Mexico Riu-Playacar

We have been at the Riu Playcar for two weeks in Mai 2003

Personal impressions:

Short summary: great place to spend a vacation

Rooms:
The rooms are great. They have two beds, two chairs and a table and enough furniture. For climate control you have an air-conditioner and a ceiling fan. I recommend to leave the air condition on all day to keep the room from getting damp. The bathroom is good, however not separated by a door and the wardrobe is located in the same room, so if you shower too long it gets quite damp in there. Hot water is available around the clock. A wall mounted hair dryer is provided which did a great job. A satellite TV is also provided with all major channels. The voltage is 110V with American style plugs. The room bar is filled up every second day, it provides water, coke and some alcoholics also the room maid did a professional job.

Food:
The food was very good, best I've had so far from RIU Hotels. There is a buffet provided where everybody can find something (meat, fish, pizza, rice, noodles, etc.). In the evening there are two sessions first starting 6:30pm and the second 8:30pm. However I can't recommend the second session as it is too crowded and it takes quite longer to get something on your plate as you are often standing in line and wait. For lunch the snack bar opens at noon and you have a good variation of food and salad. For dinner you can also go to the steak or fish restaurant (reservation required).

Beach:
The beach is good and there is no problem to get a chair even if you got up late in the morning. There are no huts to get some shadow but there are lots of palm trees and some bushes. You get fresh towels every morning. If you have some money to spend you can do a ride on a water scooter (USD50 for 30min.!), however as many are doing motor-sports it is sometimes quite noisy and for protection there is a rope in the water defining an area for swimming only. To get a real feeling for a caribean beach you have to take a 30 min. walk direction south to get out of the hotel areas to get to a quiet nice beach. If you don't like to swim in the ocean you can use the two pools close to the beach. One pool also provides a pool bar.

Excursions:
You have to get away from the hotel to see something from the real Mexico, therefore we did three excursion. The first was to the old Maya Temples at Chichen-Itzá. This is was a great experience, walking up the pyramid and having a look over the jungle. The second excursion was to the island of Cozumel. Take a taxi (4USD)to the harbor of Playa del Carmen and get a ticket for the speed boat (15USD including return). At Cozumel there are many shops to get something for the ones left at home but if you rent a motorcycle you can also drive to many beautiful beaches. The last trip took us to Coba (highest pyramid) and to Tulum which is located at the ocean. In Tulum you can take beautiful picture form the area and from the ocean.
You can save some money if you don't book the excursion in the hotel but with some external travel agent. This tours are also good but they take a little longer as if you have different nationalities in your group the travel agent says everything in every participating language which can take some time. If you go to Chichen-Itzá get there early in the morning as it is getting very very hot, we took a tour starting at 5am and it was still hot in there.

Playacar Riu-Playacar **** Pictures from the hotel:
Hotel street view	Entrance hall
Breakfast and dinner	Breakfast terrace
Bungalows	Area for nightly entertainment
Snack-Bar	Dinner buffet
Pool 1	Pool 2