Reviewsby W.
Google
The grounds at Almanity are genuinely beautiful. The pool is huge, spotless, and never crowded. The landscaping is lush, the koi pond is lovely, and the property feels very safe with visible security. The breakfast buffet is also very large and offers an impressive selection of dishes. The staff were all friendly, helpful, and kind. If this hotel were rated purely on its exterior spaces and breakfast offerings, it would score much higher.
Unfortunately, everything beyond the public areas feels like an afterthought and some issues are absolutely unacceptable.
This is the kind of hotel that pours all its energy into picture-ready marketing and none into the actual guest experience. The rooms look fine at first glance, but as soon as you look closer, they’re only surface-level clean. The towels are old, thin, frayed, and scratchy. You get one tiny bar of soap for your entire stay — no hand soap, no basic toiletries — and no coffee or tea in the room whatsoever. You must go to the lobby for it.
There are six separate signs in the room about “stealing” items, including a price list for everything from pillows to one of their wooden QR-code rule signs. There are also warnings on the bed about staining the sheets and being charged for it. Instead of feeling welcomed, you feel monitored.
There are also multiple signs about reusing towels.
Eco-friendly towel reuse would be admirable if it weren’t contradicted by obvious cost-cutting everywhere else. The water situation is especially odd: instead of providing bottled water (in a country where the tap water is unsafe to drink), they give you two refillable glass bottles and a sign stating you’ll be charged if you want more. It feels cheap, not eco-friendly.
The in-room “welcome jars” of dried fruit and nuts are also puzzling. They are clearly reused grocery-store jars with the old label glue still on them. (See photos.) For a hotel marketing itself as higher-end, this is unhygienic and amateurish. What was in them previously? Were they sterilized? Gross.
The rooftop “Jacuzzi” is not a Jacuzzi — it’s a jetted tub (though it is big enough for two) that you must manually fill, and a sign warns it will take at least 40 minutes. (Which it does.) There is also no elevator to the third floor, which is worth noting if mobility is a concern. Again, I can’t name a single “5-star luxury hotel” where I have to haul my luggage up flights of stairs.
Finally, the hotel posts (and verbally repeats at check-in) a rule forbidding guests from bringing any outside food or drink onto the property. We literally had to sneak a pizza in under an umbrella to avoid being stopped. There are rules posted on the walls everywhere in the lobby as if this were a Holiday Inn at Daytona Beach during spring break. (Again, see photos.)
Almanity has gorgeous grounds, a great pool, and a large breakfast buffet. But the rooms, amenities, and overall guest experience fall far below the standard they advertise. With investment in basic room quality and a shift away from constant warnings and upcharges, this could be a genuinely lovely hotel. As it stands, it feels more like a photo-op resort than a comfortable, guest-focused place to stay.
Not terrible — but nowhere near the luxury or five-star experience it claims to be. Would not stay again.
