My husband and I travelled to Centara for our honeymoon and were absolutely blown away by the stunning location, the incredible coral reef and marine life but that's all I'm afraid. We were expecting that since we had spent a significant amount of money that our holiday would at least meet our expectations but sadly it didn't.
I suppose the resort must have honeymooners stay a lot or something as we were not at all made to feel anymore special than the other guests (lots of families were staying while we were there, often quite noisy and disruptive at the restaurants too). I've seen photos of pretty floral arrangements on beds but the most we received was a cheap bottle of sparkling and a tiny fruit platter on arrival. Also on arrival, we had to remind staff to bring our luggage to our villa which took than half an hour to do (we could have walked and got them ourselves quicker) and our package deal that we had paid for had been questioned and it took a day to rectify the issue. Fortunately they did eventually honour the deal we had paid for. House keeping is quite average, I had to ask for our shower gel bottle to be refilled for example. Our luxury sunset water villa didn't really have a view of the sunset (again frustrating that for our honeymoon we had booked something special but not had this expectation met). The rooms are quite tired and worn - floor is marked and scuffed, railings are peeling, rust stains, bathroom bottles were broken and had to take lids of to even use, could barely open the doors to our deck they were so jammed! However, the rooms have fairly modern furnishings and feel fairly clean so I could ignore those issues.
The all inclusive isn't really very all inclusive as only a few drinks are covered on the list and at the azurri mare restaurant (seafood) you have only a $40 credit and most of the meals are far more expensive than this. We weren't at all excited by the thai restaurants menu but we loved reef and ate there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Reef buffet was amazing, why would you want to go anywhere else?! And there was different theme nights for food each night so there was always something new and exciting to try! Even breakfast and lunch were varied each day. Special thanks to Shiva who was our favourite waiter! Always prompt and friendly and worked tirelessly to ensure our meal times were enjoyable!
Snorkelling here was incredible! And my husband enjoyed diving also! The pool was lovely and we enjoyed the coral bar immensely! Loved the fish feeding at 6pm every night! There are some water sports activities you can use such as paddleboats, kayaks, windsurfing but we didn't really use these much. It wasn't really that exciting and others were often using them. You also have to pay for your snorkelling equipment although this it is only $5 a day per person so not expensive. You can choose to do tours but these were quite expensive and did not seem worth it to us. The spa... Absolutely wonderful!! Expensive yes but if you can afford it, I would highly recommend it! The girls are so welcoming and the treatments are incredible! Could not rate the spa more highly! As I said the location is incredible but we only stayed for six days and by the end of this time, there was really nothing else for us to do. We were ready to come home.
All the staff are friendly and say hello to you as you walk by. Quite a few even make the effort to remember your name. Mousab was so lovely and always took an interest in us as we walked by him at reception! Special thanks for the extra efforts Mousab! I just felt that some of the critical aspects of service were lacking such as the housekeeping and efficiency.
We had an amazing honeymoon but this was simply due to the fact that my husband and I made it incredible for each other and the location was fantastic not because the resort made it for us. Had we have travelled here for a normal holiday I probably would have rated it more highly but then we would never have spent so much money to actually get there had it not have been our honeymoon.
