I am looking forward to the opening of the brand new adults-only Riu Palace Kukulkan in Cancun’s Hotel Zone–actually, from what I understand it will be located just south of Live Aqua Beach Resort Cancun (one of my favorite all-inclusive resorts in Cancun).
Riu Palace Kukulkan will launch Riu’s new upgraded concept, Elite Club. Elite Club is akin to other resorts’ upgrade status like Preferred Club, Privilege Club, etc. with its own perks. Elite Club will offer the following:
- better room location in terms of ocean views
- separate check-in
- in-room welcome bottle of wine or sparkling wine
- in-room welcome gift with the Elite logo
- aromatherapy available within your room
- additional liquor choices not available to other guests in the Sports Bar
Below is the first video I’ve found with actual resort footage. This short video shows one of the Elite Club rooms. As you can see, there is the open bathroom concept with a tub fully exposed to the rest of the room, plus at the end of the video you can see the ocean from the balcony but unfortunately the videographer did not go out on the balcony, most likely because it was meant to be one of those very short video clips. I am looking forward to seeing more of this resort; it will be the first property I will be staying at on my next Cancun vacation in March 2023–and I booked the Elite Club here as well!
Enjoy the short video, I will be posting more real time videos as they come in of this new Riu resort.
How much to join
Terry, You don’t have to join anything for an Elite Club upgrade. It’s a separate room category consisting of Jr. Suite Ocean View, Jr. Suite Oceanfront, and Suite Ocean View rooms; the room category will say Elite Club at the end of the room category name. You can, however, join Riu’s FREE loyalty club and get booking discounts and freebies the more points you accrue. You have to do that on the Riu resort homepage; it’s in the upper right hand corner. You will have to create an account if you are new to the loyalty club. I believe that right now Riu is advertising 10% off booking directly with Riu on their website for loyalty club members. Since it’s free, you can’t lose out on anything except the additional discount if you don’t sign up.
I would like to get information on the cost and what the Elite Club
Sorry for the late response, I just got back from another trip to Mexico. The Elite Club is an upgrade available during room selection, and the only Riu I’ve found using this new upgrade is at Riu Palace Kukulkan. I don’t know what the price would be, but you can find that out if you do a couple of practice bookings on the Riu website comparing an Elite Club room and a comparable non-upgraded room to get a final price for each. You get a better room location (my room was on the 2nd floor from the very top of the resort with a great expansive ocean view), upgraded in-room bottles of liquor, access to better liquor at select bars (not the swim-up bar, they never had upgraded liquor any time that I asked), in-room aromatherapy. Honestly, I didn’t think it was necessary to upgrade to have a great time at this resort.