Hotel Riu Palace Riviera Maya 

This was the 2nd time we stayed at the Riviera Maya Palace and the first since its beautiful renovation. The check in was both quick and professional with a nice cocktail to mark our arrival. One of the reasons for our return is because we enjoyed the holiday in 2018 when we had our wedding vows renewed under the Gazebo which is no longer there and replaced by beach weddings. Removing the original Gazebo is a shame as it was beautiful and rather romantic compared in our opinion to the beach weddings nowadays. We were first were asked at the time about the beach wedding but this carried a 250 dollar environmental charge which is the direction we were being guided in but felt it was unreasonable given people used the beach for all sorts of things so did not feel the cost was justified. Hats the only negative we have found at this hotel but was personal preference in terms of location of our wedding. Anyway on the first morning we walked towards a fountain where we had lots of photos taken by the wedding photographer in 2018 and started to take some photos of what we have come to call "our fountain" and a rather personable chap asked us if he could take a photo for us after we showed him some wedding photos from 2018. It turned out that he was Omar one of the directors who then asked our room number. We did not think about his question at the time but upon our return to our room we were pleasantly surprised to see a bottle of champagne two glasses and his business card!!. What a lovely touch that was and every employee we came across had the same smile and the same greeting "Hola" what a lovely hotel this really is and absolutely spotless in terms of cleanliness. The food was both varied and plentiful and we particularly enjoyed the Asian and Italian but all were very good in their own way. We had some extra special service from Freddy in the steakhouse with some lovely photos as he was our waiter in 2018 for our wedding in a private part of what is the steakhouse today. A very personable chap who spotted us both on our first night and we will remember him always. This hotel group has got the balance right in terms of luxury hotel facilities against cost and doubt there is better value in Cancun/Playa Del Carmen, and will return once again in the near future. Thank you OMAR for the lovely gesture and god bless "Our Freddy" the waiter