"A huge disappointment!
The owners mislead clients into thinking they offer a 5* service (the guest house comes up as Maison d'hotes prestige 5* on search engines)
Don't be fooled, the 5* service is non existent.
Our room (Gouverneur) was spacious but lacked personality, cleaning is not thorough, large cobwebs and a spider, as well as dirt found behind the curtains, and remained throughout our stay (5 nights). There was discarded paper on our sofa, which I ended up throwing in the bin myself.
There was 1 small bottle of shampoo and shower gel for two people, we had to ask for more on the morning of day 3. There is no vanity set. They have installed a wall-mounted make-up mirror, nice but, as the lighting has been badly thought, you can't use it...
The room is equipped with a basic white plastic kettle and only herbal teas are provided, no proper tea... and no coffee machine.
It was confirmed over the phone that the balcony was facing the garden, this wasn’t quite the case, as it overlooked the car park/garage entrance with a glimpse of the garden in the background. I was also told there was a secure garage, which is true except there isn’t enough space to park the cars of all residents staying, and you end up having to park in the outside car park, which is okay but why not be honest about it.
Breakfast: the breakfast is decent but be prepared to wait (like with everything else at this hotel). The pastries are not from an artisan patisserie. You have to wait between 20min to half an hour for a couple of fried eggs. There is a clear lack of staff, when suggested I was told that it was due to Covid... We'd been touring the country for over two weeks and this is the only place where we encountered this problem...
The service is sub-standard, it takes ages to be served, ages for the tables to be cleared, and as a result turtledove birds help themselves on the bread and pastries left out.
The swimming pool is nicely landscaped with mature palm trees, bamboos, banana trees and other plants, unfortunately this is wasted with what should be a palm leaf covered parasol, which has been left with a bare metal structure and some areas look unfinished. The pool is left unattended, towels remain on unoccupied beach beds for hours to end, and the water was sometimes dirty, we wanted to stay at the pool for a bit on our last day, but the water was actually disgusting, some other clients had removed a full bucket of leaves themselves and shared their disappointment with us. No one asks if you want drinks, which one would think would not only be a nice thing to do but would also boost income, but no...
Icing on the cake, on Monday late afternoon we came back to the hotel and headed to the pool, I then noticed that the bar was closing, so I went up and enquired to be told by the owner that Monday is her day off!!!! I beg your pardon?!!! I mean we are in peak season, you run a hotel, with guests who pay €550 a night and you take a day off?! We were beside ourselves! They didn't even think of letting us know that in the morning.
The last day we asked for our bill, they gave us the dry cleaning (2 shirts and ironing for a few items) for free.
I was somehow looking forward to the checkout to share our feedback with the owners, again I guess my expectations were too high as she didn't even bother to ask us how our stay was!!!! I hope they read the reviews, but I doubt it given the lack of interest they show in their clients and the little care they take in their own business.
Well, I could go on with other little details, but I think you get the gist! Go to the Carlton, at least the service is impeccable, it costs the same and the location is perfect! The reason we picked this one over the Carlton was because of the pool and we bitterly regretted it."
