A content creator aimed to have a great vacation with his best friend in the Dominican Republic but wound up experiencing a traveler’s worst nightmare when he was awakened in the middle of the night by a stranger sleeping next to him.
“Do not come to RIU Republic of Punta Cana. Let me tell you why,” TikToker @meganntheesta1lion explained in a now-viral video posted on March 4. “The service here is actually terrible and they do not care about you.”
The young man, whose name is Nick, then said, “Tell me why I woke up to someone in my f—king bed.”
While describing the reason for his warning against the hotel, Nick explains that a key card is required to enter the room and clarifies that the room was indeed locked before he retired for the night. Furthermore, he called back to an incident where he was locked out and required assistance to gain entry, which could only be done with a new card from the lobby.
Nick notes that the hotel room didn’t come equipped with deadbolts or latch locks to provide extra security, leaving him with no means to safely secure himself while he slept — something he didn’t think was necessary until the person came into his room and got into his bed and fell asleep while he was in it.
“Someone came in my room and slept in my bed when I was in my bed,” he said angrily.
Nick says that after shouting at the stranger to get out of his room, he ran to the hotel front desk to speak with a manager.
“So then I went and talked to the manager,” Nick tells his 3,015 TikTok followers in disgust.
According to Nick, the manager shifted the blame onto him, informing him that he was actually in the wrong room.
After refuting this claim, the TikToker shared pictures of the man in his bed and then looked at the security cameras with the manager to see if he was telling the truth.
The manager stood his ground, insisting that Nick was the one in the wrong.
“I know for a fact that was me in my bed, what are you talking about? Then he said, ‘There’s nothing I can do for you. No, I can’t compensate you. You had your door unlocked,'” he recalls.
“I didn’t have unlocked,” Nick tells the manager. “Why is there a man in my bed? You’re not gonna do anything? You’re not gonna care? I’m in a foreign country. I could have literally been killed.”
Despite pleading for assistance, the manager told Nick that there was nothing he could do to help.
Social media was quick to weigh in on his ordeal, sympathizing with him over the crazy incident.
“Canceling my girls trip for my bachelorette party thanks for the infoooo,” one person commented on TikTok.
He was sleeping GOODT
— Ichigo Niggasake (@SomaKazima) March 25, 2024
People on the X platform were struck by the picture of the Black man with locs in his bed, joking, “He was sleeping GOODT.”
A few people had similar experiences at RIU’s hotel chains and shared their experiences in Nick’s comments.
“I LOVE RIU REPÚBLICA! But yessss it is the wild Wild West ANYTHING GOES. I passed out in the lobby and woke up with a blanket and a piña colada beside me,” said a TikTok user.
Another one wrote, “Wait.. I experienced this at RIU Santa Fe in Cabo. I also took pictures and videos and they didn’t absolutely nothing for me as well.”
A female commenter claimed they had a similar experience as Nick also. “They assigned someone new to my room while I was in it at Riu Republica. 2 people walked in while I was changing, saying they were just assigned the room, and got in with their key card,” she attests.
Nick followed up with three additional videos bashing the RIU Hotels and Resorts, which currently has 54% 1-star reviews on Trustpilot.com and 83 percent 1-star reviews on ConsumerAffairs.com
RIU Hotels & Resorts is a Spanish hotel chain founded by the Riu family as a small holiday firm in 1953. The appeal is that it is moderately priced and has all-inclusive packages. As of 2024, it has 21 different resorts on four different continents: North America (and the Caribbean), Europe, Africa, and Asia.
