"The hotel's 5 star rating appears unmet in my opinion.
I would like to start with some positives. All staff are polite and friendly; most of whom spoke adequate English so we were very fortunate. All presented very neatly and professionally.
The restaurant food was delicious. We ate at the hotel every night (so 7 times). Their snack bar food was also high quality and tasty.
The lobby was beautiful, there were many fresh plants dotted around the communal areas (pothos, snake plants, orchids). The grounds were also stunning and well maintained. Their small private beach had beautiful sea life - take goggles/snorkel and you will see many beautiful fish.
Now for the things that I felt, meant they are not deserving of 5 stars:
• PM meal 8-10pm only. Does not feel like much choice in when you want to dine - whilst I appreciate that this may be typical for Italian culture, the restaurant is full of many guests who are not Italian. I very much struggled with such a late dinner considering I go to sleep at 10pm and we were not interested in staying up late.
• Drinks and deserts were completely overpriced, it's like they coulsnt be bothered to figure out what they are worth. €20 for a basic cocktail, all deserts were €20 regardless. It's not value for money. The evening meals themselves felt appropriately priced between €28-38. Of course we arent rich and so are looking at the cost.
• The 'shuttle' the hotel provides to Porto Cervo is woefully underwhelming. It only does 4 trips a day, meaning you have to stay there for prolonged times, and the last shuttle back is around 6pm meaning you have to pay for a taxi back to the hotel if you want to eat there. Furthermore you have to tell them you want the shuttle in advance, they don't just run.
• Taxis were overpriced in my opinion, the local taxi drivers must think everyone is loaded.
• Taxi provided on one occasion by concierge was not as agreed. Advised €50 to Baia Sardinia, when we got there, the driver apparently spoke no English whatsoever (yeah right) and wanted €60!
• When giving negative feedback to staff (about the taxi discrepancy and a hair found in the food on one occasion) they were not very bothered, made a quick apology and did not seem to make any gesture to feed this back for future or make it right.
• Same pianist every night as the bar entertainment. Repeating the same songs. I don't mean to offend him but he wasn't the best (still better than me), and was singing words that dont exist to English songs. I expected better from a 5 star hotel, or at least some variation in performers.
• Hotel feels that they need 2 (there may have been more) St.Barth brand name shops to sell swanky designer stuff - but when I wanted to buy some basics like bottled water, bite relief cream etc... they don't have any shop for basic sundries. You have to go all the way to Porto Cervo for this.
• Their private beach area felt a bit run down, ground uneven and beds looked/felt dilapidated.
• The same 4 or 5 boat/ship paintings were spammed throughput the room and the communal areas - it was hilarious!
• Rooms were adequate but nowhere near 5 stars for the following reasons (see photos also)
-air con was noisy making banging noise.
-most of the wall fixtures were wonky.
-many areas of the room were poorly finished and not giving off a 5 star luxury vibe.
-toilet flush far too powerful and splashes water out.
-sink plug was poorly positioned/installed and drained too slowly.
-toilet seat looked damaged (possibly over cleaning/scrubbing).
-shower door/seal was janky and had a poor finish.
-paintwork on the door was damaged.
-plug sockets were mostly useless - again I appreciate they are perfectly fit for purpose for Italian plugs, however hotels have many foreign guests who will be using adapters. The switches were right next to the plug inserts and so when using and adapter you could not plug it in all the way. Get some better sockets.
-cleaners sounded like they were smashing the furniture in the room next to us (how dare I have a nap during the day?) So seemingly give no consideration to the peace of guests.
-rooms are not sound proof at all, can hear cleaners, guests in adjoining room, and most annoyingly, the pianist who was playing (i think) until midnight every night.
-towels did not smell clean/nice - set we had on checking in smelled like fried food, set we were given half way through our stay when we allowed a room clean smelled like some weird solvent smell.
-one of the chairs in the room had questionable stains on it, thought it was quite shocking that this was left for a guest to see.
-toilet roll holder was awful, ot pressed too hard on the roll not allowed easy pulling off of the roll, and was positioned in an awkward position behind to the side.
-toilet roll was awful quality. I checked and it was 2 ply - I wouldn't even buy that at home - not luxury at all.
-rooms were dim and dingy, if you wanted the curtains shut for privacy (as people in the gardens can see in), even with all the lights on it was awfully dim, no where near bright wrought for applying make up in the mirror there. I'm all for romantic mood lighting but there still needs to be bright light as well.
-glass left in the bathroom was chipped on the rim. When they came to clean the room midway through our stay, they cleaned the glass (not sure how) nd left the same one, as the same chip remained - no attention to detail.
-toilet flushing mechanism kept sticking.
-when we allowed for cleaners, we left for the day and left our air con off. When we returned, they had turned it on - which was not appreciated. We turned it off as we wanted it off.
The hotel placement is isolated, there is no pavement much of the way to Porto Cervo with winding, steep roads, I didn't feel it was really walkable in any leisurely fashion. You are a captive audience unless you have a vehicle, or have unlimited funds to pay through the nose for taxis. There are not that many interesting excursions, all seem to be boat trips or visiting towns, and all are super expensive.
To give context to my review, my partner and I are 'comfortable' financially, but we are not rich.
Additionally, we googled what a 5 star rating is typically based on and have attached an image of this to show why we are making comments on these areas.
In summary - Not a great place to stay unless you are 'rich'. If you are rich, I don't think the 5 stars is warranted and so you may be disappointed.
We still managed to enjoy ourselves but it was hard work and expensive. We would not come back to this hotel."
