Hotel Riu Montego Bay 5*

We have just returned from a two week holiday at Riu Montego bay and we can't believe some of the negative comments made by previous guests. First of all the the food was incredible at all restaurants especially the steak house. The rooms were spacious and cleaned every day to a high standard. Most of the hotel staff were friendly and the entertainment team were excellent there are 5 pools cleaned every morning and a great beech. One little negative if you want to spend a quiet hour by the pool you can forget it. This hotel caters mainly for the young so loud music by the DJ is constant plus the foam party and quizzes. There is nothing wrong with this hotel it's all about expectations.

My friend and I arrived at the resort around 1:00 on Wednesday. Our 1st impression was not good as the check-in process was chaotic with so many people in the lobby trying to check in. The staff appeared overwhelmed. We finally got up to the counter after about 1/2 hour and was told that our room was not ready until after 3:00 p.m. We decided to go to the lunch buffet because from traveling we hadn't eaten all day. The food at the buffet was very average. We changed in a bathroom and headed to the pool. There was garbage and used cocktail cups everywhere. It was impossible to get to the 1 and only swim-up bar at the 4 small square pools. The music and atmosphere was like a frat party! We spoke to another guest at the pool who said that they had to change rooms at the resort because the night time music was so loud, and their room was directly overhead. We hadn't even gotten to our room but decided that this was not the place or how we wanted to spend our valued vacation! There was nothing relaxing about the atmosphere at the pools where we planned to spend most of our days. We had to coordinate a resort change which took some time (waiting for a while for our wristbands to be cut off and to turn in our towel cards) (and we were never even questioned by any management as to why we wanted to leave). Thankfully, the Grand Palladium Lady Hamilton had availability because there was no way that we were staying at this Riu.