Scott & S.
Google
Location - this is Ocean Points ace card, the placement on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, Maho beach and the airport runway is incredible. Walking over to the famous Maho Beach to stand under the landing planes or get a free sand-dermabrasion from the jet wash is a wild experience. Of course if you don’t like planes and are annoyed with the regular daily noise of them coming and going (and the exhaust fumes that go with them) then this is not the place for you if you’re looking for peace and quiet.
Atmosphere - this is an interesting one, some days it felt chill and relaxing, it was quiet at the edge pool with nice calm music playing on the (very cool) rock speakers, but then other days whoever chose the music wanted it loud with a Miami Beach club vibe. Just wasn’t consistent. Also the potential is there to end up with large groups of drunken convention goers showing up and taking over the pool since OP hosts business events.
Cleanliness - this was a mixed bag, the room was done well when made-up daily (we even got turndown service one evening for some reason!), the restaurants were nice but the rest of the common areas were a little beat-up, dirty and falling apart. I saw general cleaning happening but it was sparse. I get it, the location next to the ocean makes the hotel more like an ocean-going ship since its constantly pounded by the salty ocean, wind and rain, so staying on top of cleaning, painting and repairs is a constant chore for sure. Speaking of painting, when repaints have been done in the past everything was just painted around… so all the light switches, fan grilles, lighting fixtures etc had paint all over them giving it the feel of a low-rent apartment building. Poor attention to detail for a 5-star resort.
Service - the employees are OP’s other strong point. We met so many awesome people at the bars and restaurants in the week we were there… Jean (12 kids?!), Jaymari (the stories!) Dawn, Kalia, Jayniah, Sidia, Sofie, Ru, Bernard the GM, Jacque (he kept the drinks coming at Azul!) and of course the sassy Maddy Baddy kept us laughing at Azul and the amazing Azul host Fantacia was the sweetest of them all!
Food - and finally the food… first off I will say most of the meals were great, only a few misses here and there. Alcohol selection was just ok, not much in the way of beer unfortunately, and nicer wines had to be paid for. But I get it, the Caribbean is rum world. The problem we ran into was gluten. My husband has Celiac disease so we have to be careful with eating out. This is not a fad diet choice, it’s a serious illness. We saw prior to booking that the menu’s at OP always had some GF options on them, so that was encouraging. However once there, it didn’t seem gluten and Celiac disease were truly understood. Some of the menu items marked GF (menu said gluten-free, not gluten-friendly like some restaurants do) were not actually GF, we had to ask almost every time for the servers to confirm with the kitchen what was in various sauces, how things were fried or if anything was prepared on common surfaces. Even with trying to be careful my husband felt unwell 3 days in and had to spend a day in bed. After feeling a little better (being glutened can take days to recover from) we had more meals and he seemed to get glutened again and again. On the last day we were there, he was throwing up only a couple hours before heading for the airport. He was able to make it home on the plane without incident but then once home he became sicker, with regular vomiting and diarrhea. This was not norovirus or food poisoning as no one else in our group got sick in any way (we all ate the same things and spent a lot of time in close quarters). It’s unfortunate our vacation ended like this as it really was a wonderful place and a welcome escape from the rough Canadian winter this year.