Riu Playa Blanca - All Inclusive

Customer ratings & reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

5161 reviews

• 

  Very nice stay

  Fast and efficient Internet Wi-Fi (35-35 Mps) Great food Attentive service from everyone Great expressos!

  Mar 16, 2025
• 

  We'd Go Again

  Amazing resort! Only 7 minutes from the airport. Very clean. Even the pool washrooms are kept very clean. Food was great and lots of it. A huge selection of drinks. Only one type of beer (was great) Beach is fine! Lots of people swimming. Sand is darker due to volcanic minerals. Staff works hard. Rooms are simple but clean. Air in rooms was perfect. Kept us 8 Canadians very happy

  Mar 16, 2025
• 

  Great value for the price

  We went for March Break with two families via sunwing vacations and had a great time. The kids loved the beach and the water slides. The food was good, no one got bored of the buffet and there was a good mix of kid friendly food and more adventurous things. No one was sick at all. The beach is a mix of white sand and black volcanic sand which I always find cool. There are lots of waves to play in, which means the water isn’t good for snorkeling, and you do have to watch your little ones. The beach was clean and had lots of shells. Beach chairs weren’t too bad, we could usually find some, and like most resorts it was usually a case of people saving chairs at the beach and pool and not actually using them that was the problem. There are 4 pools, we mostly spent time in the kids pool and the activity pool. Both were very clean, and the water slides were in good repair. The staff were also there making sure the kids were behaving and calling out unsafe behaviour. Same comment on the chairs, the issue was more people saving chairs they weren’t using rather than not enough chairs. We only went to one sit down, the Asian restaurant. My family is Asian, and tbh the food was not remotely even close to being authentic, but we went there with no expectations that it would be, and enjoyed the food for what it was. We did the Panama City and Canal tour, and it was ok. Nice to see Panama City, and the canal, but the walking tour is basically just walking to 3 souvenir shops, and 2 churches. The tour guide and bus driver were great though, and gave a really good lecture on Panama as a country on the bus ride over which was very interesting and informative. The rooms are large and clean. There were some issues with upkeep, but they did fix everything we brought to their attention within a couple of hours. Having lived in a humid tropical area before, it’s very hard to keep up with mildew and bugs especially on the scale of the size of the hotel and I thought they did a reasonable job. Some stains on the linens and towels but nothing that bothered me. The resort itself was very walkable and very safe. It was easy to go from beach to pool to bar to room without feeling like you were preparing for an expedition. All in all we had a good time.

  Mar 15, 2025
• 

  OK but nothing special

  This hotel is just average in all respects. Upon arrival to RIH airport we took a private minibus to the resort at $90 per person return. This proved to be a waste of money as the complex is 6 minutes away although it was convenient. The staff were friendly upon our arrival and we received a lovely room on the fourth floor as reserved. It was the farthest from the elevators but right beside the stairs overlooking the pools and ocean. With only four pools, we found this inadequate. Poolside chairs were at a premium and were always reserved early and without monitoring so hours would go by before people would show up. The pools themselves were in poor shape with tiles missing everywhere and grouting and cement repairs highly needed. There was only one pool bar at the adult only pool and no drink service was offered poolside. The same was true for lunch which was either at one of the two buffets or a very minimal food selection at the sports Bar. No burger shack, no poolside lunches except for our 2nd last day which made no sense. (Why not every day) The 3 themed restaurants were just average and always busy with no reservations offered. When travelling to a Riu resort, eating good food is expected and we found the buffet adequate. Sitting outside at the buffet the birds were a big issue, constantly freeloading at tables. A good steak could not be had anywhere even at the steakhouse. The staff were very friendly and accommodating. The beds were terrific and the showers big and well supplied. Pool side activities were adequate, but nothing special and the evening entertainment was also average. There were generally enough beach chairs but again you had to get there early and there was no drink service offered. The black sand is very hot, but the beach was lovely and the water warm. Overall, we had a good vacation, but we will not be going back to this Riu resort in the future.

  Mar 15, 2025
• 

  Vacation 2025

  We traveled to Panama from the US in early February and landed in Panama City. We booked transportation via Panamazing and they did a great job. It did take 2.5 hours to get to the resort as traffic was busy. I had already checked in online via the RIU app so it was a smooth process when we got to the resort. The food at 11 pm at night in the sports bar left a lot to be desired. Buns for hot dogs and burgers were hard as rocks. No sandwiches or wraps at that time. It would be nice to have some other items to snack on other than nachos and cheese. The room was great, we did request items via the RIU app and got most of them. We had to request a 2nd blanket from the front desk as it was cold in the room, and we couldn’t quite get the temperature correct for us. Not a big deal at all. Bar in the room was always stocked with water, soda and beer. We spent every day, except one at the beach. I was worried about the horse poop I had read about but it wasn’t that bad. The sand is hot so you must wear shoes. When people didn’t, they were yelling and running because it was so hot. Swimming in the ocean was refreshing but you can’t snorkel off this resort as the waves stir up the sand a lot, so visibility is not there. They had a couple of vendors on the beach selling stuff, but it was all the same at each vendor. Wish that they would offer different items. Food was great at the buffet; we never had a problem finding anything to eat. Big fans of the pasta Bolognese! We ate at the Italian and Asian restaurants but did not go to the Steakhouse. Both were good food with great service. We watched the Superbowl there and they decorated and had specialty drinks for Valentine’s Day. Before we went to dinner, we would have drinks at the lobby bar and they always had some kind of live music - saxophone player, violin player, singer, etc. This was very nice as we liked to listen to the music and play cards before we had dinner. We never made it to any of the shows or entertainment at night. The only excursion we did was booked through the hotel. Originally, we were going to go through the locks on the Panama Canal, see monkey island and stop in Gamboa. Since the canal changed our time (we didn’t want to get picked up at 3:30 AM) we did monkey island, tour of the canal & watched the video/movie and visited the Panama Rainforest Discovery Center. At the discovery center we saw hummingbirds which were amazing, a sloth, howler monkeys, the lazy cat (nickname they called it) and some other birds. We had a great time. The boat ride for monkey island was incredible as well. We got to see the howlers, capuchin and TT monkeys. We were in little boats compared to the cruise ship and other ships we saw in Lake Gatun. Our tour guide Yuriel and driver Louis were great and we were glad that we paid extra for the tour guide. This resort overall was a smaller one, but it worked out perfectly for us and we enjoyed it. Couple of things that I wish they would have would be bars of soap for the sinks in the bathrooms and more dresser space. The ocean view room we had could have fit another dresser in it. Suggestions for people going would be to bring plenty of sunscreen, an insulated mug to keep your drinks or water cold in the heat, your own shampoo (I didn’t like the pump stuff they had in the showers) or bars of soap and comfy sandals to walk down to the beach.

  Mar 12, 2025