My new husband and I, along with 15 of our friends and family members just returned from our stay at the RIU Palace, Punta Cana. I will break down this review into sections, hopefully you find this helpful when deciding where to stay! While we stayed at the RIU, we were married next door at the Kukua Beach Club, a private restaurant, which I will include in this review for those who may want a more personal and intimate feeling for their wedding!

Booking

A majority of our guests used our travel agent, a local Colorado company called allinclusivereservation.com. Elly and Carrie were awesome at getting us all set up through Apple Vacations , which I must say was one of the best decisions we made. Not only did Mark and I recieve almost $600 kickback because of the amount of guests that booked through our travel agent, but we have transportation to and from the airport, and an Apple Rep named Katie who worked out of the hotel who was available to give advice, book excursions and help with any other needs. Seriously, all of these things combined make me so happy to work with not only our travel agent, but with Apple vacations again and again.

Travel

The flight into Punta Cana went very smoothly. Though I did get inspected in the DR customs, probably because I had 1 suitcase full of the gifts for our OOT bags, which when they opened it they all kind of looked at eachother and seemed very confused as to why I was bringing all this crap here. Until one of the customs agents (a woman, thank goodness) said it was probably for a wedding. Luckily I speak spanish relativley well because I was able to explain to them. Other than that, the ride from the airport to the hotel... well... that is an experience. There are no rules to the roads in DR. It is everyman for themselves! I seriously though we were going to crash about a dozen times, and one of our guests did have a motorbike crash in front of their transport. But we all made it in safely. 

The Resort (check in, room quality, general ambiance)

Our check in process was seamless. They gave us a delicious mango juice drink before we could even give our name, they handled our bags and got us right into our room. The property of the RIU Palace is just as beautiful as all the photos depict. The staff and hotel management does an amazing job of keeping up such an big property, everything was beautiful and picturesque! We found our suite (I am telling you, UPGRADE to the suite, it is so worth it!!!!) which was on the corner nearest the pool, so we had a view of the awesome gardens and the pool area from our balcony. The suite was AWESOME! Big room, big bed, huge bathroom, and amazing balcony. I could not have asked for more! Equipped with the mini bar, which you can request specific alcohol (in my case CHAMPAGNE!) and 24 hour room service (though the food choices for room service were pretty limited), we were so happy!

The lobby of the hotel is gorgeous, the pool area was awesome, and the beach was amazing! White sand beach with ample palm trees for shade, ample lounge chairs for relaxing and the ocean was beautiful! 

The Food & Drinks

Our first of many meals at the resort was in the main buffet. Mark and I arrived a day and half before everyone so that we could have some "us" time before all of the wedding madness. Since you have to make reservations in the morning for one of the specialty restaurants, we made our way to the buffet. Which was surprsingly good! They have a wide variety of food choices, and really most everything was good! Be careful when eating fruit there though, it is amazingly delicious,but it will also cause some stomach issues, which a majority of our guests had at least one or two days of the trip. Nothing dire, but enough to make you feel yucky for a couple of days/hours. We dined at the Italian restuarant one night, which was very good, but since they only have 2 seating times for the restaurants, we took the later one, and they pretty much kicked us out, even though we had not finished desert. But the service was good and the food was great. We also dined at La Bodega steak house, this one I would say skip. It took forever to get any food, and since it was a "brazilian style" steak house, they are suppose to round with different meats, which they one do one round each of 3-4 different kinds of meat, so really we were all pretty hungry still. We didn't really get to try any other restaurants, though some of out guests had the japanese food and said it was good. Mostly we dines at the buffet. The morning buffet is AWESOME!!!!!! Best part of the food! Though I wanted mashed potatoes all week, and finally founr them being served in the morning on our last day, which was strange to me, but I still had them!! 

The bars are fun! The drinks are fun! you can really get whatever you want there. Though it all may taste a bit different than you are use to. the rum they use is not my most favorite, but overall everything you get, you like. We really love the fruity cocktails at the bar in the main lobby, though again, a warning, drinking a lot of pineapple, mango, and coconut drinks will mess with your system, and you may experience some stomach issues. They bring around drink trays on the beach yelling "Drinky Drinky" which we loved!!!!!!!

