I returned to the St Regis Bahia Beach for 5 nights in early February--only 6 weeks or so after its reopening since the Hurricane Maria closure and $60 million renovation. I had work meetings in San Juan for my first full day, after which my husband joined me for the rest of our leisure stay. 

My review for my stay in Feb 2017 was posted in the Luxury Hotels Forum. It was a near perfect stay:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxury-hotels-travel/1825609-st-regis-bahia-beach-puerto-rico-wonderfully-relaxing-stay-work-trip.html

I had last been here in Feb 2017, not 6 months before Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico and destroyed much of the resort. The new property is laid out almost exactly like the old, but with a newer, fresher, and surprising mid-century to almost 60s mod style. 

The main Plantation House certainly was lighter, more modern, and fresher with this new style.

The Plantation House was even more impressive at night:

The main lobby with concierge in the foreground and the St Regis bar in the background:

Reception was to the left:

Stairs to Paro's fine dining restaurant:

The St Regis bar:

Upstairs was Paro's fine dining restaurant. It was beautiful.

About a 5 min walk down the elevated boardwalk was the Seagrapes restaurant and the pool, right next to the glorious beach. Seagrapes was where we had breakfast and lunch almost every day.

The beach was right there in front of you:

And the Bahia Beach is truly amazing:

The pool was quite large and had lots of seating and cabanas:

You can see the elevated boardwalk that passes around the pool and throughout much of the property. The building with our suite is shown.

If you can't tell, the gardens around the pool and throughout the property were incredible. Apparently, almost everything was replanted since Hurricane Maria. It was impressively lush and truly wondrous. I can't remember being so amazed at a property's planting.

You can't ask for a more beautiful setting. The beach was largely smooth sand with a few rocky points under the water, but the western side (pictured above) was much smoother and easier for wading and swimming. We loved it.

Check In

My arrival and check in was a bit of a mess.

After getting out of my rental car, there was no one who greeted me, no one who offered to take my bags, no one who directed me inside to reception--despite there being a few staff members and what seemed to be a parking valet milling around the front of the Plantation House. I don't need help with luggage, but I've never before not been asked at a luxury hotel. Considering the front entry gate had to call up to confirm my reservation to allow me entrance, the hotel team had plenty of time to prepare and was well aware of my arrival--but apparently didn't do squat. It was extremely disappointing, perhaps the most disappointing arrival I've ever had at any luxury hotel anywhere.

After walking in with my luggage to the lobby and reception, I finally was greeted and checked in by a friendly woman. There was no mention made of my Ambassador status or any elite status, but she did mention that my room had been upgraded to a Luxury Suite. (I had applied 5 SNAs to my award room booking, and the SNAs had cleared 5 days prior to the Garden View Luxury Suite.)

I was then handed off to a butler to take me to my suite. That butler didn't offer to help me with my luggage, either. I was stunned.

The buggy was loaded finally with my luggage and off we went--only for the luggage cart to spill my luggage on the ground as we drove away. 

I finally had to say something after this utter comedy of errors. I summoned the front office manager, who came pretty quickly--I'm sure hearing what happened helped. I explained how poor the entire arrival and check in process had been, capped off by my spilled luggage. He was very apologetic and said he'd make sure to make it up to me. 

Then we were off with another butler to my suite. 

Room

Garden View Luxury Suite, Casa Santuario, Room 933 on the top/3rd floor.

The Garden View Luxury Suite was the exact same suite category in a building just a few over from where I'd been 2 years prior. But the differences were immediately striking! The new style was even more 60s mod than the Plantation House, and it was beautiful, elegant, and fresh--but lacked the more authentic Puerto Rican sense of place that had been true before. I really liked the new decor a lot, but I did also miss the more traditional (but also darker) beach style. I can see people having both perspectives, honestly.

In the end, though, it is a VERY comfortable suite. I was on the top 3rd floor on the left of the building.

Walking into the suite was a bar, closet, and full second bath:

The living room was clean and spacious with plenty of natural light:

The balcony was spacious and had very comfortable furnishings. You could only enter the balcony from the living room, even though it extended in front of the bedroom too (with a wall of glass). 

Walking through the door into the master bedroom there was a wardrobe and closet:

The master bath looked like it was the only part of the suite that hadn't been renovated. It looked a lot as I remembered from the last stay.

The bedroom was spacious and comfortable:

A nice welcome amenity awaited me from the butler team:

I also had a beautiful bowl of fruit waiting for me, since my husband loves that:

The view from the bedroom:

The suite was truly spacious and very comfortable.

My only complaint was that the renovation left only ONE zone for the air con for BOTH the living room and bedroom: a dumb and cheap choice in my opinion. The air con never cooled the suite below 68-69 F despite the protests of the engineers, as I brought my own thermometer to meaure! My guess is that motion sensors were built into the system and that the engineers didn't know yet or couldn't figure out how to deactive those, allowing the room to warm whenever we weren't there or whenever we were asleep and not moving. The room always got too warm for me by the early morning, causing me to almost always awaken by 5-6 am. 

Service

Service was the biggest failing for the hotel--but then, it had only been reopened about 6 weeks and with 70% brand new staff. The new staff and recent reopening showed. 

My arrival obviously was a fiasco. But the front office manager did send a bottle of champagne with news of a $200 credit by way of apology for that. I thought that a very appropriate and generous service recovery. 

