Firstly, before listing the negatives, I do just want to mention the positives. This hotel is in a lovely location, the beach and bay are stunning. We meet some excellent staff the ones I really want to shout out are Valda the lady in Hunters who seats visitor, she was friendly, attentive and went the extra mile in every way, she made my holiday. She should train some of the other staff at the resort.
Also, Diana the one of the Diamond club beach/bar attendants she was the best always checking if I need a top up even in the pool, I didn’t have to ask.
Now for the concern
We upgraded to diamond club when we arrived, I did send an e-mail before but got no response so had to wait until I got to the hotel.
This service wasn’t cheap and to be honest runs a lot short of what I expected it to be. You are entitled to a bottle of premium spirits delivered to your room for each week of your stay. But the butlers never mentioned this, surly they should have asked. Other UK diamond club members were also unaware of this until I told them. I did ask for a bottle in my second week, and was told it would take 24 hours, I did chase regularly and, in the end gave up, but it arrived 2 days before we left, so this took 5 days, this didn’t give us time to drink this.
The hydro pool in the Spa was not working, so if you want to pay for a massage, you only got half the services. I think the Diamond club members were also entitled to something from the spa, but again we were not told this.
We were advised that there was low occupancy, and this seem to be the excuse for the fact that they closed restaurants on a rotation basis and on several days, even the buffet wasn’t open for lunch.
I can appreciate that it’s more economical for the resort to close restaurants in a quiet period but given we were sold a holiday advertising them all as options to dine at, I expect to get what I paid for!
We eat in a lot of restaurants in the UK, and we found the service very poor in the hotel restaurant and not up to standard for a al carter restaurant as advertised, simple things no salt and pepper on the table, the fact that they seem to chuck the food at you. Example they are clearing your starter plates, and a second person is just behind them to put down your main.
It got to the stage that when I ordered I would tell them to leave a break in between course.
It was like staff were rushing you so they could finish.
Low occupancy should not be an excuse for poor service and facilities we stayed in Sandals in Antigua a few years ago in the same period, and low occupancy did not affect the service I received, and the restaurants were not shut.
The pool bar ran out of water on several occasions, which is not acceptable.
Also there seems to be a shortage of rose wine as one night it would be available the next, we were told sorry you can have white or red as no rose.
On two occasion I know of the sports bar to run out of Vodka, I did challenge this and because I made a fuss as this the only spirt, I drink, so I ended up with water. Then 20 minutes later the bar attendant returned with 3 bottles.
So, I start to question was that bars and restaurants were not stock correctly at the beginning of the night and it was easier to tell people that they had run out instead of going and getting more stock or due to low occupancy and to save money stock we being reduced.
The Diamond Club pool as well as the normal pool are missing multiple pool tiles and, on several occasions, you would find them at the bottom of the pool.
I am really not sure what was happening in this hotel as over the 2 weeks I heard multiple people making complaints, there seem to be a lot of managers wondering around looking at areas.
We are so disappointed, as this was our first stay in a Royalton and it was like being in a 2 star hotel, so I wouldn’t recommend this hotel and will not be back unless a lot of things change.
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