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| We review the key aspects of the resort on a scale from one to ten -- one being horrendously bad, and ten being perfection. Rooms: 8.0 The room itself was fine, but our "water view" room was behind several large trees which completely obscured any view. We requested a room change and offered to pay for an upgrade, if need be. But we never heard anything from them. We were very disappointed that they didn't even get back to us to tell us that they couldn't accommodate our room change request. Reception / Front Desk: 6.0 Please see the comments in the "Rooms" section above. That is a big reason for this very low score. Also, we were not treated like diamond level members when arrived. Water Sports: 9.5 Everyone in water sports (including the pool staff) was really great. Water skiing, snorkeling, and sailing were our big activities and the water sports staff was always super helpful and courteous. The ski boat was running most days. The sailing equipment was in good shape. Restaurants: 9.5 The food and staff were outstanding. The food was always well prepared, well presented, and delicious. The staff was always very good. Bars: 8.5 This score could have easily been higher. There are some really good people in their bar staff, but there are also staffers that greet you with a surly "Yeah?" and make you feel like you are really putting them out. So attitude was sometimes an issue, and those occasional times bring down the score for everyone. The funny thing is that we usually just wanted water -- which is a pretty easy ask for bartenders that are often tasked with making 6 frozen blah blahs, etc. The Latitudes bar staff was always very good when we went there. Beach / Pools / Grounds: 8 / 7 / 9 The beach sand has become very rough and rocky in many portions of the beach. We speculate that they are trucking in new "sand" that is not very sand-like. We found the french pool water quality to be poor every day during our stay (very cloudy and unappealing). The dutch pool was sometimes better, but has extremely limited seating in the shade. The main pool water quality was excellent, but the music is so incredibly loud in the afternoon, that we cannot stay there. The grounds were very nicely kept. Overall Service: (inconsistent) At times the service was really excellent -- usually in the restaurants. At other times the service could be in strong need of improvement (pls read above for details). The service was too variable for us to provide an overall score, but that in itself is noteworthy. Overall: 8 This score doesn't seem that bad, but it is mainly buoyed by the fantastic restaurant food and service as well as the water sports and related services. But the rest of it is fairly bad news. This resort has adopted a very event-driven strategy. They book large numbers of events that may be weddings, corporate gatherings, or even birthday parties. The events can be massive (there was one with over 140 people when we were there) -- far larger than groups we have ever seen anywhere in the past. That is wonderful if you are part of one of those groups, but it can be not so wonderful otherwise. Your quiet candlelight dinner on the beach may be right next to a party with a DJ playing music loud enough to rattle your teeth. We were inside a closed building having dinner one night when such a party started one evening. We could feel the ground vibrate with the music. They have a hired musician outside playing music that cannot compete with the birthday party DJ. The entire resort suffers for such events. There are portions of the stay that were really wonderful, but sadly those things are overshadowed by the portions of the stay that were not very pleasant. This had been our favorite Sandals resort, but we won't be going back and we would not recommend this resort to anyone. |
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