Butler service was both excellent and uneven. Our first butler, whose name now eludes me, was a gem; it turns out he had worked at the property pre-Maria. He did a beautiful job of unpacking, and he was a wealth of information on the property, its team, and what happened during Maria. I loved him and missed seeing more of him!

Here he is unpacking me!

Butler coffee service was also uneven. Sometimes it took too long and we had to calll; sometimes it came very quickly. Usually a small detail was missing (no hot milk, perhaps). Sometimes they would offer to pour your first cup, sometimes not. Sometimes it would come with cookies, sometimes not. It wasn't consistent by any means.

Calling butler service turned out to be a huge issue. I often had it ring 10 times with no one answering before hanging up to call again. This is a big no-no for any luxury property. 

Housekeeping was pretty good, but they had a habit of leaving things outside out suite for hours and hours at a time:

Room service generally was very good. But my 1 room service breakfast order with egg white omelette came with regular eggs--and the replacement order took another hour to be delivered. I was pretty pissed! (They comp'd the breakfast, of course.)

Service in the restaurants was also a problem. Our first breakfast, service was so slow that we had to complain. It improved after that. Lunch service was always better than breakfast service.

Dinner service at Paro's was very slow on our first night--a special birthday dinner that the chef had offered to prepare for us. It took so long to even get our first course that we had to say something. That it took so long between courses, too, caused us to have to speak to the manager (who was the F&B director, I think). Service improved from there, but it was a messy dinner. Service on our last night at Paro's, on the other hand, was much better.

Bar service at the St Regis bar was also very uneven. Our first night, the bartender stayed later to keep serving us and several others who were in the bar; we were very impressed. On other nights, however, we might wait 15-20 minutes to even get a server show us any attention at all. On our last night, we finally complained and got a free round after waiting for over 20 minutes. 

Pool service was a bit slow but otherwise fine. 

On the other hand, they did bring us various gifts by way of celebrating my recent birthday and by way of apology for the various service misses:

And a most impressive gesture by Ricky, the butler I loved on my last visit in 2017 who now was a manager with the housekeeping team. He stopped by just to say hello. We managed to catch him just a bit later and caught up for almost 30 min!

All in all, we had many service issues. The hotel has all the bells and whistles in place with its hard product (except for air con) but needs time to get things sorted and its staff better trained with service and soft product. Int the end, the hotel credited us a total of $500 more off our bill because of the service issues, and they also gave my husband a free massage. (He loved it.) So the service recovery can be good despite the service issues.

Still, I'd recommend waiting at least until the hotel is open another 4-6 months before considering a stay here, especially at the rack rates they charge!

Dining

Dining was pretty good. Lunch at Seagrapes and dinners at Paro's were highlights.

The Seagrapes breakfast buffet was provided to us free of charge by way of my elite status. It was a nice spread.

Omelette station outside:

Service again was mixed, but the food was good once you got it. We also ordered waffles, and they were very good!

Lunch at Seagrapes was better in our opinion. Service was much better, and the food was great.

But I loved the quesadillas; I had them almost every day. They were so good!

My husband loved the ahi tuna salad:

Room service breakfast turned out nice--except the forgot the egg WHITES:

The replacement was comp'd after it took almost an hour!

Room service lunch and dinner were nice, too:

But I did not like their ceviche at all!

Paro's turned out to be a pretty nice highlight. Our first night after my husband arrived, the chef did a tasting menu dinner for us despite it not being something on the normal menu. While it wasn't perfect (the service as mentioned previously was tragically slow), the meal was very good--though with ridiculously large portion sizes that caused us to not finish!

This looked better than it tasted:

My husband loved the oysters:

The langoustines were incredibly good:

The tuna tartar was amazing:

The octopus was delicious:

When the lobster arrived, we knew we were in big trouble. But it was so good.

The beef portion was enough to feed a family of four! We barely touched it--and it was the only course that was not to our liking (too rare, not lean enough). 

The dessert was sublime and impressive:

Notice the heartbeat monitor graphic, meant to insinuate love of the heart!

Our last night's dinner at Paro's we ordered off the menu. Everything was delicious again!

We also had dinner one night at the nearby Beach Club at the Bahia Beach Golf Club. It was more relaxed and casual, a bit cheaper, and still very good. A very nice option to have!

All in all, we were very pleased with the dining at the St Regis. Considering how young the team here is and how it's only been open for 6 weeks, the F&B team has done an outstanding job. The food really is quite yummy!

Location

Location is splendid for anyone looking to be outside of town in a more remote feeling location on the beach. Bahia Beach is spectacularly beautiful and serene, and the area around the property feels like it's all to yourself.

It's about a 30-40 min drive down a toll road highway to San Juan, and about 25-30 min drive to the airport. Not too bad, really.

It was about a 20 min drive for us to reach El Yunque National Forest, which is spectacularly beautiful, too:

Overall

We really like the new hard product redesign of the St Regis Bahia Beach, even if it lacks the more traditional Puerto Rican sense of place that it once had.

We particularly enjoyed the food/beverage at the resort. We also dined once at the nearby Beach Club, and that was a nice, more relaxed option, too.

The service, however, needs some work. Given time, the resort promises to be as world-class as it was pre-Maria. But I'd give it at least another 4-6 months to let the team get their feet wet and learn how to do it right!