The short version:
Restaurants are awesome! Both Sunsets and Acqua Pazza. The resort? DO NOT STAY HERE. RUN TO LITERALLY ANY OTHER RESORT ON THE ISLAND.
The long version:
Restaurants
-Acqua Pazza- Good. lovely service, fantastic seafood Italian combinations. We had the Caesar salad (done perfectly!), Grouper Acqua Pazza, and the Conch Cappellini. All were cooked well and tasted great. We happened to be the first seating in the patio area, so we were seated in the corner, Due to the spacing of being next to the wall, it shielded the breeze that seemed to hit the rest of the patio. We became quite hot by the end of the meal. We would recommend not sitting up against the wall. Otherwise, bring an appetite and enjoy!
-Sunsets- Great. a quick beachy-bar, who has the “fry” down perfectly! Perfect grouper fingers, cracked conch, conch fritters, fries, etc. A great beach bar after a long day in the sun; we highly recommend the happy hour! Good prices and portions. Luther gives great service with a smile! We chatted with the chef (she was lovely!) and the beverage manager- and complimented their food and service. The chef cooked up a pile of reef fish we brought in and were able to share with some other tables around us. The friendly service, beautiful views, and quality casual food at Sunsets was our favorite part about Romora Bay.
Accommodations
Service: Good. Room service was polite, kind, and helpful.
Front Office: Only one of the three women we interacted with were friendly and helpful on a consistent basis.
Room: Poor. Do not stay here. Multiple cockroach sightings (one on the bathroom floor, one that landed on the FACE of someone in our party at night, and another one in the BED.) The bed itself appeared clean and was quite comfortable. However after the cockroach it was near impossible to be comfortable and sleep in the room. When brought to the attention of Romora Bay, they did immediately have someone come to spray the room which we appreciated. However it is not a surprise of the cockroach “visitors” due to the poor sealing of the door between the outdoor shower and the bathroom, as well as the poor seal of the main door to the room. We simply rolled up towels and placed them in the crack for piece of mind for the remainder of our stay.
Organization: Poor. In booking our 6 day vacation from the US within a month of when we were to travel, not many rooms were available. Romora Bay offered us a very slightly discounted rate if we were willing to change rooms during our stay, which was nice. Specifically, we were told that we would be staying in one room for 3 nights, then switching the following two nights. Upon arrival, the person at the front desk did not have any idea what we were talking about when we asked about if there was still a need to switch rooms. She did indicate that she saw we were booked for 4 nights. I inquired multiple times (once in person, once over the phone) if I could confirm the rest of our stay for the remaining nights. This was not confirmed but rather ignored. I chose not to worry about it since I had it in writing which days we were booked at Romora Bay. Additionally, we were told that a golf-cart would be waiting for us on arrival. The front desk had no record of this and took over an hour to find us a cart while we waited to go to the beach.
We inquired again about the need to switch rooms later during our trip, on day 5 (of 6) in the morning, and were told that we would need to move rooms. We were leaving to go out on a boat trip for the day in about 20 minutes, so we inquired if we could pack and move rooms when we got back around 2 pm. We were told that we needed to pack before we went, and the person at the front desk offered to move our luggage for us to our new room. We left on our boating trip. Upon arrival back at Romora Bay later that afternoon, one member of our party went to the office to inquire about which room we were moved to. We were told that there was a booking issue, and they had (as in past-tense) to book us a room at another hotel for our final night. WHAT? We had them explain it again and were told that they took care of it, “free of charge” and they “rebooked us at Royal Palm.” 1.) Our consent was not sought prior to booking us a room at another hotel 2.) We were not given a choice of where we would book 3.) Royal Palm was rated as a 2 star hotel (Romora Bay was rated at a 4 star hotel- mind you we’re not sure how it was 4 star- but nonetheless Romora Bay took the liberty of booking us at a much lesser value and quality hotel.) WHAT? After a day in the sun and having yet to eat lunch, we went along with this scheme because we didn’t see another option and frankly didn’t have the energy to deal with it. Romora Bay did agree to waive our restaurant bill from the week due to the inconvenience and the cockroach landing on the face of someone in our party, which we appreciated.
Romora Bay took us via golf cart (a lovely woman drove us there) and we went into a room that we were told “was nice, and clean, that {the office manage} saw herself.” It was like a jail cell. Though it was recently renovated, the window was the size of a small bathroom window, the air conditioning was broken (after an hour of trying to get it to work while we went to grab a bite to eat), but most importantly, the door to the ground-level motel room was almost an entire inch off of the floor to the outside street area. Hello cockroaches and any other critter that wants to come on in! No Freaking Way. (We will note that the lovely man at this 2 star hotel did attempt to find us a different room with a working air conditioner, but after all that we have been through, we declined.) How on earth, can a 4 star hotel, who isn’t organized, screwed up their booking, can DOWNGRADE paying customers with a BOOKED trip to a crappy motel without their consent? Are you serious?
At this point, we called around to other hotels on the island on our own. We found one room at Coral Sands that was available. It was priced approximately $100 more/night than Romora Bay. We called Romora Bay back and told them that their chosen Royal Palms is unacceptable for the above identified reasons. Their response? “But we already paid for your room at Royal Palms.” After some back and forth, Romora Bay finally agreed to cover the cost of our last night at the Coral Bay hotel. We wish we stayed at Coral Bay the entire time.
