yvr76

Actually it was a category 6 before, but went up to a 7 on March 1st. I managed to book a week for later this year (20,000/night) just before the hike!

moka

Now that they are a 7 I can't see any nights avail for cash&points. Before the upgrade there were plenty. Headed there April 9 for 3 nights

Starwood Lurker

Category 7 properties do not participate in Cash & Points.

* Terms & Conditions:

Offer is valid at Cash & Points participating properties only and subject to availability.
Cash & Points is not offered at Category 1 and 2 hotels in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. Cash & Points is not offered at any Category 7 hotel.
Black-out dates may apply. Starwood Preferred Guest's "No Black-Out Dates" only applies to Free Night Awards in standard room types and is not applicable to this redemption option.
Rooms are for single or double occupancy; charges may apply for additional guests.
Guest is responsible for all taxes and service charges affiliated with the award reservation.
Local guarantee and cancellation policies apply.
Guest will not receive Starpoints or airline miles for their reservation
Cash & Points Award stays and nights do not qualify toward any promotions requiring stays or nights; however, Cash & Points Award stays and nights from October 1, 2011 onward do qualify as an eligible stay or nights toward earning elite levels.
Cash components of this award that are confirmed in non-USD will be adjusted, as needed, to reflect the USD equivalent of the award before being posted in local currency to the customer's bill during the hotels stay.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

AlxStevens

This to me is the biggest bummer about this (and other) promotions to Cat 7.

C&P is (IMHO) the most valuable part of SPG and to have great properties like this take a 75% increase in point cost (20k to 35k) and not have C&P available is a definite loss.

JFKSFOLAX_friend

It is interesting that C&P was available for future dates prior to the category increase. Theoretically, it made financial sense for the property to offer the rate plan two weeks ago but not anymore. Too bad the properties can't voluntarily offer the rates.

moka

I did not know that!
Wow so this truly is a loss.
There is no chance I will be staying there again at the rate of 35k a night!

Antonio8069

This review updates info in this thread - much of it dated!

Location-We had no issues locating the resort. The GPS (Hertz Never Lost) found it easily - Rte.3 E, to 66E, turn north @ Rio Grande on Rte. 187 and you cannot miss it. Allow 25 minutes (with road tolls) from SJU;
Check-in - Its a piece of cake! Pull up to the front of the resort, & the butlers did the rest while we enjoyed a welcome punch drink! Our luggage magically appeared in our closet!
Activities- after check-in, we went straight to the boathouse, where you can use canoes, kayaks, sailing boats, and water boards. We saw lots of leather back turtles, iguanas & tarpons in the brackish water. Not to be missed! After, we moved over to have a swim in the pools/hot tub & watched the sun set! (If you want to go off the resort, its a short drive to the El Yunque rain forest).
Suite-Ours was amazing! (Must have been upgraded, as we were on the 2nd floor, with a huge balcony.) The rain shower is 6 x 6, with an accompanying
soaker tub. Heated floors.
Dinner - We had dinner on site @ Molasses. Local Puerto Rican food, nice decor, and the shuttle was right on time. After dinner, we went to the conference center to use the computers (3 in total) + free printing! Then, we repaired to our suite, which had been transformed thanks to the nightly turn down service. We also called the butler to pick up our leather shoes for an overnight polish!
Resort Ambiance - Three things stand out. At night, the Plantation House and the pool are lit up with torch lights. Very cool. It rains most nights (its in the rain forest!) + each suite comes with umbrellas! Also, sitting on the balcony at night was amazing! It is like being in the rain forest!
Breakfast - As a Platinum member, we were given a card on check-in, good for continental breakfast for 2 at the Jean-Georges' Fern Restaurant (new benefit for SP PLAT members). Jose advised we could apply the value ($14 p.p.) towards anything on the menu! I enjoyed the incomparable French toast c/w Canadian maple syrup and the difference was $3! (For those who prefer a lighter fare, there is a complimentary coffee/tea service at the bar in the Plantation House, where you can also purchase muffins, etc.
Resort Fee - Much has been written (above) about the $60 resort fee. I had no problem paying it. According to the resort, it covers local and toll free calls, WIFI, beach/pool services, the fitness center (which is great!), the boathouse, tennis & the golf driving range. We also paid $22 for valet parking;
Concierge Services - We made extensive use of the concierge services in advance of our arrival, and strongly recommend this. We were able to plan out time better. I can also recommend the Chief Concierge Jossell, one of many dedicated staff who make this property special (*PM me if you want his e-mail address).
Bottom Line - The St. Regis is the real deal. Its the best property I have seen in the Carri bean (way better than the W Vieques, which FYI charges a $65.40 resort fee). A highlight of our 9 days in PR!

