thebkguy

Sir, your patience is commendable.

If I shelled out $10k for a trip like that, I'd escalate it to the highest department available until I was satisfied with the compensation. If none was given, I'd reject the charge on my credit card, and make them fight for it at the very least, aiming for a reasonable settlement.

I hope that you are well compensated for what sounds like a miserable experience.

avja

I don't post often. However, I feel I have to respond to CNWO4LIFE.

If you read mendycal's post, you'll see the answer to your comment. She was warning other's who might be considering a stay at this property. She was not looking to be attacked.

SanDiego1K

I, too, would like to welcome mendycal to the Starwood forum. Your posts are appreciated. It's certainly an eye opener to see two people who have near identical experiences at a luxe property. Hopefully Starwood will take note; hopefully the hotel GM will be shown this thread. And hopefully change will occur, thanks to both you and uapremier's detailed accounts of your stays.

mendycal, I hope you'll share more with us about other Starwood experiences. And avja, thank you for your post. It really is our desire to welcome newcomers.

SleepDoc

A big welcome to mendycal from me as well! I found your post very detailed and informative! Look forward to seeing more posts from you!

SteveinA2

Me too

Thanks for the heads up ^

EWR ATC Hold

After two independent posters had similar circumstances, what would cause you to doubt their versions of events?

No matter how badly one is treated at a resort, leaving is never as easy as your post makes it out to be. There's a hassle involved, there's limited other hotels, there's hotel loyalty points us FTers care about, etc. I don't disagree that I'd consider leaving, but frankly, I rather salvage what I can of the trip.

zakami

Yes, not surprising at all. There are really not that many hotels in Punta Mita, and specially no other high end hotel other than the Four Seasons. There are a few properties in Puerto Vallarta, but they are more than 5 miles away.

jcherney

And now a bit of a different perspective.

I just returned from this property after staying there 10 nights (Dec 23-Jan 2). While some of the complaints above are certainly accurate, I found my experience to be quite different.

1. As a lowly gold, I was upgraded to a Junior Suite with an attached room for my family.
This room overlooked the golf course and the ocean to our right. If one is expecting beachfront rooms and views, it isn't going to happen on an ocean view rate.
2. We called for 3 wake up calls, and every one of them was on time and pleasant.
3. My wife is a caffeine addict. Once we called for coffee, it was there within 20 minutes every day.
4. We ate breakfast and lunches primarily at the 2 beachside restaurants. The food was good but inconsistent as to portion size and "sameness" ie. a chicken sandwich was different just about every time we ordered it, as were the omlettes.
5. All of my families spa appointments were accurate and timely.
6. We were never presented with used condiments with room service. In fact, I thought the room service itself was executed beautifully.

This resort is a long way from perfect, and for those paying the high tariffs, it should be running near perfection. That said, we found the staff to be trying their hardest to please and do what they could to make things right. In fact, the two things that stood out most for us was the absolute splendor of the surroundings, and the staff that we came in contact with.

Here are the issues as we saw them (which are similar to Mendycal's):

a. The Butler service (other than unpacking) is not really a butler service. It's more like a middleman that fields requests from the guests. When you called the butler on your room phone, it went to a central butler service and not to your personal butler. And that's where the problems began. Their command of the english language caused a number of issues, some of them quite funny, some not. The best was- my daughter (newly of age) ordered a strawberry daquiri with alcohol (my guess is that she had heard us order one for her for so many years with out alcohol). The butler showed up with a gallon jug of rubbing alcohol! He thought the order was a bit strange, but was trying to please the guest! Both of them got a good laugh out of it. Unfortunately, most of the issues were due to language misunderstandings, and then forwarded on incorrectly to the service required.
b. The waits for food were extreme, although not quite to the extent that Mendycal experienced. We were in no hurry, so it didn't bother us. For families with little kids, this could be a big problem.
c.The lack of a sundries store was an issue. I've never been to a high end hotel without one. Couldn't even purchase a stick of gum.
d. Pool service amenities were inconsistent. Some days you'd get cold face towels and evian spray, some days not. Twice during our stay we were offered small items like shrimp or a smoothie, then nothing the other days. The pool staff did always keep us stocked with cold bottled water which they never charged for. We did order lunch there once, and it came promptly even with a special order.
e. Not enough umbrellas or towels.
f. We found the food a Carolina's to be quite good, and the service to be extraordinary. As good as I've experienced anywhere. Maybe some of the best foie gras I've ever eaten.
g. We did not like, however, Los Marietas food or menu. Just a bit too authentic Mexican fare for us. But true to the service experience we had elsewhere, they would make just about anything you asked for, whether on the menu or not.
h. The facility is dark at night. The walkways are all lighted, but not brightly. We didn't have any issues finding our way around or stumbling into things. Personally, I appreciated the serenity of the facility without bright glaring lights.

I will reiterate once more the friendliness and positive attitude of the staff. They did everything they could to make us feel comfortable and to make things right.

We will definately come back here once they get their processes and services in order. They have some growing pains to get thru-and many of these things should have been taken care of before the opening. I got the feeling that they didn't staff to capacity because they knew that their occupancy rate would drop from 96% during the holidays, to under 40 percent just afterwards (these numbers were confirmed by more that one staff member). It's certainly not excusable.

