First, I would like to say we had an amazing trip. My girlfriend and I went to the Riu Mambo hotel, which is one out of three riu resorts located to puerto plata. You pay for one hotel and you can have full access to the two others, which is quite unusual for the price. Dominicans are very smilly people. They make you fell like your one of a kind. You have a private minibar in your room, filled with rum, gin, coke, soda and beers. The rooms are VERY VERY clean. There is always someone wating nearby to clean your hands. Lots of free activities are organized troughout the days, like bingo, aquaform, shows (for children and adults) and even snorkling (deposit required). I really recommend trip to paradise island. It'll cost you about 150 $ (2 people) and you'll feel like a VIP for the whole day.
I don't recommend the hotel for young teenagers who would like to make party. If you wanna do so, go to cancun (oasis cancun). Riu mambo resort, as the two others, are for families with young children and couples who wanna live an amazing honeymoon. Families would be pleased according to the fact that there are plenty of activities organized for young children. While children are busy, you can take it easy at the bar, well it's only a suggestion :)
For couples, the unique look of the hotel (small villas instead of an hudge building) makes you feel like you live in your own condo, quiet, clean and really comfortable.

The only negative point is the food. It's good actually, but I would have liked to get more sea foods (only available at italian restaurant, which is a la carte)

Hope it'll be helpfull

Francois

I had a very relaxing week at the Riu Mambo. The staff was very friendly, shoutouts to Escaly (our maid) Pedro, Henriquez, Wilson, Tito, Melo (bartenders) , Lidia and Vargas (waiter and waitress)
They made both my boyfriend and my stay very pleasurable. Our Sunquest Rep got us to and from the airport in time and was very friendly.

The Animacion crew were great...the best night was Michael Jackson and African night.
The food was good a bit repetitive but good. I can't really complain as I like my food spicey...but the Mexican and Dominican night was tasty!

I know the next time I go I will learn to speak a little more Spanish as I was able to communicate but not as well as I wanted to. Leaving the resort to go drive the moto was amazing til we were pulled over by the policia and our motos were towed...and not being able to speak fluent Spanish caused barriers for communication ...oh well it was an experience!

Our room 1207 was very clean and Escaly made some cute decorations out of our towels. I will attempt to make these in my own home! Only problem with the room...it was a little further than expected but I am just lazy and wanted everything right as I walk out so the exercise was good! And it motivated me to hit the gym a few days while on vacation!

I highly recommend to tip the staff as they do deserve it and really work hard. We tipped our maid, bartenders and waiters everyday.

Overall I had one of the most relaxing vacations with nothing to worry about but when to eat and sleep! I brought a book to read and enjoyed baking my skin while reading in the day and dressing up and eating with the staff at night!

unless you want food poisining and sickness.
Have just returned from 2 weeks at the Riu Mambo and was pleased to get home, despite the terrible flight conditions on Monarch ( don,t ever fly Monarch).
After 5 days myself and my wife went down with serious sickness, stomach cramps and diorreah, as did many other guests, and are still feeling the effects.

The food is plentiful however is of very poor quality,everything is fried and greasy. Flies can be seen around uncovered salds etc. Also much of the alcohol is either watered down or of very poor quality.

Rooms are basic, and extremley hot as the AC is either not working or innefective.

Also beware at weekends when the locals arrive, they just take over the place and are noisy and very rude, pushing in everywhere and helping themselves to whatever is around.

Entertainment is ok if you like Butlins, and the male staff seem more interested in younger women than anything else.
Deffinitley not a 5 star hotel, I would say 3 star at a push and certainly not caribbean beaches or standards.

I would be very interested to hear from others who have been to this hotel or the Merengue or Bachatta who have also been sick or ill, as I now understand the place has a long history of this.

Do yourself a favour and book somewhere else.

We (married couple, mid 50s) stayed at the Riu Mambo 17 June to 1 July and had a great time.

Initially I was disappointed at not booking and flying with Thomson (extra leg room and back of seat TV) but I have heard from others that Thomson (Monarch flights) are pathetic (major delays in the week we flew out and returned and awful meals on board) so when we booked and flew with Thomas Cook - guess what, extra leg room, back of seat TV and considerably cheaper than Thomson (TC 1, Thomson 0). transfer to hotel was good (45 minutes) but the 50 minutes wait around airport luggage carousel was a bummer.

A great resort. Three sister hotels on one complex and use of all of the facilities at each of them. However, we enjoyed the Mambo so much we only used the others for shops and the occasional show.

I really love Riu hotels (we've stayed in a few in Mexico and Spain); no form-filling check in, just a two-minute explanation of what's in the welome envelope (keys, safe key [free], luggage labels....) and then its straight off to lovely clean apparments - luggage followed within minutes.

Having looked about the adjacent Riu hotels the Mambo is much better than the Meringue.

The animacion team are the most enthusiastic bunch I have ever met (about 12 of them) they work from morning till early morning and without being pushy their engaging style had us joining in horse-shoes (greeted with cries of horsey horsey), boule and darts - we even won two of these on our last day (free bottles of rum!) At least one of the team is selling blackmarket copies of the Riu Hotels Club CD.

The evening shows are good - some by the animacion team others by acts that tour the adjacent hotels - Merengue and Buchata). The animation team's African show (which I wasn't keen to watch) was actually fantastic. We saw "Cats" at a neighbouring hotel, and that was great too.

We never had any trouble getting a sun lounger - either either beside the pool or on the beach even when i came down most of the time around 9.30 there where still loads of beds left. but get one under a sun shade - the sun is hot, the rain (when it happens for half an hour os so) is heavy.

The food is good, if a little repetative but I found something to eat at every meal we went to - after 3 days of All Inclusive I get a bit fed up with eating (no pun intended)

We tried the steak house three times without ever having to fight for a place in the early morning booking.

The beach is good - with pleanty of shady trees but not its not Caribbean it's Atlantic coast so don't go expecting white sands.

Rooms were cleaned everyday and spotless, also i would leave a tip for the maids becasue they leave the best decorations of animals mostly swans in towels they where fantastic and well done. Our room was also visited by two salamanders and a tree frog - the cleaners leave dorrs open while they clean.

At the weekends (Friday pm to Monday) a lot of the locals turn up and hog the sun beds and restaurant tables - Tuesdays are pleasantly quiet after the weekend.

We did three organised trips: Sunday all day horse riding which was great. Mega Trucks where you get to see the real Dominican lifestyle travelling in giant trucks and have fun in the process; and the half-day trip around Peurto Plata which was a right bore - the cable car trip was interesting but the wait to get on it was long and the view from the top, on a cloudy was, non-existant.

The Thomas Cook reps very really helpful and even the welcome meeting was interesting and only 45 minutes long. However, we paid $10 ($2 per card) to a Thomas Cook rep to send our postcards home via Miami rather than through the local post system. Those cards have still not arrived some 4 weeks later!

Overall a great place to visit and a good hotel and area to stay in.