My husband and I went to Caneel Bay last month (July 09). We thought this VI vacation would compare to our wonderful experience at Peter Island two years ago. We were grossly disappointed and feel we were misled since Rosewood Hotels and Resorts touts Caneel Bay as a luxury resort. Our experience was far from luxurious…it was downright horrible.

The staff was terrible. They were rude and could have cared less if they accommodated any of the guests. Some (but not all) examples include: 1) I sent an email prior to our visit asked for an empty refrigerator be put in our room. The request was not met and the email ignored. (Let me preface this statement with that this was not a random request. I had been told that the resort would accommodate this request prior to arrival). This should have been my first clue that we'd made a huge mistake picking Caneel Bay as our destination. 2) Staff would avoid guest's eye contact and two arm waves (no joke) on the beach so that they didn't have to take anyone's drink order. The staff member would literally run off the beach after throwing a drink at a guest to their golf cart. We only saw a person on the beach taking drink orders 2 times of the 7 days we were there. 3) Staff member told my husband to excuse her behavior that she was still “stoned.” 4) We asked for another piece of bread at the Equator and were told there was not enough to go around. This is after we’d bought a $62 bottle of wine that retails for around $20-$25. 5) One bartender was supporting the beachside grill restaurant and the beachside bar on the 4th of July. People were waiting for 20-30 minutes for a drink! I'm not in the customer service industry, but to me, this is management 101. On the 4th of July when you have 110 guests waiting to board the fireworks cruise and guests are waiting for tables to eat dinner, have enough bartenders to accommodate the abnormally larger crowd. 6) We had to get our own coffee at breakfast and were ignored until we stepped away from the table and then a staff member would run up waiving the bill in hand wanting a tip...for what service I ask? 7) When we asked for Guava juice one morning at breakfast we were told that they would have it tomorrow. It wasn’t an option the next three days. This isn’t that big of deal, but I use this example to show that no one at the resort goes out of their way to make sure your needs are met. It’s not the level of service we anticipated or paid for for that matter. 8) If you are not standing at a tram stop when a van pulls up, staff members driving the trams will not make eye contact or stop to ask if you need a ride. More then 2 dozen times we saw staff members driving around in resort vehicles with no guests on board. No staff member we met ever goes out the his/her way to make sure you the guests are pleased with their level of service. The overall attitude of the staff is appalling.

I would agree with other reviews of the rooms. Without being too long-winded, I can see why there are not TVs in the room, but no telephone? It's ironic that the manager leaves notes in the door telling guests to "call her" if you need anything. Call her with what? Want to order a bottle of wine to the room at the end of the night? Well, you have to walk to the bus stop to make a call and cross your fingers that someone at the front desk answers! The wait at the front desk every morning to make dinner reservations in Cruz Bay, because the food at Caneel is horrible so everyone has to go off property to eat, was extremely long because everyone has to rely on the front desk to make reservations. To me, this seems like a huge risk for Rosewood. If there was an emergency of any sort, guests would literally be forced to either grab their cell phones and hope they got a signal, or run to a tram stop.

Another issue we had with the room which is indicative the lack of service and attention to detail is that we had a leak in our bathroom ceiling starting on day 2. The leak was never addressed or fixed. By the end of the week our entire bathroom floor was filled with filthy water. It was disgusting and not something you think you would have to experience at a high end resort.

One more thing…We found out upon arrival that the Turtle Bay restaurant was closed. This was not disclosed to us prior to our arrival. It was fine for us because we ate every meal in Cruz Bay, but it did seem odd that the best restaurant on the resort was closed and that we hadn’t been told about it when we booked the trip. We ran in to an upset honeymoon couple who had paid for the full meal plan and hadn’t been told that Turtle Bay was closed. They were actually going into Cruz Bay to eat, even though their meals had been paid for, because all of the restaurants that were open at the resort were so bad.

We were so disappointed in everything that when we got home we filled out the Rosewood survey and poured every terrible detail into the answers on the survey. Before I read the other Trip Advisor reviews, we thought our experience was an isolated incident. We expected that a company like Rosewood Hotels and Resorts would be appalled to hear of our experience considering the company is in the customer service industry. We thought that we were just unlucky to have had such unfortunate events happen to us while we were there. However, we were wrong. Rosewood Hotels and Resorts apparently frequently receives survey results like ours. After submitting our survey, we received a cut and paste apology email from Nikolay Hotze who is a Managing Director at Rosewood. My husband sent two reply emails to Nikolay with no response. We wanted someone to acknowledge that our experience was unacceptable and explain why this happened. My husband finally called Nicolay and left a message. When a week passed and Nikolay didn't respond to any attempt to contact him, my husband called Nikolay's supervisor. He left a message with the supervisor and miraculously Nikolay called that evening conveniently stated that he hadn't received our emails or our voicemail message. He said he would look into the unfortunate events we described in the survey and call us back two days later. Nine days have past and we still have not heard back from Nikolay. My husband left another voicemail message for Nikolay’s supervisor yesterday morning (August 11th). 24 hours later, neither Nicolay Hotze nor his supervisor has called us back. Apparently, like the staff at Caneel Bay, employees at Rosewood don't pride themselves on customer service either. They have our money and they don’t care what terrible events we experienced while vacationing at their resort. I was waiting to write a Trip Advisor review until we had a chance to speak to someone at Rosewood. Maybe our bad experience was just a fluke? Maybe they were unusually short staffed the week we were there? We wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and allow them a chance to explain their side of the story. However, due to the lack of concern or response from Rosewood corporate, I feel compelled to share our bad experiences with others. We will never go to a Rosewood resort again and would advise others to spend their money elsewhere.

If you want to go to the Virgin Islands, Peter Island is 100X better then Caneel Bay. It was the most perfect vacation we’ve ever experienced. We went in 2007 and are still talking about the meals we had while we were there. The food, service, scenery, beaches, and most importantly, staff, were all wonderful! Every aspect of the trip and our overall experience was phenomenal! www.peterisland.com

I could go on, but I think I’ve written enough. Hopefully I've enlightened at least one person as to what one can expect if they book a trip to Caneel Bay.