fishermb

We got back yesterday from our 5 night trip.

The WiFi issues previously reported were non-existent, worked perfectly fine in the room, by the pool and in the lobby. Doesn't reach the beach, but then that's probably for the better.

Rooms were very nice, we were upgraded (Gold) to a larger room which had a bathroom door, so I don't know how bad the issue is with other rooms that don't have one. There was a nice entryway area and large dressing room. My only 2 real design complaints were that there's only 1 bathroom light and it's very bright, so going to the restroom in the middle of the night will wake you up; the other issue was lack of a tub. The sound proofing wasn't perfect either and we could hear the people above us from time to time.

The staff is mostly overly nice/friendly and seemed like they genuinely want to make you happy. The general lack of English-language skills made some simple requests difficult for my wife who doesn't speak any Spanish, but I got by perfectly fine with what I'd call "decent" Spanish. My main issues were that half of the staff walks around chatting and texting on their cell phones right in front of you as you walk by them, even the Security workers (seriously).

On-site restaurants as well as others within the grounds just aren't good. It's really a shame because some of the settings are quite beautiful right on the beach like Playa Blanca the seafood restaurant, but the food just was disappointing. You should also know that you can't drink the local water, and so you have to buy bottles everywhere you go. The hotel gave us 6 bottles per day, but that was gone within 3 hours of laying on the beach. Go to the Nacional supermarket and stock up on a few gallons for $5, it's the smartest thing we did and probably saved us $100 over the course of the trip, no joke.

Lastly, I should say that the beach setting itself is absolutely beautiful. There's nothing really on either side of the resort, so it can feel quite private. We were there for 5 nights over a holiday weekend and the beach chairs were never more than half-full. Not sure if it was a slow weekend or if people were going on excursions a lot, but it often felt empty. Before noon we were the only people on the beach some days. As has been mentioned, there is a lot of seaweed in the water. The maintenance staff tries to pick up whatever washes ashore, but if you go in the water, half of the area is covered in seaweed. In regards to the pool, the lounge chairs were rarely half-full, and never more than maybe 10 people swimming, despite being rather large. It's a nice setting to lay out if it's too hot by the beach and we spent quite a lot of time there.

Overall I realize this review sounds rather negative, but looking back we really did enjoy ourselves. Starwood needs to bring in some corporate staff to get the local staff with the program of how to treat customers. We used points for our entire stay, I'm not quite sure what it would have cost had we paid for it, but this property really does have a lot of potential. Our room had a picture-perfect view of the beach and the perfect high 70s/low 80s weather couldn't be beat. If they can straighten out some of these issues, I'd definitely recommend it, but right now they've got some work to do with the food and getting the staff better trained in my opinion.