Beach Enclave

It is shocking this qualified for five star hotel. The Beach house we booked is basically a new york city 3 star hotel style tiny room with a very crowded bathroom with no bath tub. The room is so tiny, after we put down the suitcases we brought, there are barely any walking space left, you have to walk over the suitcase to get to the bed. The bathroom is even more hideous. One unlitted mirror on the wall with a small sink. If you dont close the bathroom door, you can barely fit sitting on the toilet. The shock didn’t end with the disappointing room and lack of amenities. The complimentary breakfast is so basic without any egg or protein as shown in pictures and they dont even have latte or any barista style coffee beyond just the hot black coffee. Also two mornings i got spoiled sour fruit (watermelon). There are constant flies flying over the food especially the bread and fruits it’s unbelievable i’m dining at a $100+ restaurant. The list goes on for my shock such as the wifi didn’t work for the first two days so that the tv also doesn’t work. There were no check-in instructions sent to us prior to arrival and there are no hotel style front desk services so it was a struggle upon arrival. On the day of departure, no one came to help us, so we have to lift all our suitcases down their two flight narrow stairs to get to the taxi. Oh, and these tiny rooms are above the only restaurant on property, so it could be noisy at night if there happened tobe an event. Beyond all these inconveniences, we were also told there are algae pollutions this season so the water is more brown and can have sulfuric smell Conclusions: avoid at all cost. Tried to think of anything positive or recommended but cannot. Maybe the villa option is better, at least all the pictures online seems amazing which was what sold us to this. But all those pictures belong to the villa not the $700 beach house we booked.

What a huge disappointment. At no point prior to arrival were we given clear instructions on how to access the gated property or how to check in. When we arrived, the call box did not have an obvious button to press for assistance. I had to call the main phone number and, after being transferred three times, an agent finally opened the gate for us. Once inside, signage was not clear, so we had to search for an employee to help us. We eventually found the laundry area and asked a worker about check-in. She radioed another employee, who then showed us to our room. Upon entering the room, we were immediately disappointed. The room was very small and basic, and the primary view from our balcony was the restaurant roof. The photos on the hotel website are very misleading and do not accurately represent the experience we had. We tried to make the best of our first day by spending time at the pool, but the pool itself was tiny, and we had to search around the property just to find towels. The private villa next door was playing music so loudly that it felt like the entire island could hear it and after multiple times of asking, the property manager called the owner of the villa to lower the noise. After an $85 lunch consisting of two drinks and one shared lunch plate, we went back to the room to change and leave the property for dinner. The beach and pool area were not appealing due to the massive amount of sargassum. While I understand that sargassum can be an issue in the area, there appeared to be no effort to clean it up or rake the large mounds until the day we were leaving. Each day, we left the property to enjoy other beaches and essentially only used our room as a place to sleep. To make the experience even more frustrating, every afternoon when we returned, our room key would not work on the separate door that led upstairs to our room. It took more than 45 minutes for maintenance to arrive, and even his key did not work. This happened daily, not only to us but also to other guests. On one occasion, we were more than an hour late to our dining reservation because of this recurring issue. Overall, this property did not provide a 5-star experience and should undergo a serious rating review. Many of the positive reviews seen on social media appear to be from influencers who were invited to create content to promote the property. Unfortunately, those posts did not reflect the reality of the resort or the experience we had.

The property had so much potential. It is not even close to being a 5 star but more like a budget hotel. Why? Marketing pictures are so misleading. We were led to believe we were reserving a 1 bedroom villa with a private pool. What we got was a room over the restaurant looking at a roof. We had lunch the day we arrived. 2 drinks and shared a chicken dish was $85 and wasn’t even good. Our room each night also had smells from the restaurant and smoke coming in as we were directly over the restaurant. Again, not a private villa as we had thought. Our thoughts are pretty consistent speaking with others. Beware of this property!!!!!!!!!!! Breakfast brought to your room? Nope. Had to walk down to get some fruit taking 30 minutes and the Folgers coffee was so strong it could stand up in the cup on its own. The door to the rooms over the restaurant also daily would just stop working. One time it took nearly 1 hr to fix and we missed our dinner reservations. I kept asking them to open manually with a key while they try to repair it and nobody seemed to care. The sargassum is also out of control and not until our last day they got tractors out to get it all up only because of a party tonight with some social influencers coming by. Suggestion to staff- rake it daily and don’t neglect it. It’s easier that way!!! Private beach? Absolutely not. We thought we were again reserving a 1 bedroom villa with a private section of a beach. The pictures truly lead you to believe that. We checked in and saw the beach is non existent and had 2 patio chairs sitting on a bunch of weeds and rocks. Again so misleading. Tv is just full of apps and not an actual tv. This could work but because we are international nothing works on the actual apps. Beware of this property! What they call 1 bedroom villas are actually small hotel Rooms over the restaurant and your view is a rooftop.

We had an amazing time here. We stayed at the 2 bedroom plus bungalow villa. Amazing views, had a nice little beach for us and direct access to the water. Everyone at the resort was great - huge thanks to Ann who was our butler for the stay she made it very welcoming, relaxing and overall made this one of our best vacations we’ve had. We will be back next year for sure but will try the North property as we hear the snorkeling there is amazing. Just a few tips: This side is windy but maybe we lucked out with timing - the wind was nice and made it enjoyable to be out in the sun all day so we thought it was a good thing. The water is truly shallow you can walk out a few hundred meters if you want - or take the kayaks or paddle boards. We expected this so we also chartered a boat for a day to go do some snorkeling and cruise around. Looking forward to being back next year!