5* Hotel RIU Ocho Rios JAMAICA | Full Resort Review
Are you looking for a great beach resort in Jamaica? If yes, this article is for you. Let me share with you my experience with RIU Ocho Rios in Jamaica. We visited Jamaica in March 2018. We booked our Jamaica holiday with TUI UK as a 14-day all-inclusive package for £1300 per person.
Highlights
- Top Beach Resort in Jamaica
- Huge Stunning Beach With Plenty of Palm Trees
- Sea View Rooms
- Great Entertainment & Reggae
- 24/7 Food & Beverages
- Fine Dining Restaurants
- 5 Pools & Splash Water Park
- TOP Things To Do In Jamaica
- Renovated In September 2019
General Information
Hotel Riu Ocho Rios is one of the most famous and best 5* hotel resorts in the Ocho Rios area and Jamaica. It’s located on the north Jamaica coast only 90 km from Montego Bay Airport. This 24-hour all-inclusive resort offers more than 900 rooms, 5 pools, a splash park, restaurants, and bars. The most important for me was the stunning long fine white sand beach full of palm trees. The whole resort lives with Reggae and a very relaxing atmosphere.
Riu Ocho Rios Website: www.riu.com/en/hotel/jamaica/ocho-rios
Junior Suite With A Sea View
Our Sea View Junior Suites was about 34 m2 equipped with one king-size bed (200×200 cm) and one small double bed (125x200cm), wifi, satellite TV, air conditioning, a safe box, an iron & ironing board, a hairdryer, a minibar and beverage dispenser and a balcony with stunning sea views. We requested the upper floor as we wanted to enjoy the best view.
If you want to enjoy a holiday in Jamaica with the best services and amenities, you can upgrade to the 69 m2 Sea View Suites.
Riu Ocho Rios Jamaica Beach
The most important for our holiday is the beach. We always check YouTube videos of every single beach where we are planning to go to be sure that we choose a resort with a perfect beach, white sand, and a lot of palm trees. The beach is the most important!
Riu Ocho Rios has a stunning huge beach with plenty of sunbeams, beach bar, beach grill kiosk and beach sports area. I also love the life guards towers. At the beginning of the beach you can find Scuba Caribe Kiosk which offers water sports, scuba diving services and boat trips. I trust Scuba Caribe as I did a scuba diving licence with them in Mexico. We did Dunn’s River Falls JAMAICA Catamaran Trip which is really recommended.
The sea is quite shallow in front of the resort with coral reefs all the way. It is a great place for snorkelling and water sports.
Every week there are Beach parties on the beach as well as plenty of entertainment from beach workout classes to beach volleyball.
Swimming Pools
There are 5 pools in the resort. The main treatment pool offers a daily program and a pool foam party. I loved the cocktails from the pool bar and enjoying pool parties. From September 2019 the resort offers Splash Water Park as well.
Food & Beverages
Riu Ocho Rios offers several buffet restaurants and A La Carte Restaurants. You need to make bookings forA La Carte restaurant and keep a dress code. However, you do not need any dress code while eating in buffet restaurants. The selection of food in Riu Resorts is huge and there is always something different. I love Riu’s food offers and I always found it delicious and tasty.
There are also several bars serving alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages & cocktails.
Entertainment
Jamaica is an island of Bob Marley. His spirit is all around Jamaica. Jamaicans are proud of him and everywhere you can hear his music. I really enjoyed Riu Ocho Rios’s entertainment, my favorite was The White Beach Party and Pool Foam Party. I also enjoyed workouts on the beach.
TOP Things To Do In Jamaica
Jamaica is one of the most beautiful islands in Caribbean which has much to offer. The cheapest way how to explore Jamaica is to take a taxi from the resort and pay an Entry Fee at the entrance of the attractions. In case you are sharing a taxi with 4 or more people this will be the cheapest option for you as a tourist as you can also visit more attractions during the same trip. The cost to rent a taxi for a whole day trip starts from $250 USD or shorter / half day trips start from $100 USD and the taxi driver is waiting for you while you are at the attractions and is your “tour guide” while driving you around the island. This is basically like having a private tour and it is probably the best way how to enjoy Jamaica on a budget.
We bought some of the tours from our TUI REP but in the end, it showed that we overpaid too much. The last trip we did was to Blue Hole Jamaica. I met a couple looking at the tour board and I asked them if they rather share a taxi with us instead of purchasing an expensive trip. We saved at least 50% of the trip cost. I recommend you to check the cost of taxi rent and look for someone who just arrived with you and is checking Tour offers. You both can save a lot of money. You can even find a taxi for 6 people and you save even more.
The most expensive way to explore Jamaica is to book tours by a tour operator in the resort. Those tours are the least comfortable as you will be collecting other members of your tour from their resorts and you must wait for the whole group at waiting points. The tours usually cost double as the private taxi hire for 4 people. I do not recommend this kind of trip.
Those are my TOP Things to do in Jamaica:
