Very up and down stay at the Opal Sands. I'll start with the location, which I thought the location was solid but not great. It's nice that you don't have to cross the street to get to the beach, but the beach right outside the hotel is easily the worst stretch of beach in the area. About a mile down the shore it was much nicer and less busy. It wasn't a bad beach at the hotel, it just wasn't great in comparison to all the other beaches that were nearby.
The room and hotel itself were nice. I saw some reviews that said the rooms were starting to show wear and tear, but that wasn't our experience. Everything was nicely updated and clean, and we enjoyed our room and the beautiful, sweeping view of the ocean.
The pools were nice but BUSY on the weekends. I would probably try to see if the Opal Sol (nextdoor) pools were less busy on the weekends if I went back. We basically avoided the pool on Saturday and Sunday because there was nowhere to swim.
Unexpectedly, there was a guest pantry with water bottles, snacks, fruit, etc. Had it not been right by our room, we would not have known it was there, but this was honestly extremely clutch for us, and we found ourselves going back to the pantry quite often to replenish on snacks for the family. Very nice little touch.
The biggest complaint by far was the service, and this extended from the valet, to check in, to the restaurants and bars. The key exceptions I want to point out were Christian, a waiter at the tiki restaurant, and Jacqueline, a bartender at the pool, who both provided excellent service. Other than them, the workers felt untrained and lacked a "can do" mindset. For instance, when I asked if we could do a late checkout, we were told we couldn't request that until the morning of checkout. I told the front desk that was kind of lousy since that meant we couldn't actually make plans in advance, and guest services simply indicated that it was policy and that was that. I've stayed at many hotels and have never had to wait until the day of to determine if a late checkout was possible.
We also at one point had water to our room inexplicably shut off - no water to faucets, shower, toilets, etc. - and when we called about it, nobody knew why water was shut off or what to do about it. We had horrendous service at the Seaguini restaurant, and when I asked the ladies at the restaurant check-in how we could get one of the outdoor tables (which we had been waiting to open up for about 30 minutes) they seemed overwhelmed and refused to go out of their way to ensure that we were able to get the next one that became available. Additionally, at check in to the hotel itself, nobody told us about the guest pantry, bike rentals, and apparently (my wife saw at the end) board games that could've been checked out.
The cherry on top was we checked bags before leaving since we had a later flight, and when I gave them the ticket to get our bags, nobody did! Eventually, I found a worker and asked if it was normal to have to wait 15-20 minutes for bags to be brought, and he went inside where the bag check was and they were all just waiting inside the door with nobody bringing them out. I had already given away my ticket to the front desk, so thankfully he took my word for it that they were my bags!
All in all, it wasn't a bad experience, but the service failures were enough to make me think twice before going back here. Perhaps the Opal Sol is better in this regard.
