I wrote one for another hotel forum. I didn't here as this sub seems very particular about what qualifies as 'luxury'. So I'll copy/paste and leave it to mods as to whether it stays or go.

---------------------------
PALM HEIGHTS
OVERALL/TLDR:

The Caribbean may not be the world’s epicenter of luxury properties - and the Caymans themselves may not be among the more sought-after luxe islands within that locale - but Palm Heights punches well above its weight.
It’s not perfect, and while its few imperfections may indeed keep it from being a true snob's ‘luxury’/FAT hotel, it ended up delighting us fully.
At the very minimum, I’d place it in the absolute loftiest regions of “upscale/chubby”.
Independently owned/managed and with a relatively low key-count, Palm Heights truly feels like a singular labor of love.
I’d give it a fairly heavy recommend, maybe even advising a special visit to the Caymans - simply to stay there - for a long weekend or a quick hit from close-by.



ARRIVAL: B

Warm welcome, though the first thing one notices is there’s no traditional ‘lobby’ here.
Instead, a small-ish cubicle at FOH with a concierge desk and two chairs.
Like everything else on-site, the look and feel of it is beautiful, temperate and comfortable. AC, scent and music all on point.
But note that Palm Heights has no (easily accessible) large communal lobby, where people meet up to converse or have a drink.
This is a big drawback for us. Love big, beautiful lobbies. For me, they are not a small part of what makes a hotel truly a hotel.

For check-in, we were whisked down an open breezeway to a much larger room.
This space functions as the closest thing to a ‘lobby’ that the resort has.
Again, beautifully decorated, art-directed to within an inch of its life (in the best way).
But rather than a communal space that guests revisit during their stay to mingle/relax/have a drink in, it seems to function mostly as an ‘arrivals’ room. Where people are checked-in (and wait for their rooms to be available). There are cold-welcome towels, all sorts of fruits/treats laid out, complementary beverages (including alchoholic) during room wait.
But it does not feel like a lobby. More like a groovy ultra-luxe airport lounge.
The waiting room is a nice space to chill and wait for your room, but fairly flawed even for this function: it's keycard locked, and you can’t re-enter until you’re fully checked in (with room keycard). So if you walk the beach, have lunch, go the pool, etc whilst waiting for your room, you’ll need to hunt down a staff member to re-admit you to this air-conditioned ‘lobby’.



ROOM: C+

This would have gotten a D if it weren’t so large and furnished/outfitted so beautifully.
Problem: the layout of our 2 bedroom suite was just wrong. Simply laid out incorrectly. No quotes for those words - wrong/incorrect - because i can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t prefer them laid out differently.
We had room 207, which does not offer much of an ocean view. That’s OK, though, as the inward side (main LR and 2nd bedroom) get plenty of light.
Also, views are a 'shape and orientation of building' problem - the owners inherited an older motel-style Hyatt, and it would probably have taken way too much CAPEX to get the alignment/views more sensible.
The VERY solve-able problem though, at least with our 2BR suite - is that they have the two bedrooms set up exactly backwards. I.E. The 2nd bedroom should be the MBR. The MBR should be the 2nd bedroom. Particularly for couples bringing kids. Both bedrooms have nearly identical bathrooms, so that’s a wash.
----Our MBR - the one with the king bed - was on the front side of the property. The side that faces the hallway to get to many other rooms and the common 2nd floor elevator. There are two small louvered windows on that wall, but really, who’d keep them open? Kids, maybe? Privacy is achieved only when the shades are fully closed.
It’s also a smaller room than the 2nd bedroom, and gets very little natural light - even with those louvered windows open and everyone looking in whilst on the way to elevators or their rooms.
—-Meanwhile, the 2nd bedroom - the one with two ’twin'-sized beds - was larger, had its own actual balcony and (crucially!) faced inwards towards the ocean and pool. This room should have so clearly been the MBR, it genuinely puzzled us.
-—Besides layout, neither bathroom pushed the lux button too hard. No soaking tub in either bathroom. Fairly pedestrian fixtures and tiling
.---Finally, while our kids’ twin bedroom indeed had its own true balcony, with a nice table and two chairs, the main ‘balcony’ off the LR may be being sold as a balcony in smaller rooms, but it’s not a true balcony. It’s about 1-2 feet deep at the most, suitable for looking out and feeling a breeze against the railing. A Juliet balcony.

We found the room product to be the weakest link in the Palm Heights chain. And there’s good things to say about them too, a lot of good things - they are way spacious, offer great contemporary furnishings and are fully upscale feeling. Just didn’t equal our experience with virtually everything else at the hotel.



PROPERTY AND COMMON SPACES: A

The hotel occupies a fairly restricted footprint. The full grounds can be walked in 5-10 minutes. It’s a narrow beach-facing lot, paired w/ a similarly-sized lot across a busy road. (connected via skybridge). Feels akin, size-wise, to a South Beach hotel.

But what they’ve done within that space is phenomenal. Might not be for everyone - I could see the Lily Pulitzer country club set being put off, or those wanting a traditional English gentlemen’s Barbados/Jamaica vibe - but it was for us.
It’s a wild yet wonderful blend of 70s/80s/90s contempo-mod furnishings, designs, and fixtures that somehow swirl together into a beautiful style all its own. Whomever decorated this joint has an extremely refined eye. Mario Buona meets Jacques Garcia via Kelly Wearstler. With Slim Arons photographing. Imagine the highest-level, best-designed and curated Thompson/Viceroy/Edition-type hotel you’ve ever visited. Except that nothing here at all feels one bit studied, garish or overthought. Effortlessly cool, timeless and beautiful.
Another huge plus are the wonderful scents - some natural, but also the curated ones indoors - and ambient music choices. The music was lively (tho never descending into straight untz-untz-untz) during the day and calming at night, a constant perfect soundtrack.


