Our first room allocation was down at...
Our first room allocation was down at the beach annexe - the smell from drains (or worse!)discharging into the ocean at night was very noticable. We found out that this was well known by the ex-pats there ... We changed rooms up into the main Hotel building. Our original rooms air-con was very, very poor - the replacement room wasn't very much better, but it at least held it's own against the high night temperatures. The hotel was almost empty most of our stay, so the breakfast was not very varied,and the milk set out was UHT (or something - not a good taste anyway). Staff were all extremely helpful, esp. the elder chef who did eggs at breakfast, and our dining room Maitre D. I did have a run in with the desk staff when I rented a 50cc bike for "a day" - she claimed that "a day" was only 12 hours, and tried to take back the keys after the bike had been parked overnight (6pm to 6am...!!) and so that took some sorting out. The rooms were a bit run down, lights not working in some sockets, and the shower jet in the tubs would always run off the edges of the tub and onto the floors, making the floors totally flooded - took some arranging of the shower curtains to prevent this, but it was annoying and could have been prevented with proper handyman work.
The location is very good - a nice breeze is always blowing through the lobby, and the ocean views are lovely. There are good eating places nearby, although we had very bad service the one night we tried to dine in the hotel, however this was on our first visit to this hotel in 2004, and we didn't dare try in-house dining on this trip.
The best feature of this hotel was the stunning Spa Service - well above average here - and this made my wife and I feel better about returning to this hotel. Overall, it is a typically frayed infrastructure that is cost-cutting to fight falling occupancy rates - they do their best and the prices reflect the lack of 'brand new and shiny'... Fair value for money in a good location, just don't accept rooms down in the beach annexe.
