If you are a family this might be your place if you are prepared for a few disappointments. Took our vacation March of last year 2008. We had the top of the line room. Would I come back? I don’t think so, too many screw ups. I am pretty well traveled. I have stayed in many 5 star hotels. The web site that I booked this off of gave this hotel 4.5 stars and I would rate it more like 3. We had the ocean suite; it comes with balcony and a jacuzzi on the balcony facing the ocean. Check in, I arrived one day ahead of my girlfriend. Check in was slow and I was glad that she was not there. That night I ordered room service 3hrs later no food, I called back canceled went down stairs had dinner. On the day she arrived I had to get her an arm band. I had to wait behind others at first till one of the hotel staff spotted my arm band and asked if she could assist me. I explained that all we needed was an arm band for my girl. This took 45 min
The Room was great, exactly what I had wanted. The bed faced an entire wall of glass over looking the ocean. The bed was quite hard, I can sleep on that but my girlfriend can not. I called room service and explained the bed was way too hard. They suggested that we put blankets on the bed, we agreed to try that and they said they would have them sent right up. We actually got the blankets the next day after I complained again. The bathroom was suppose to be hi-tech with this really cool shower that had steam, mist, rain mist, all kinds of different environments and was easily big enough for my girlfriend and I to enjoy together. However none of it worked, except the regular shower. The view, that is what I was paying for was great; five floors up, Jacuzzi on the balcony that we used every morning and every night. Well we used it after the hotel maintenance came up and fixed it. We were there 7 days and not once did room service bother to change or drain the water or scrub the Hot tub, I did this myself everyday sometimes twice per day. Room mini-bar was only stocked with 4 beers every other day. Lets see I am paying $500.00 per day for this room, this is not quite what I expected but it is all inclusive so maybe I am being too hard and not figuring things fairly hear but for $500 per day I would expect everything in the room to work, I would expect the bar to be stocked. I would expect the room to be cleaned every day, they missed twice.
How about the rest of the Hotel? Well I was looking for something romantic, which also means quite. The Hotel is very loud, mostly because it is built like a huge mall. Everything is marble but I understand that, hurricanes would wipe out carpet all the time. There are lots of families here, so kids are every where. I have nothing against kids but mine are grown and now days I look for something a bit calmer. Not enough elevators get, some exercise use the stairs. The hotel pools are nice. Our room was above the main infinity pool. The hotel like many resort hotels provides entertainment everyday at the pool. So every morning we got Ola! At 9am. The early morning exercise class began at 9am followed by the DJ’s commentary on what was happening that day. I am not complaining too much about this as it became our alarm clock. We would hear the beginning of exercise class the two of us would climb out of bed and walk over to the balcony to wake up, no need for clothes know body can see you on your balcony unless you stand at the rail. So nude sunbathing is cool and any morning activity you would like to do in the Jacuzzi is cool also.
Breakfast, two ways to get it, either in a sit down restaurant or head to the buffet. Most people go to the buffet that’s why we headed to the restaurant. Many days the GF just sent me down to get fruit and coffee and I brought it back to the room. Oh every night we filled out a breakfast form to have breakfast delivered, it made one time. Lunch at the pool your basic grill stuff, expect lines. There are a couple of restaurant open inside though but you can not wear beach attire except at the buffet. The food is just average. Drinks during the day. If you really want to drink sit at the pool bar, if you are out around the pool you will get most of your own drinks, they are weak of course. The beach was not bad, but there were a lot of big rocks. My girlfriend had never been to the ocean, she is a mountain girl from Canada. It took her awhile but she was determined to get in the water, the waves were pretty rough every day she had no idea just how much power a two foot wave has. I had to catch her as she fell because there are rock slabs you can not see under the water and she almost hit her head, all I can is be careful if you are not experienced playing in the ocean. There will be a parachute ride everyday and Jet Ski guy on your beach everyday if you would like to do that. Be advised the seat for two on the parachute ride has no seat belt easy to fall out.
So how was dinner? Many different restaurants but really the feeling you get is a food court at the mall and about that loud also. I was not happy. The food at dinner was only a little above average. The Japanese steak house and the Italian restaurant were the best. We did not eat in the French all I had were blue jeans these were not acceptable. The night life, go some place else for real night life. The bars are ok to get started but are pretty boring after awhile. The only good part is that as the night progresses the bartenders are drinking also and your drinks get better because the bartenders get drunk.
All in all for a romantic get away this was not so good. For a family well it looked like they were having fun, but we heard many people having problems with there rooms, not getting the room they paid for, bathroom not working right, AC not working. This is not because the staff was unfriendly or incompetent. The staff was great very friendly always tried to help. Hotel management does not have enough people hired to handle the amount of customers they have. Service is crappy because there are not enough people to help.
The best part of the whole trip was the fact that our room faced the ocean, and we watched ships go by in the night as we sat in our hot tub and enjoyed the view and each other.
