My girlfriend and I stayed at the Riu Taino from May 24-29th, 2008. We had a great time, and would certainly go back to the Taino. We aren't very picky, just give us a beach and some sun and we will have a great time; and that's exactly what the Taino offers.

Beach/Pools:
We absolutely loved the beach and pools. We never had a problem finding chairs on the beach. It could get a little crowded near the main pool, but you could usually find a couple chairs if you looked hard enough. The swim-up bar was fun. The activities put on by the Animacion staff were fun to watch.

Room:
Our room was perfectly fine. Maybe a little older, but still perfectly clean, and the AC and everything worked fine, no problems. We even had a nice little private porch, which was nice to sit and have a drink on. The maid did a great job keeping the room clean, and the mini bar was always replenished.

Food:
The breakfast buffet in the main dining room was always fine. We typically stuck to the fresh fruit and muffins, which were fine. The INDOOR lunch buffet in the main dining room was fine as well, but the OUTDOOR lunch buffets were a bit more interesting. There seemed to always be some bugs, flies and birds swarming around the outdoor lunch buffets, and didn't seem to be too sanitary. The dinners were great. The dinner buffet in the main dining room was fine as well, but we much preferred the specialty restaurants. For some reason due to either scheduling or being late on making the dinner reservations, we only ending up eating at the Italian restaurant and one other specialty restaurant (Mexican night), and we didn't get a chance to eat at the Steak House. However, both were good, but we enjoyed the Italian restaurant so much we ended up eating there 3 nights in a row (Gustavo and Johanna are a great waitstaff).

Other:
The little shops on Caribbean Street were fun to browse through, and all locals we met seemed very friendly.

If you have any other questions feel free to contact me, I'd be happy to elaborate on any aspect of my trip. It was a great time, and we would certainly go back in a heartbeat. I miss the beach already!

I stayed at the Riu Taino from May 21-26, 2008 on the recommendation of friends, and here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
Beautiful beaches; efficient service; clean rooms; Bavarro Runners has great, fun excursions; the hotel has many activities that kept my husband occupied while I laid out; the spa had nice massages (could have been a bit better); fresh juice servied daily

Cons:
The hotel compound (including the casino) has NO ATM anywhere, so bring lots of cash!; the villa rooms are very old and run down, so only good for those on a budget; the hotel is very loud and not fit for people looking for a really relaxing vaca; Food - most of the food was served buffet style, and it was left out, and outdoors, for long periods of time. Nothing is made to order. That is very unhealthy! Even when trying to watch what I ate and drank, I still managed to catch an E-Coli bacterial infection as a result of the food at the Riu Taino. It's miserable and I'm still suffering through it. I would definitely go back to the Dominican, but never again to this resort!

We stayed at the RIU Taino from May 3-May 9 2008 for our five year anniversary. We had a great time because we are easy to please, but we will not return to a RIU again. This is a good hotel for the $$ we spent, but there were some problems.

The good:

The beach was beautiful. If you walk out of the hotel grounds on the beach and take a right the beach/sand is amazing when you get to certain areas. There was a lot of seaweed at and around the resort areas, but the hotel staff cleaned it up every morning and did a great job of keeping the beach cleaned up. There were plenty of loungers on the beach.

The maids kept our room very clean and the grounds were kept up very nice.

The food was good for the price.

The staff were very nice and spoke many languages. I was able to understand them all, but my husband had a hard time sometimes.

There was a VERY quiet and relaxing pool, although smaller, on the resort that was nice for those who did not want the busy/party atmosphere. We were always able to find loungers w/grass huts above them in this area. However, it was near impossible to find loungers in the larger pool w/the swim up bar unless you came early in the morning and reserved one.

The bad:

We did not have hot water for 5 of the 7 days we were there...not one RIU customer did in all the resorts in our zone. The manager was very nice, but did not compensate us for the lack of a much needed service. We were given information when we left on who to contact to get this issue resolved and have to contact corporate. In my opinion it should have been resolved when we checked out. People that booked w/travel agents were told to contact their travel agents that RIU could not do anything for them. In my opinion, that is not an acceptable way to do business.

