Loved the Bahamas and Paradise Island. The RIU resort was super. It is all inclusive and some of the best food that I have eaten at an all inclusive; especially the buffet. The beach/water is beautiful and the service is terrific. The bartenders, cleaning staff and food folks are extremely friendly and helpful.
The entertainment is not very good. This being the the calypso room off the lobby. That is about all that there is in the resort. It is not widespread with many options for entertainment, but that is ok since you can walk next door to Atlantis and you have casinos and a beautiful marina.
Bottom line, head to Nassau, the RIU is excellent for all inclusive and enjoy! PS: We loved our trip to Bay Street, straw market and Senor Frogs.

We booked our trip and were a little scared because some of the reviewers complained of this or that. If you are older folk and have traveled the world in high class, because you were smart and planned your retirement out right, then yes, this is not for you. Go spend your money at the pricey Atlantis, why save it for your kids anyway, they will just fight for your inheritance.

The rest of you maybe couples in your 20's or people who have a budget, read on!

The beds were comfy, we got a crappy room the first night then asked nicely for an upgrade and they gave us a room with pool and ocean view. It wasn't ocean front, but it was a gorgeous view nonetheless. The food was good, especially for lunch and AND BREAKFAST. GREAT BREAKFAST. Buffet dinner could be hit or miss. I def. recommend that you wake up early and reserve the dinners at the reservation only restaurants. You can reserve two nights, on one morning, so really you only have to wake up early every other day. We had activities to do anyway, so we were waking up early, anyway. We tried Fusion and the Steakhouse, both good! We got engaged on that trip, and we celebrated at Fusion, they had champagne for us and everything.
Oh and the drinks! Gosh, I'm so doing all-inclusive again! I had so many bahama mamas, i gained 5 pounds from the food and drinks. The bar tenders are very nice, and if you tip them a buck, they will remember and pour a little more alcohol for ya. I was surprised at how many people didn't tip.
The room service was great, too! They took a long time so order like an hour before you are hungry, lol. So if you want to enjoy drinks and food, without spending 25 bucks on bagels and coffee (Atlantis) go to the RIU and have a great time!

Don't believe all the bad reviews on this hotel. We were very happy with our stay at the Riu last week. The place was clean, employees were very friendly and helpful and the food was wonderful. We had a room on the 15th floor, and yes you do have to wait sometimes for the elevator but not for very long. Since the hotel is a high-rise the place is very compact which we found to be just what we wanted. When you came down from your rooms, the dining rooms were just a short walk through the lobby. We ate at all the speciality restaurants and the food was excellent at all of them. If you didn't care for that food, you could always eat at the buffet. We tried a lot of new foods that we haven't had before and found all of them to be excellent. We didn't have any trouble getting reservations for the restaurants. Towards the beginning of the week not all of the restaurants are open but that is because most of the people arrive on Thursday. We hired a taxi-cab driver named Bruce to take us around the island and show us how the people live there. He took us to a mom-and-pop restaurant named Beverly's which served us Bahamian and Jamaican food family style. It was excellent and the owner Beverly came out to talk to us. There were two other couples with us and they also enjoyed their stay at the Riu. The Atlantis is very close and if you enjoy gambling you can walk over there any time.
We would go back anytime to stay at this hotel and would probably look for Riu hotels in other countries.

I stayed for four nights with family members in late January, 2012. The location is very nice, with a beautiful little beach and great views (we were on the 14th floor, even numbered room so we did not have the pool view, which was a plus to me). The pool temp was great. One day, there was a waitress for poolside drinks, but the other 3 days we went to the bar ourselves - no big deal (be sure to try their Dirty Banana!). The buffet food was pretty good, especially breakfast. Our stay was during a "low occupancy" period. Because of this, the hotel decided to open only two of the four reservation restaurants each night. The problem was that the hotel did not communicate this to us - we figured it out on our own when we couldn't reserve the restaurants we wanted even though we were first in line at 8 a.m. We would have planned differently had we known (we didn't get to try the Krystal restaurant due to this lack of communication). The Japanese restaurant was OK (sushi appetizers and the fried ice cream dessert were great. The rest - just OK). The gourmet restaurant was pretty good (waiter Elkin made this restaurant especially fun!), and most of the food at the steak restaurant was good, though the service wasn't up to par and my shrimp appetizer was half raw (how long does it take to cook shrimp?). This hotel should NOT advertise a fitness facility, as more than half of the machines in there aren't even functional.

The rooms were cleaned well, though the hotel must have a severe shortage of washcloths. We didn't get any, and multiple calls to housekeeping did not result in the requested washcloths. We ended up grabbing some ourselves off of the maid's cart when she was down the hall. What is the big deal about washcloths? I think this is the only all-inclusive on Paradise Island itself, so the lack of competition could be the reason they don't try harder at the Riu.