Hotel Riu Palace Oasis★★★★★

Nice but overrated

Location is great and staff is friendly. Breakfast is plentiful.

Not sure how this qualifies as a five star hotel: room service stops at five, the parking was full and I had to park at the bus station, the shower drain in the room was plugged and maintenance had to come. The rooms are ok but smallish and not really luxurious. Seems more of a nice resort hotel for people coming on a package holiday than a real five-star hotel.

Great to visit Maspalomas

Different pools, proximity to beach

Excellent in every way apart from the food

I’ll get the negative out of the way first, and sadly it’s the food. We come to the Canaries every May or October and, over the years have stayed in plenty of four and five star resorts across the islands. Buffet standards obviously vary but unfortunately, the buffet at the Riu Palace Oasis was the weakest we’ve experienced in a hotel of this class. The ingredients felt low quality, cooked to a poor standard, and the food stations seemed random rather than curated. Which is a real pity, as almost everything else about the hotel is very good indeed. We stayed in room 1234, which was well away from the entertainment areas and incredibly quiet. The room itself was well designed, comfortable and pleasant, and we were more than happy with it for our week stay. The pool areas have a lovely chilled atmosphere. Sun loungers were a complete non-issue, with plenty available at any time of day, even though it was half-term week and the hotel was busy, which was extremely refreshing given what a pain this can be at many resorts. . The gardens are beautifully maintained and are a real feature of the hotel. The main outside bar and entertainment areas are also lovely places to spend time. Cleanliness was also to a high standard everywhere. Service throughout the hotel was excellent. We did note that most of the servers didn’t speak any English, which is unusual in our experience of Spanish island resorts, but not really a problem. The main front-of-house staff were multilingual as you might expect. The spa being included at no extra charge is a nice touch, although personally I would have preferred a warmer spa pool. The men’s steam room also wasn’t working very well, which led to the odd spectacle of the men migrating to the ladies’ steam room which was working fine. The location is excellent too: right on the gorgeous main beach and very close to shops, bars and restaurants. I really wanted to give this hotel five stars, because in so many ways it’s a great resort and gets things absolutely right. The setting, rooms, gardens, pool areas, service and location are all excellent. But for us, the food wasn’t really good enough.

Great getaway

Exceptionally polite staff. Amazing to walk under the palm trees. Direct access to the best beach on the island. Incredible quality of some of the evening music shows, like the Motown group or the Tina Turner tribute. Good variety of food on the evening buffet, with some nights being particularly great.

The property has 3 adult pools that are relatively small in size. Would have liked to see something bigger. But apart from that, not much else really.