sjuhawk_jd

This is a bummer for me too. I had a wonderful stay at this resort in November of last year and was looking forward to booking again in future. Not going to happen if it is 35K per night. The resort is a really wonderful one!!

cokaer

Does anyone at St. Regis Bahia respond to emails?

I had some issues in connection with my recent stay and sent emails to [email protected] and to [email protected]. But no reply.

And before I arrived, I attemted to contact reservations at [email protected]

Again, no reply or acknowledgement. Not sure if they are ignoring or if emails are not being recieved. Does anyone have email contact info for the General Manager?

JFKSFOLAX_friend

Contact SPG Customer Care and detail all of your failed attempts to contact the property. Have them open a Customer Service File. That will get the GM's attention.

tds

I'm at the St. Regis right now. I'm not sure if this is related to your issue, but as we were walking around the resort yesterday, the GM stopped by to chat. He indicated that he had been at the St. Regis for 1 week. Possibly the lack of response is due to the apparent transition in the GM position here.

tds

Currently at the St. Regis and I concur with everything stated above. The "hit and miss" service issues described in older posts, soon after the resort opened, appear to have diminished with maturation of the staff. We have had outstanding service since arrival. A couple of items to add to the above:
-We booked a standard room for 3 nights using StarPoints. Confirmed platinum upgrade to a Luxury Suite 1 week prior to arrival. Fantastic room - 1200 sq ft, vaulted ceilings, large deck, wet bar, sound system, etc. Check out pics on Oyster.com.
-Butler service will bring you coffee or tea service each morning. My spouse loves her morning tea and has relished this.
-Chose to have dinner at Molasses twice rather than have dinner at Fern - have enjoyed the Puerto Rican dishes available on the menu. Second night our server immediately remembered my spouse and I by name upon seeing us (we have different last names, she remembered both) and remembered our previous evening's drink order.
-Previous comments about the beach being lackluster are also true. True beach aficionados will likely be disappointed here. We do not fall into that category and are just happy to have the view of the water and the refreshing tropical breeze.

No complaints here - fantastic resort.

OMAguy

Good to hear the new GM is on board. This is a great property and hope that it will only get better with the new GM's leadership...

epitopeX

I've been lurking for a while and finally decided to post something here. I was thinking about posting this thread to the St Regis Bahia Beach master thread but I also feel like this one can stand on its own for a while.

I stayed at the St Regis Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico for 4 nights at the end of August. Some aspects of service that I have received are too horrible that I can hardly believe.

I have sent an email to [email protected] but now it's been 8 days and I have not received any reply. Now I'm attaching my email here and see what you guys think. Shall I file a complain to Customer Service?

Dear General Manager of St Regis Bahia Beach Resort:

My name is XXX and I have stayed at the St Regis Bahia Beach from Aug XX to XX with my girlfriend to celebrate an East Asian holiday (equivalent to the Valentine's day in the western tradition). There are some aspects of the resort that I like very much, but also some that greatly affect my overall impression of this property. I would like to share my thoughts with you and I hope these would bring to your attention.