As an aside- we stayed at the FS next door 4 years ago. The service and facilities were top notch. I went back there during this trip to look at their new condos-and things have changed dramatically and not for the better. In the last 4 years they have added approx 65-70 rooms, multiple private residences, and 3 buildings full of fractional condos. And they have not significantly increased the pool areas near the beach. The crowding that I saw when we were there was shocking compared to our previous stay. Felt more like a mega resort than a FS property. I was NOT impressed in the least.

It's late, and I'm sure I'll have more to add later on.

P.S. For those of you not familiar with the area, it's about 45-60 minutes from Puerto Vallarta, and there are only 3 resorts/ hotels within this distance-in fact, all are within 3 miles from each other- The St Regis, The Four Seasons, and Hotel des Artiste (which doesn't compare to the other two). Trying to move during this holiday season was not an option for those wishing to do so-rooms simply didn't exist.

Thunderroad

Thanks to the folks who've stayed there for the info on this hotel. I'd begun to look into a vacation there. After this thread, no way. It sounds like even if it improved somewhat the property would demand way to high a price for way too low a value.

Big_Foot

Well, we spent our Thanksgiving holiday there and would like to share
our perspective.

Upon our arrival we quickly realized that the resort was almost empty. We did get
a call earlier with the airport transfer confirmation and we were offered
an upgrade (I'm gold too). So when we arrived, we thought we would get
a nicer room. That became somehow a big problem. After an hour (!)
of waiting and several "I will be back" from a couple of different reception
workers, one of them borderline rude for some reason,
we were lead to our room by a very nice butler. We discovered
we were offered a room in a lower category that we originally booked!
At this time we really wanted to leave. They are keeping us for an hour,
"we have a great room for you", and then back to square one (or minus one).
It was a short vacation and we really didn't need this.
The butler noticed we were tired of the experience and told us he would take
care of it. We were offered a dinner in a restaurant and they prepared
a suite for us with a very side ocean view. The room was great
and the butler was really nice. We also got a visit from the GM who
apologized for the strange check-in process and offered us an even better
room the next day. So we felt they did try to make us happy.
Our full ocean view suite was great, a nice layout, a huge outdoor space
and a great view.
I have to say the resort is spectacular. There are 3 pools, one of them
adults only (kids might be the only problem here, so it's great there
is an area for adults), the beach is beautiful, we walked to the FS hotel
and there was nobody around us. Amazing views, nice landscaping.
The bungalows feel quite big, many have two levels and often have 4 rooms
- two suites and two small rooms.
But the size of the bungalows gives the resort a community feel, rather than
the "vacation" feel. But it's all clean and new and looks much nicer
than the Four Season's.
The service was good, but there was only a handful of guests, so I can
imagine some problems with a higher occupancy rate.
The room choice might be confusing - there are regular rooms, both garden
and ocean view, they are called "deluxe rooms", junior suites (our original
booking), again garden and ocean, but it's a thin line between those
view categories and ocean view suites, again several better and worse locations.
But there are also beachfront bungalows, some two-bedroom
and three-bedroom not even listed on the website.
So the booking process can be really confusing and I'm not sure how
I could book a room on spg.com and know what I'm getting.

jja34-1

I spent New Year's at my family's villa in Punta Mita and noticed a lot of new construction since the last time I was there in April. The pool areas at the hotel may not have increased, but there have been significant increases to beach facilities over the past few years (including pools) and they will continue to grow. FS villa and time share owners have access to all of the private beach clubs in Punta Mita (there are currently four, including the FS hotel facilities). While most may prefer using the hotel's facilities, several use the other facilities. Some of the time shares are actually closer to the resident beach club than the hotel, anyway.

Personally, I don't think overcrowding is a recent issue - I spent a lot of time at the FS while the villa was being built and remember the pool area being crowded even four or five yeras ago. I actually felt like I saw many fewer people than usual at the beach facilities (both at the hotel and elsewhere) over the past week.

There is also a fourth hotel that recently opened on the road from La Paz to Punta Mita. It's called Los Veneros. Haven't been but they have taken out a lot of ads in the PV area.

As a final note, we were interested to observe that St. Regis guests do not receive the same reception as Four Season and resident guests at the golf and tennis clubs (they cannot charge fees to their rooms, etc.). Even though the clubs have been renamed "Club Punta Mita" instead of the "Four Seasons Golf Club", the change seems to have been in name only.

CNWO4LIFE

I agree, but were not talking a couple hundred bucks, were talking about 10 grand! It would have to be a HUGE "hassle" for me to just continue to fork that kind of money over.

jcherney

Los Veneros looks nowhere near an opening-at least not from these November pictures:

http://www.losveneros.com/en_construyendotusueno.php#

CNWO4LIFE

So after all the terrible treatment those two posters received from this property, have either one of you heard back from Starwood, and what was the outcome?

SleepDoc

I'll have to agree with CNW04LIFE. Any updates from mendycal or uapremier?????