The Carribean all-inclusive hotel is a difficult animal to size up; at least as far as objective commentary on quality of service goes. And many fans of this site probably won't care one way or the other how The Royal Hideaway stacks up since they would never spend hard earned dollars and vacation days at any all-inclusive beach resort resort. I can appreciate that. You take something as natural and relaxing as a white sand Carribean beach and you surround it with fake bamboo tiki bars and fake marble waterfalls and fake happy local people and it can be a tough pill to swallow. The view from the infinite pool spoils really quickly should you let yourself wonder how much those fake happy local people are paid in comparison with the board of whatever private equity firm back in the USA that no doubt owns the place.
And once you accept that economic and political reality, there oh so many factors that will determine how good a time you have beyond the competence and training of the staff. Just read Tripadvisor. You'll hear about the weather, the food, the insects, the towels. Did you get your drink delivered promptly? Did the electricity go out? Was something nearby under construction that ruined the fake exotic view of the gardens and pools? These resorts promise so much luxury and oasisness that they almost always come up short in delivering the principal thing that people visiting them are interested in: tranquility. And as a result you may well get your thoughtful moist towel upon arrival and other random bits of fake white glove service, but you will be unable to find a quiet place to read a book the whole time you're there.
These types of places tend to disappoint largely because the premise doesn't work in the first place. The unspoiled tropics are one thing and a golf course is something else. You can't gate off some portion of some island, develop it to the standards that most Americans would take for granted, and not sacrifice the serenity of the location. Fine, it's a tradeoff. I love the beach and I love hikes through jungles to find remote ones. But I also love plumbing and electricity and any destination is easier to talk my wife into if she can get a massage when we get there. The problems arise when these places double down on the glitz and crappy pampering and end up tuning a day at the beach into a cheaply choreographed paradox in which local fresh fruit and fish are replaced on the menu with hamburgers of questionable origin.
So yeah, I'm skeptical about places like this and I understand why a lot of people don't go.
But all of that said, if there can be a balance between remote, peaceful relaxation and modest, first world amenities, The Royal Hideaway achieves it. While developed, the development is understated and, with a few exceptions of fake grandness (the chandeliers in front office come to mind) the overall gaudiness level is pretty low. And for the baseline quality of the hotel, the Michelin rated restaurants and top shelf liquor go a long way to distance TRH from the typical vacation in a box.
As for the service, for all of the above reasons it's really tough to rate. The enormous economic disparity between staff and guests really should lead either to open resentment and hostility or sticky, stifling eagerness to please; neither of which, of course, does much to create a pleasant atmosphere. But here again TRH manages to find the right balance. Nearly every server was approachable and friendly and did a very fine job of ensuring that food and drinks were delivered as ordered in due course. They appeared to take care in managing the presentation of meals with an appropriate sense of circumstances, which is to say that while chips, guacamole and beer arrived in the afternoon by the beach with casual good cheer and little fanfare, the Las Ventanas restaurant was manned with service you'd expect from a Five Diamond spot. It strikes me as difficult to cram a wide range of different attitudes and standards of service into a little hotel and TRH does so admirably.
Less satisfying was the staff that held what seemed like more senior positions. The concierges tend to overplay their roles by a mile, transforming what should be a very quick response to "which way to the pool?" into an extended lecture about whatever seems to come to mind in an apparent effort to showcase their ability with English. Paired with far-too-large smiles, their slightly smug lectures did nothing for my sense of enjoying what the resort had to offer and everything to do with simply avoiding interacting with them at all costs. What's worse, the task they're most obviously on hand to perform is to schedule dinner reservations, and without fail the only times to eat would be somewhere after 9pm; the concierge's obsequious nannying notwithstanding.
And if the concierge puts you off, don't even think about approaching the guys in the main office for any reason. These cats, in their psuedo-military hotel official outfits are astonishingly important and their sneers speak for themselves. We unfortunately decided to borrow a DVD from the front desk one evening and frigidness of the reception we received was staggering. The only comparison that fits the self-image of these few self-righteous pricks is that of the caddymaster at the elite country club who lives his life cowtowing to people he can't stand and takes it out on the kids he bosses around. Something tells me there's a high roller persona that might put these guys back on their heels from time to time and I'm simply not it.
So there's the problem. All in all, the service beat expectations and, within the bizarro world of the Carribean all-inclusive this place shines. But you have to wonder whether that front desk wannabe snob is actually giving you a far more honest perspective on how the staff as a whole feels about its guests than the bartender casually pouring the drinks at the pool. The answer is obvious, but you kid yourself about the resort being something other than an exploitation of a third world natural resource so it's not hard to kid yourself about that too. Either way, from a hospitality perspective they do a fine job and the more I analyze the more I'm uncomfortable passing judgment anyway.
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