Service (staff & amenities)

The staff and service was really awesome! On the resort, it is assumed that all of you tips are included in the all-inclusive nature of the resort, but I would never feel right about not tipping for service. So we brought about $150 in small bills to tip, and man did we tip. But we found that our service was consistant and our servers, especially in the buffet remembered us, and had large tables waiting for us, because of our large group! The front desk is pretty helpful, though I did ask them to deliver the OOT bags to our guests as they checked in, and a couple of them never got it, so I had to go track them down. But really everything we needed they helped with. 

The entertainment crew, who wander around the resort putting on shows and playing games, and arranging activities were fun. There is a large theater where they do shows nightly, unfortunetly we did not get to see any of them, but they looked pretty well done. They do a lot of kids activities, so my flower girl niece was having a fun time. 

The salon is my only complaint about the resort. I want to say that I was not thrilled with the salon, I walked down, made an appointment in person 2 days before my  wedding. I asked that the stylist come to my room around 12:00. That all seemed to go smoothly...until the day of the wedding. No one had shown up by 12:30 so I called them and they seemed to have lost my appointment (AAHHHHH!!) So I had to wait until 1:00 for someone to do my hair, and even though I showed her a couple of photos of the hair style I wanted, she kind of did her own thing. The hair worked fine, but it definitely was not worth the $80 I spent on it and then when she left my photographer and I tried to remedy it.... Word of advice... bring someone to do you hair down with you... don't leave it up to chance! 

We were pretty tied up with excursions and the wedding that we did not get to go visit the other resorts for RIU.

Wedding Related

For those looking to have your wedding in the beach gazebo (though I did not get married at the resort), it is not what you would call private, or intimate, or ... dare I say pretty... the Gazebo itself is very pretty and if the surrounding beach was empty and the pool area was closed I would say go for it. But considering that the gazebo is smack in the middle of the beach where everyone has their sun chairs and there are topless women and men in tiny speedos wandering about, and the resort entertainment crew (who are very cool) do activities around 4-5 pm almost every night in the pool area. So you have so much background noise and randoms in your photos and it seems really distracting. Just my opinion, for what it is worth...

I did begin with the intention of getting married at the resort, but after 3-4 months of fruitless effort to get the wedding coordinators to respond to me, I was too stressed to have people who take a month to get back to me. So I switched our ceremony and reception to Kukua Beach Club, a private restaurant just steps from the RIU Palace. I could not be more pleased with the choice I made. I will write a full review of the KBC under vendors, but suffice to say, my wedding day was intimate, and amazing, and a day I will never forget. Our guests were impressed and we could not have asked for a more perfect day together. 

General Tips & Advice

Be prepared for some culture shock. If you venture off the resort, you will find people trying to put jewlery on you, bugging you for money, to buy things you don't want. I have traveled to Cancun and to Jamacia but I have never had similar experiences to the DR. The people are very friendly, though very pushy, and it does get a bit exausting. 

BARTER!!!!!! I am not very good at this, but my husband happens to be awesome. So whatever price they give you cut it in half or by a third, and negotiate up. 

Bring your own sunscreen and multiple different pairs of sandals. My husband wanted some filpflops (for the first time in his life!) and went to the shops on the resort, $60!!! for regular rubber flip flops. Sunscreen is $30!!! Pringles are $6 for the small can!!!!!! Seriously, they price gouge you at the resort shops, so be prepared to hand over some dough for regular things. 

Don't over pack on clothes. Really I wore a bikini and coverup almost everyday, and should have just brought a couple shirts and shoes (I only wore heels once and wedges once, though I brought 3-4 pairs). 

Have FUN!! Don't sweat the small stuff. It is difficult for me (a planner) , but seriously, getting all worked up about one bad dinner, or forgetting something or not having all of your guests be team players is NOT WORTH IT! 

I hope this helps! If you want to message me with questions feel free! I will include some photos!

All my love,

the NEW Mrs. Schmukal!