BEACH: A-

I’ve read a common complaint that the beach chairs are too close together. They are indeed quite close together. This is exaggerated by the fact that 7-mile-beach is not particularly wide.
But wow, if that’s your main hangup……|
Chair placement didn’t bother us one bit. Chairs are 'cramped together' on some of the most expensive beaches in the world (see: Monaco, St Tropez, Amalfi Coast, Riviera Maya, et al.)
We never had trouble being assigned chairs or daybeds at any time of day. Nor felt cramped by neighbors. (High season might be different).
In fact, we loved the whole beach club vibe. Not to mention the beach itself. No, you cannot compare it to Cap Juluca or LIttle Dix Bay. It is not a particularly wide beach and, again, the property’s footprint doesn’t provide a particularly long stretch. Additionally, there's not much complex coral life for snorkeling directly off 7-mile beach in gen.
But that’s about the only ‘flaw’. The sand is powdery soft, the water impossibly clear and warm. It’s as good a 'swimming beach' as there is in the Caribbean. Heavenly.


POOLS: B-
There are two pools on the main hotel campus, and another adults-only pool at the spa. They are all three lovely to look at and lounge around, but unfortunately they’re more wading pools than swimming pools. Maximum depth in all of them is 4 ft. Largely unshaded by foliage canopy, this kiddie-depth greatly increases the pool temperatures, naturally, as they bake in the sun all day. I’d conservatively guesstimate the mid-day temperatures of all three pools being at minimum 90 degrees F, and probably considerably warmer than that.
For us, these felt more like large, shallow hot-tubs than typical 'swimming pools'. We like a swimming pool that provides some sort of refreshing ‘cool off’ factor, particularly in a tropical/beach locale.


FOOD: A+

The biggest surprise. WOW!
This was quite honestly the best overall on-property food experience we’ve ever had in the Caribbean.
---Whether at Tillie’s, The Coconut Club (and especially its Japanese night-time sister Yashinoki) to even the lighter fare at Paradise Pizza, everything was of a fantastic quality, perfectly prepared and extremely tasty.
It’s not the belabored, fussy stuff of global superchefs or Michelin stars.
But it’s plenty high end w extremely warm and attentive service. And this many great, consistent options at such a boutique-sized property was especially surprising.
---Cocktails also perfect everywhere we had them. Deliciously crafted with generous pours. Special mention for the unmarked speakeasy bar. (Called “Bambii”, I believe?). For a hotel packed with perfectly designed and finished spaces, this cocktail lounge was truly something else. A showstopper.



SPA/GYM: A-

Giving this an ‘A-’ - particularly for certain travelers - because it’s clearly among the Caribbean’s best fitness/wellness offerings, overall.
The 'Garden Club' is a large, extremely well-kitted complex. The campus gives off a ‘jungle-y’ vibe that’s beautiful and relaxing (though you never feel like you quite leave earshot of the main busy road, even if you definitely do).

The architecture is sleek and stunning from the outside (much more so than the hotel itself, as they clearly started from scratch here). Stone, marble, poured concrete and all sorts of vegetation. There’s a pool, about a zillion types of outdoor showers, cold plunges, hot plunges, sauna, steam, etc etc Locker rooms were smallish but solid.
Special note for the workout/fitness crew: This might be your dream hotel. There are two gigantic gyms that mirror each other in terms of layout and equipment. One is outdoor for the sweat-ers and masochists, the other indoors for the more sensible air-con-doo folks. Either of these gyms on their own would be among the Caribbean’s best. Circuit training, boxing ring, half-courts, tackling machines, tractor tires, Bozo punching clowns, you name it.

So Palm Heights is singing songs of love for fitness people, but not for us. We’re not big exercisers. We’re more ’spa’ people, and we were a bit disappointed with the general spa portion of the Garden Club: lack of large indoor common spaces, very small & pedestrian ‘relaxation/waiting room’, similarly blah treatment rooms, comically generic 'spa music’ (zamfir, george winston), etc
The spa pool area is beautiful, and service is great, but only 4ft deep and (naturally) sun-heated all day - well into 90’s F. Not a super ‘chill’ feeling to hop in there.
In short, the spa kinda underwhelmed, but it was sufficient. Since the fitness aspect of Garden Club is so truly off the charts insane, I’m not going to ding it lower than an A-.


SERVICE: A
We’re not big service freaks. We prefer low-key and friendly to ‘elevated' and formal.
On this trip, we actually did have some weirdo ‘merican requests for concierge - everything was executed lickety-split and with a smile.
All-female concierge team reflects female ownership (yay!) and are flawless hosts.
Everyone smiles genuinely, speaks softly and seems to love working there.


$ VALUE: A
It’s hard to say Palm Heights offers ‘value’. Quite expensive, and of course the F&B/extras are just as obscenely overpriced as at every other Caribbean resort.
But compared to pricing at its two biggest Cayman competitors (Ritz and Kimpton), not to mention muuuuch pricier hotels elsewhere in the Caribbean - well, there’s some real amount of value here.


CONCLUSION:

Palm Heights offers a wonderfully refined luxury experience coupled with the attention to detail and service only available at an independently owned/managed property.Design, vibe and (especially) food are among the many strengths. Room layout, pool depths/temperatures and lack of lobby the only slight drawbacks. Compared to what we saw at the Ritz - where my spouse was a speaker at a conferenc, the reason for this tripe - PH would be the obvious choice for couples in the Caymans.