There were some bugs in our room at times which was fine, that sort of thing is to be expected in return for the beautiful vegetation all around the resort. However, the one cockroach we in our room left me itching all night long.

My husband said some of the food he had was not very warm. I thought it was fine, but we didn't always eat the same items.

The food did get very repetitive. This would have been okay if we would have been able to book at any resort restaurant other than the Italian. Even the day we got up and watched the sun rise and ate breakfast at 7:30 am it was the only restaurant w/reservations left.

The most unacceptable thing for both of us was that they allowed vendors on the resort. When I say ON the resort I mean it. The Caribbean street is right beside the resort and offers services/goods to RIU customers and the public. There are vendors on this street...that is fine. However, in my opinion it is unacceptable to have vendors in the lobby and especially by the pool. They set up at the quiet pool one day and ruined the afternoon for us. We had to say no at least 5-6 times EACH before they stopped asking us to come to their booth every time we got up to go to the bathroom or refill our drinks. They were yelling across the pool at people to try to get them to come over. They were there almost every single day. Nothing like being hounded every single time you go to the bathroom, go to dinner, or go get a drink every afternoon while on vacation...inappropriate!!!

Tips:

Be prepared to have cash coming into the country. There are fees you have to pay as soon as you check in at the airport ($10pp). We were told there were fees ($20pp) to check out of the airport, but we did not have to pay anything.

Use the taxi service provided for you if you book through the website. It was nice not having to pay for a cab and knowing we would be taken care of. Jose, w/hotelbeds, was very helpful w/setting this up for us and offering us the excursions.

We left tips when we received good service...they work hard and they deserve it. However, tipping was not expected on the resort. I recommend taking small bills because it was sometimes hard to get change for larger bills if you do want to tip.

If you want a good margarita ask for Jose...they have it but you have to ask.

Myself, my fiance, and another couple decided to take a trip to the D.R, and since this was in our price range, we decided to go to the Riu Taino. It was our first trip ever, so we had no clue what to expect. Before I start let me just say that I now know that I need to do research on the resort before actually going.

PROS
- very quick checkin, bell boys very helpful - they met you as soon as you got off the bus and took your luggage where-ever it needed to go.
-all staff was very friendly and kind, especially the bartenders
-room was clean - everything worked the way it was suppose to
-mini-bar in room was stocked daily. if you tipped the staff that was refilling, you could have whatever you wanted (i.e. switch the beer for pepsi)
-the beach was gorgeous! there were plenty of loungers to go around so we didn't have to wait for anyone to leave
-the main pool was awesome - located right off the reception and between 2 of the restaurants (one being outdoors so you didn't have to change if you wanted something to eat)
-breakfast was really good, had lots to choose from and always hot

CONS
-food wasn't the best, and very repetitive. Some thing were very questionable as to what they were....
-nightly entertainment wasn't the greatest. There were always shoes, but some of them really sucked
-having to check out at 11am really sucked considering our bus wasn't scheduled to pick us up until 6pm
-be careful when booking activities. We had booked quite a few with someone who represented the agency we went with, and one of them was cancelled and you'd think that someone would show up at the meeting area to tell you this so you don't wait around for an hour or more .. but no. We eventually got the hint and went back to the resort. We did get our money back tho!! Also, we had booked horseback riding and we waited an extra 45 minutes only to find out by a different person that was scheduling trips that our rep didn't even schedule a pickup for us for the horseback riding.
-while trying to relaxing on the beach, we contantly got harrassed by people trying to sell necklaces and bracelets which were WAYYY too expensive (but you could haggle them tho)
-the disco would open at 10pm, but it wouldn't actually get going until around 2am and you had to pay for your own drinks, when we were told that our drinks would be included...

The other thing that really sucked was when we first arrived at the hotel, we can at the tail end of Tropical Storm Noah? (i think that's what it was called) so it poured for 3 days non stop - but the hotel obviously couldn't control this, so we dealt with it. Next time we'll do our hurricane research, that's for sure!! lol

All and all it was an alright time. I personally wouldn't go back. There wasn't much to do and we didn't want to go off the resort on our own because it looked very sketchy (i know it's a 3rd world country, but I just didn't feel safe)