It is very sad to see this hotel in its state now. I'm sure in its heyday, this was a great hotel for its location and its huge terraces. Now, the place is just deteriorating and not much maintenance is going on. The gardening is well kept but the hotel itself needs a lot of major work. All the phones were not working so if you needed something, you had to go downstairs to the frontdesk. The ceilings and terraces were leaking. The walls all have some kind of leak or damage. I would have liked to have seen this place when it was new There are sections of the building that did not have electricity and the lights were all out. The elevator buttons did not light up so it felt very uncomfortable being in it if it were not maintained well. I felt it will trap me anytime soon, while I was in it.
The rooms all needed some kind of maintenance but since the clientele is not there, there's not much done to upgrade it. I know this because, I had to change rooms 2 times before I settled to 1 that is more livable, even then the light in my bathroom and the shower door were not working. The tv remote is also not functioning. This was better than the other 2 rooms I was given prior. One just smelled as if someone just finished smoking in the room before we got there. It was suppose to be well ventilated according to the front desk who checked us in, because I specifically asked for a non-smoking room, but when I got there, I could not believe that she had the guts to give me that room.
After going all the way downstairs and explaining to her that my asthma will not tolerate that room, she gave me the option to pick from the rooms in the famous (from another traveller's review) 5th floor. These rooms were better smelling but the terrace door of the 1st room did not open so, so much for a nice terrace that you can't go to. But the main door's safety lock is busted so the security is messed up in this room. Also, this room had a really loud air-conditioning unit that it literally sounded like it was going to explode anytime soon. It sounded like the plane taking off when you are right behind the engine, that loud! We knew we could not sleep in this one, so we had to take the least bothersome of the 3 rooms.
Room service was quite interesting, we had a tissue holder with an empty tissue box when we got there. I figured, honest mistake, it was missed during the cleanup so I purposely took it out to show the maid service that it was empty so she can replace it the next day. Well, when we got back the next day, it was not refilled, the holder was placed back without the tissue. Unbelievable!!!
Lastly, the all-inclusive option that's been written about is not at all worth it. First of all, it should have never been offered when all the bars were closed and when the restaurant is barely open. The restaurant was closed when we got there the first night, and we were told that it closes at 9pm. I was down there at 8:45pm the next night and still did not find someone to get me some food. All the bars were closed during the day, the pool was dirty and the 2nd pool was drained the next day for some reason. The place was dead. The other families that were there used the dirty pool but the bar was not open at all, to even enjoy any poolside experience.
I complained about being charged all-inclusive and asked the front desk for a refund. The front desk lady said she was going to take care of it and will talk to the manager. We had to leave the hotel that night, for some food but when we got back, there was a different person at the front desk who claimed that he did not know what we were talking about. We were told to wait till the next day at 10am to talk to the hotel manager. We planned on checking out early and did not want to be in the mercy of some manager. We asked to have him called and after talking the front desk into it, he woke him up in the middle of the night to hear our story as if it were new news to him. I'm sure he's been told but just did not want to deal with us in the first place, hoping we'll go away.
After the explanation and I mentioned how Frommer's has misrepresented the hotel and that the review in tripadvisor is not quite right, he agreed to give us a refund. This might be because he knows that I will be writing this review as well. Nonetheless, his refund did not in anyway affect my decision about this place, I'm just telling it like it is, it might be great for them to fix some of these things that I mentioned, here if they did not know about them yet or just chose to ignore them.
When we checked out, we got our refund but it was less than what I expected. There was no explanation of how he got to the amount of the refund but I just wanted to get out of there as quick as I could so I did not bother to ask for it anymore. I'm sure they were banking on us wanting to leave, so it worked out for them to not give us a clear explanation and just charge us more.
In summary, obviously, they needed the money to keep the place running but I hope they get it the right way and not by dupping customers.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC