Riu Palace Boavista - All Inclusive

First impressions count, which at a hotel is check in. They know how many people to expect off a package holiday flight, are they suitably manned on reception? No. Wait 15/20 minutes if you are back of the queue, Brits waiting correctly. In come Russians queue jumping by go-ing to Customer Service not Reception where we were turned away from, is the queue man-aged correctly, no, a new queue for just Russians. BAD Later back at reception, your app won't work due to poor WiFi at our building the furthest away from reception, we can't try reserving a specialty restaurant for my birthday. BAD A very helpful chap books us in as an exception. GOOD. Our room has a terrible view, can we change it, no we are full, we'll make a note, maybe in a few days. BAD. Actually three days later they do contact us the change the room. GOOD. The pool and beach beds start being blocked by towel bagging at 07.30. The hotel says is it managed by removing towels from unused beds a couple of hours later. Do they apply this rule? No. BAD. The buffet selection of food at breakfast and particularly dinner is comprehensive and good quality. GOOD. The attentiveness of the staff replenishing drinks and removing used dishes is generally excellent, although one evening I did have to serve myself with wine due to missing staff. Two worth a mention were Adilson, Siviane GOOD. The specialty restaurant Krystal was excellent, service and food. GOOD. MISAKYI, ok but not great service or food. The entertainment is karaoke, quizzes, poor quality music that involves little participation dancing to reasonable shows. POOR. And later drunks taking over the stage and music system with absolutely abysmal singing. MORE BAD. What they need is some quiet adults bar with a cocktails, maybe quiet piano player, the saxophone we had at the pool bar during the day again in the evening. No, it's people packed in a main room waiting for slow service, although wandering waiters do their best, while listening to a third rate litany of tunes no one has ever heard before. Seating is for 4 around a table, the vast majority of people are couples. So tables are quite correctly taken by two people and unless you really like making friends spaces quickly run out. BAD. The main Muscat bar is immediately adjacent to the main room, no getting away from the incessant noise. BAD. Five cocktails listed, poor choice, no making of a named cocktail. BAD I want to book another specialty restaurant. There's a high demand. The app booking starts at midnight three days in advance. Yes, guests are set up to compete against each other by being awake at 00.01 to compete on an app for the few spaces. ABSOLUTELY DEMEAING, BAD. The beach is nice, good walks, clean. GOOD. Overall, we are used to far better, not for us, more like 1980's holiday camps I've seen on TV programmes now All Inclusive with noisy not quality shows. Which is a pity, the staff and quality of food mass produced for up to 1000 people a day are great

Stayed at the palace from 7th November to 18th November for my mums birthday. Was worried before arriving after seeing so many bad reviews, but wow was we pleasantly surprised. The hotel was beautiful and clean. Welcome drink on arrival at reception was a lovely touch. Food: The food was delicious lots of variety of meats, fish, pasta dishes etc to choose from, we spent most of the time in the Africa restaurant. Had a meal at the Japanese restaurant which was ok, but preferred the food in the main restaurant. Special mentions to Delly and Freddy at the Africa restaurant, always friendly and attentive. One point to mention definitely purchase a fly fan to use at breakfast and lunch, dinner did not see any flies. Entertainment: Shout out to the lovely evening entertainment team, always working hard to provide good entertainment. Had a dance with them a few nights, and they were all lovely and friendly. Junior the day time entertainment again friendly and got everyone going and enjoying themselves. Pool: Lovely swimming pools, would say some people tend to sit round the swim up bar most of the morning/afternoon drinking a lot of alcohol. Preferred the other pool without the swim up bar, less cramped. Lovely pool bars, staff always friendly, dancing and enjoying themselves. Some afternoons there was live music around the pool which was lovely. Only grumble would be maybe some new updated sun beds as they were a little out dated and uncomfortable, also maybe some new parasols as they do not protect you from the sun. Room: We were in room 0187, ground floor not too far from the restaurant. Clean, spacious rooms. Mini bar restocked every 2 days, but if you required more you can order on the app or speak with reception. You can also ask in the restaurant for more bottled water. Bars: The bar in the evening was lovely, sometimes was busy but the staff were all working really hard. Special mention to Kevin at the Muscat bar, friendly, attentive and gave good measures for the drinks, especially the mint liqueur . Good selection of drinks, staff always friendly and cleaning the tables. There was table service for the drinks, but we preferred to go to the bar and chat to the staff. Days Out: We came with Tui but did not use there trips as it was pricey. Spoke to people who have visited the hotel many times, who gave us Andrew Worthingtons tour details. Myself and my mum paid €40 each for a half day tour, and explored different parts of the island, tasting the local grogue, visited a local school and also did sand boarding. Would definitely recommend booking with them. Also booked a taxi from the hotel which was €10, which took us to Sal Rei and picked us back up. Definitely recommend doing things and paying for things locally. The white party at the sister hotel was amazing. We had our face painted at our hotel by the staff before we left. There was a shuttle bus but we walked with other guests, which took about 10 minutes. Definitely would recommend go