Let me start with what I really like about the St Regis Bahia Beach. The resort itself is world class (maybe not so much about its beach). As a SPG Plat booked through Amex FHR program, I was pre-upgraded to a St Regis Suite and we like the suite very much. It is very spacious, and we enjoy the outdoor terrace very much. The bathroom design is also worth mentioning. We like its bathtub and shower space.

The concierge and travel desk were very helpful in arranging dinner reservations and tours. They were very friendly and helpful and I had a great time talking with them. The tours were really spectacular, with the Biobay kayaking tour being one of the most memorable tours that we've ever had.

Food at Fern was fine in general. We had two dinners there and both were good. I have been to many Jean-Georges' restaurants, including his flagship at the Mandarin Oriental New York, so maybe I was expecting a little too much. There's one dish that we like very much, the Salmon Tartare. I think this was probably one of the best salmon tartare I've ever had.

Now let me begin to talk about the other side of the resort, including some missing services, some maintenance issues and, some "you-can-not-believe-this-actually-happened" problems. Some of these problems had been mentioned via email on the first night when we were there, but there were more and more issues coming up which eventually led to this email.

1. Check-in. We arrived at the resort at 2pm and we were told that our room was not ready. I could totally understand this given the weather condition on the day of our arrival (a hurricane was expected, although it didn't come). We were told to wait in the lobby and our room would be ready within 30 minutes. However, it was not until 1.5 hours later that our room was finally ready. That alone wasn't too bad -- we were there for vacation so we were not in a hurry anyway. But at least they should let us know when we shall be expecting our room so we could plan accordingly.

2. Welcoming amenity. Most world class hotels and resorts give welcoming amenities (fruit plate, chocolates... etc) to every guest. As SPG plat I was surprised that no welcoming amenities were in our suite, nor welcoming letter. We were pre-upgraded a week ago so we should be expecting some sort of welcoming amenity during check-in. (In most cases, such pre-upgrades will receive in-room check-ins anyway.) We asked our butler about it, and she said that she would see what she could do and let us know. But we received no follow-ups during the same day. We also asked for more water and she said she would bring some -- we never saw those bottled water.

3. Turn down service. The first day I asked for turn down services at 8:15, during which we would be having dinner at the Molasses. When we came back from dinner at 10, the room stayed the same as we left. We called the butler and they sent two men up to our suite -- no apologies nor any gestures of compensation.

The turn down service at the St Regis Bahia Beach was really too simple that I could barely call it a "turn down" service. This is hands down the worst turn down services that I've received anywhere. Other than making the bed and change the lighting, there seems to be nothing more. I actually asked if that's all we would receive, and the answer given to me was blatantly "yes, that's all we do for the turn down service". I have spent more than 25 nights in different St Regis properties across the globe for the past 9 months and I could safely conclude that this is very unusual for a property flagged the "SR" logo.

4. Waiting time for simple services. The first night we reserved our dinner at Molasses at 8. We called a golf cart to pick us up at 7:45. Around 8 we received a call telling us to walk to the plantation (!) where a golf cart would be waiting for us. So we went. There was no cart, nor anyone who seemed to know what's going on. We ended up waiting in the lobby for more than 30 minutes before finally getting our transportation. We could have easily walked there. During this 30 minutes we talked to many people at the lobby, and everyone told us "your cart will be ready soon". Maybe 30 minutes could be considered "soon" for some people at vacation, but certainly not for those going for dinner!

5. Room maintenance. The TV in the living room hang tilted; the lamp by the living room couch is broken; the light by the bathroom mirror is unstable; the master light switch on the nightstand would not turn on the lamp on the other nightstand... just to name a few. These are some very basic room maintenance that should be checked everyday. The first night I mentioned these in my email and the TV problem was fixed the next day, however, the lighting problem remained unfixed throughout my stay.

