entertainment good, food spectacular. Italian is our fave. However the pool where the swim up bar is, really needs re-tiling, and attention. I have mentioned it before, but it's not serious. In the bedroom there are optics of gin, vodka, brandy and whisky, plus a fridge of mixers and lager, wow! The Beach is a few minutes walk away. Coffee bar is delicious, shop is beautiful. Staff are so friendly. The town is 20 minute walk away, but the cabs are just outside and it cost five euros to get to town, where there are bars, boutiques and a pier that the fishermen sell their days fish 🐟