If I could give 0 stars, I would.
My wife and I were looking for an amazing resort that would be the perfect place to spend our honeymoon. After a long and thorough search, we found Mahogany Bay and were more than excited to book 10 nights at a resort that included a private beach club, multiple restaurants, and bared the Hilton Curio Collection name. As a Hilton Diamond member, I have stayed at Hilton locations around the world and have never run into any issues, but this experience has made me question my faith in the Hilton name.
Upon arriving, we were driven past the picturesque main gate and into an active construction zone where huge dust clouds were being kicked up and the sound of power tools could be heard from one end of the resort to the other. On the road to the main house were boarded up shacks that were advertised as some of their "over 10 different artisanal dining venues." We came to find out that these "restaurants" were not even open and of the over 10 restaurants that were advertised, only 3 were open. After dropping our bags off in our room, which was above another room and we could hear everything they were saying if they spoke louder than a whisper, we went to the pool to relax and grab some food and drinks.
For the amount of money that Mahogany Bay is charging for food and drinks, you would hope that the quality and service were stellar but unfortunately it was some of the worst food and service that I have ever experienced. The drinks would take, on average, 25 minutes to get to you after you ordered and the pool had at most 10 people around it. Any dairy products that we ordered (milk, yogurt, etc.) were soured and the free continental breakfast was not on the menu and was not advertised by the staff unless you asked. The Japanese restaurant was by far our worst dining experience at the resort and put us over the edge. We went for lunch and were the only people in the restaurant at the time we placed our order. The food took over an hour to arrive and when I walked inside to ask how much longer we should expect to wait, the staff was goofing off and all on their phones. When it did finally show up, the order was wrong and the staff did not seem to care. After the first 3 days on the resort, my wife and I were down hundreds of dollar for what felt like the service you would receive at a McDonalds. From then on out, we ate and drank off of the property, where the food was less than half of the price and the service was great.
Speaking of going into town, the resort did not have any golf carts available to rent when we arrived and we ended up renting from a different company that a staff member called on his phone. This cart ended up being more money than the carts that Mahogany Bay rented but we came to find out that we could have rented a cart in town for about a tenth of the price that we paid. Had we known, we would have never bought anything on this resort because it ended up being marked up 200-500% for absolutely no reason.
On our second day we went to "The gem of Mahogany Bay Resort... the stunning, sandy-shored Beach Club." It turns out that this "Beach Club" is a single building on a underdeveloped man-made lagoon beach with the same level of service as the pool. On top of over-priced food and drinks, the beach had only a handful of beach chairs so unless you were on the first boat over, you were forced to sit on the ground. Sitting on the ground was very uncomfortable due to the sand fleas that would bite you constantly and would still bite you if you went into the water to relax. Mahogany Bay's website advertised that the Beach Club would have paddle boards available to rent but they had a total of 2 paddle boards for the entire club. Getting to and from the club was a crap shoot as well because the hourly boat could only fit 15 people and if you couldn't fit on one boat, you were stuck on the island for another whole hour. The Beach Club was a main reason why we picked this resort but after our first time going, we never returned.
Our best experiences for our honeymoon were when we left the resort for excursions or for lunch/dinner. We had a blast SCUBA diving and the excursions that were set up by the resort were great. However, whenever we returned to the resort all that we wanted to do was leave. We explored other hotels and their restaurants and were met with the quality and service that I expected from Mahogany Bay. Just across the street from the resort at Victoria House, we had an amazing dinner with a wait staff that treated us like valued guests, even though they knew that we were not staying at their resort.
If it was not for the fact that I used over 100,000 Hilton points to pay for half of our stay, we would have left Mahogany Bay after the first day to stay at one of these other resorts. We even paid extra for the honeymoon package but it did little to mask the overall awfulness of this resort. It unfortunately put a damper on our honeymoon experience and was far from what was advertised by Hilton. If you are looking for a wooden shack to stay in where you will be woken up by construction noises and have to take out a loan to pay for bad food and even worse service, then this is the "resort" for you. If you are looking for beach getaway in paradise, steer clear and I would recommend literally any other resort on San Pedro.