There are also additional issues on room facilities that I might as well put under this category. The water temperature of the rain forest shower was not stable. It sometimes took more than 5 minutes to run hot water, yet it could also turn into almost boiling water over a second. The water pressure was also too weak to shower comfortably, even if I had turned to the maximum. The tiles were not heated in the bathroom, nor there were heated towel rack. Those are small issues but they all-together could largely affect one's overall impression of a supposedly world class resort.

6. Attention to details. We were astonished a few times by the housekeeping team for their attention to details, or the lack of which. The bathing salt was not replenished by the housekeeping after the first day, nor was it replenished after turn down. The shower kit was also left unreplenished when they were clearly running low.

One day on our way back from breakfast my slippers were completely wet and dirty due to morning rain. I put it out in a most obvious spot, right at the entrance. However, when we came back from our afternoon activities, the pair of dirty slippers remained there, and there were nowhere in the bathroom a new pair could be found.

7. This is already a very long email yet I haven't got to the most disastrous events yet. And unfortunately there were three of them. They almost ruined our vacation completely. Or at least successfully amused me by their very existence.

i). The housekeeping forgot to turn off the alarm clocks set by the previous guest who obviously needed to catch an early flight. Yes, this could actually happen. We were woken up TWICE by the alarm clock at 6AM and 7AM after the first night. You do not want to try it by yourself to see how frustrating this could be. We flew more than 6 hours to Puerto Rico to check into one of the best hotels in our country and we didn't get good sleep the first night because housekeeping forgot to turn off the alarm clock. This is not very funny.

ii). Bird pooped everywhere in the terrace and the housekeeping ignored them twice before taking any action. In fact I was finally out of patience and basically pushed them to take care of it ASAP. We ordered room service one night and had it in the terrace. They told us that the housekeeping would take care of the dishes the next day. We didn't give a thought but that proved to be the beginning of a disaster. Birds cleaned the dishes and pooped everywhere, literally --- there were not even a single clean chair the next morning, not to mention the table and the floor. We accidentally left the "do not disturb" sign on the whole day, so we requested housekeeping to be combined with turn down service during our dinner time. When we came back from dinner we found the terrace not cleaned -- dishes were gone but the poops remained where they were. We thought ok maybe it was too dark for them to see, so we didn't complain or do anything.

The next day in the late afternoon we were completely shocked to see the terrace remain uncleaned after housekeeping. We simply COULD NOT believe this. The terrace was the best part of the suite and we spent a lot of time there. It was ridiculous for the housekeeping to ignore them twice in a roll. We called the butler immediately to have them cleaned. However, they really didn't do a nice job in cleaning the chairs. I could clearly see remaining bird poops on the chair after they were "cleaned". The result was that we never sat on those chairs for the remainder of our stay.

iii). Housekeeping trashed our belongings. Yes, no joking, this actually happened. We left a pack of cigarette in our terrace and when we came back it was gone. I called the housekeeping to ask if they might have any ideas on where they had put it, but to my utter astonishment, I was told that "they probably have thrown it away". I was so shocked that I remained speechless for a minute. They did buy another pack for us later, but I still could not believe that they actually trashed our belongings.

I mentioned the alarm clock incident plus 1-2 minor issues when I was talking to a concierge agent the night before we left when she asked me how I felt about the property. She was really shocked and felt sorry for us. She must have passed those information to the front desk manager, who took $300 off our final bill. But I felt that it is necessary for me to write this letter to you, so you may have a full account about my stay, since I didn't get a chance to mention all of the issues we had.

I like the St Regis brand a lot. Half of my vacation nights are spent in St Regis; that says all. There are also a lot of things that I really liked about your property, which has the potential to truly become a world class resort if all the issues I raised would be properly handled in the future. I believe this requires some serious efforts.

Now it's been more than a week since I checked out and some of the problems that we had encountered still haunts me. I hope this email has successfully brought to your attention, and I also hope there could be some kind of compensation in form of starpoints for what we have experienced.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Yours,
XXX

SPG platinum preferred guest, XXXXXXXXXXX.

LovetoTravel83

Case Closed.