Kagehitokiri

thoughts ? whether you stayed in hotel 'room' or residence

if you stayed in residence, did residence itself seem worth rate ?

no , i'm not 'back' , sorry , but i will clarify above if necessary

to clarify >
"residences" = sold by developer of hotel
"in hotel inventory" = rented by hotel reservations

LinLant

Didn’t know whether to like or not. Wanted to wish you welcome back! Miss you!

Not sure if residences are worth it. Sometimes I think, well to stay in a certain place I need to spend X dollars. If I don’t spend X dollars my stay will be horrible. So if I want to go there and have a nice time I need to spend that extra money. I thought of that when I saw the contrasting reviews of The Point and Lake Placid Lodge. I stayed at The Point and it was wonderful. It was also a lot of money. Would I want to spend less and have a horrible time elsewhere? No, I would save up or not go at all. Now, husband hated The Point and didn’t really want to go back. Although he has told me recently that he would go back if I wanted to go again. I would only go back if we could stay in the Boathouse. However, I won’t spend the extra money for the Boathouse so we won’t go back!

Kagehitokiri

not all hotel residence rates are expensive, especially outside US/EU/etc

(offtopic re boathouse & twin farms farmhouse, can do 1 night, vs longhaul)

has been said by many here, across entire range of spend / income levels

MSPeconomist

Be careful about the terminology in that in many places, residences means a condo development associated with the hotel, for example RC in many locations, with most homes being privately owned and not rented through the hotel.

Otherwise, where the term residences means villas or similar:

Phoenician, AZ: Most of the residences have private pools, all are located down the hill from the main buildings of the resort, including restaurants. I'd pick a residence over a room or suite in the main hotel, including some unattractive townhouses by the golf course, but I'd probably prefer a room (they're really big) or suite in Canyon Suites (hotel within a hotel) to a residence unless with a group or planning a very long stay.

Laguna, Bali: There are some residences in a villa building near the beach, but there are also some newer and (at least locationally) undesirable townhouse type residence units below the main entrance and far from the beach; they hardly seem to be part of the resort. Only the main hotel has rooms and suites with direct access (ladder from balcony) to one of the pools.

Waldorf Astoria, NYC: The Waldorf Towers (separate hotel within a hotel, but with no real facilities beyond a small lobby and concierge desk) is arguably residential, with many suites that include kitchen/pantry facilities.

Sutton, Vancouver: There's a separate tower with residences (suites), but it's certainly not true luxury.

Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris: One room category is called a residential suite. These seem to be large (with a very large sitting room) and have a kitchen, but the suite can be sold (as a one bedroom senior suite, above the Park Deluxe category) without access to the kitchen facilities.

Hotel du Cap--Eden-Roc, near Antibes, French Rivera: There are a couple "cottages" scattered around the grounds that would seem to be true residences, AFAIK without private pools, etc. I assume they would be extraordinarily expensive and difficult/impossible to reserve as they would be occupied by people who have booked them every year for a very long time. The same would be true for similar luxury resorts in France.

Passportinonehand

In the more tropical destinations the two I’ve visited are:

Six Senses Zil Pasyon - they have a couple residences up on the rocks that are completely different from the main villas design wise. One of them is the owner villa which I believe can be rented as well (fully white interior). All of them feature 2 pools (the top pool has a glass bottom and is right above the indoor living area, so you can see it while dining for example). Even though it’s 10x the price of a regular villa I think it can be worth the premium here because it’s a very spectacular infrastructure with the best views and completely different from the regular villas.

Velaa Private Island - has 5 residences (1 of them the owner villa which isn’t available to rent), all of them with 4 bedrooms. They aren’t much different than the regular beach villas, just have more bedrooms and bathrooms/bigger pools/ living spaces, and an extra gym, pool table and spa treatment room. One of them has also a built-in hammam. Personally, I think it’s not worth the premium here as they are basically like the regular villas but on steroids. Here as well prices are about 10x the price of the basic villas (according to their website).

chinmoylad

Haven't stayed at these but have visited and opinions based on visits only:

THAILAND
Amanpuri, and Anantara Layan - HUGE difference between the resort rooms/suites/villas and the residence villas, specifically at Amanpuri and at Anantara Layan. I'd go residence every time.Andara Resort & Villas - At the upper levels of Andara's suites (the 2 x 4-bedroom suites), the villas are still better because of the location within the resort, but those are actually really, really cool suites and the rate difference here means I'd probably opt for the suite.
Trisara - also a sizeable difference, in that it's one of the weird resorts where I think the resort villas are far, far better than the residence villas and not worth the splurge.

VIETNAM
Amanoi - nice villas, but the Ocean Pool Villas and up are incredible, including the signature Amanoi Ocean Villas. Unless you're specifically in a bigger group wishing to be under a single roof (or obviously a family) and needing the extras (chef etc), wouldn't go out of my way for the villas here. I didn't get a chance to see the brand new Two Bedroom Amanoi Ocean Villa (which is a residnence) which does look absolutely incredible though.

Kagehitokiri

emphasis on "your favorite"

certainly many aman (and FS) among favorites here
aman.com/resorts/amanoi/residences/2-bedroom-amanoi-ocean-pool-residence
"Private residence’s buggy"
aman.com/resorts/amanoi/pavilions-villas/amanoi-ocean-pool-villa

definitely looks incredible, unfortunate it took so long to get built, seems area is incredibly crowded with tourist boats now, and likely would've been better managed under originally planned per aquum, now under Minor

FlyerEC

Hello Kagehitokiri !!
So relieved you surfaced again this difficult year for travelling - to brighten this forum too .

Definitely AMANs ( still alright with some dedicated GMs / HMs / RMs ) & FS along with Trisara .

The number of potential stays in primarily AMANs this year have had to be cancelled including the VILLAs at Nusa Dua , Zoe & then with Thailand & Vietnam still with generally closed borders , hopes for January stays are .. diminishing .

The SS one mentioned was the one with security & other issues plus what you mentioned ..

Passportinonehand

Read about how crowded the area around SS Zil Pasyon was in a couple different articles, but when we stayed in November 2019 we didn’t see a single boat in front of the island during our entire stay. Might have been due to the ...... weather we had though.

chinmoylad

By the way, am I the only one that finds the residence villas at Trisara...'odd'?

vuittonsofstyle

Of the Residences I have stayed in, my favourites include:-

Amanpuri
Amanpulo
Trisara (some are wacky, I agree, but others are extremely civiised)
Four Seasons Chiang Mai
Amanoi
Cuixmala
Amangiri
Anantara Layan
La Réserve Ramatuelle (although all residences are actually owned by Michel Reybier)
+ probably a few more that I can't think of right now

chinmoylad

Ah I forgot about Amanpulo's residences - definitely a step up (or two) from the casitas, but not quite 'wow/spectacular' unlike some of the Aman residences. But nicely homely and understated - having said that there are a couple of residences with beautiful infinity pools.

chinmoylad

The interiors can be personalised so there's that - but that's fine. It's the overall structure/architecture.
It looks like they took the beautiful 1-bedroom structures and just copied and pasted those as blocks which looks weird to me.

Example...
These look beautiful


These do not...they just look odd


But in general, having seen a few of the residences personally, the layouts are odd. Apart from some which were very heavily personalised (and very whacky as you said), the other interiors were generally fine.