Filthy hotel. Horrendous food. Poor cocktails. Absolutely filthy bedding with pictures to prove complaint. Mattress replaced in room and pillows and bedding. Rooms old and poor quality need updating.

We visited end of October beginning of November. I was really worried about our holiday after all the poor reviews and if I could have cancelled I would have done, however we had no issues at all. We found the hotel an excellent all inclusive hotel, the beach and pools and swim up bar are all gorgeous. We didn’t enter the sea and normally we prefer the beach to poolside. However, the sea is quite dangerous here with strong currents and rocks under the water, this wasn’t an issue as we used the beach and then went to the swim-up pool to cool down. The bars at the pool are lovely. There are absolutely no issues with getting a sun bed or a seat in the bars. The hotel is quite spread out so it never feels especially busy or crowded or full of children. The food, we mainly ate at the main buffet restaurant Africa and found this good. There’s a massive choice of food but I mainly stuck to the food under heat lamps as I was concerned about stomach problems from previous reviews. We didn’t have any issues with sickness or stomach problems (although we took lots of wet wipes and cleaned our hands after selecting food, just because lots of people all use the same food tongs). We went to the Japanese restaurant twice which was nice, I found the food ok, but my husband loved it. We didn’t really do the evening entertainment, mainly because it felt quite uncomfortable from other guests smoking, we sat inside but the fans seem to drag the smoke in. We went to the white party next door and that was such a good night, would highly recommend. My husband loved the sports bar next to the evening entertainment (there was no smoke in there) and lots of football on so he was happy. All the staff from restaurants, bars, cleaning, spa, reception all excellent. We did have couples massage and then went into the jacuzzi which was lovely. The only negatives about the hotel, I did not like the room, it was at the side/back of the hotel and felt damp and musty to start off with. It was ok after a couple of days and did not spoil our holiday. Also we went for my 50th and asked for some special requests which were not referred to at all by the hotel, again didn’t spoil our stay. All in all an excellent hotel but probably not 5 star, not really the attention to detail and is getting ready for a refurb in the rooms. Still thoroughly enjoyed and probably would return.

The most beautiful venue real 5 star quality all oversold thoroughly recommend anybody to come here who wants sun sea beach and a relaxing holiday

Good points - beautiful Beach and great staff (apart from the one who very rudely demanded a cigarette whilst I was sat on my own) There is nothing outside the hotel and so A week was long enough ! Bad points- Buffet offering covered in flies so we opted for the ‘restaurants’ on site - Steak house was not good - surf n turf was tiny and my husbands veal was inedible. Japanese restaurant was the better of the three options. The restaurant Krystal !!!! expectations far out weighed the reality. (See photos) Even the waiting staff laughed at what we received !!! The entertainment was repetitive and not very exciting. To top it all off, my husband ended up with a severe stomach upset and is still not 100% after 3 days at home.