This was 2 families' new year celebration trip in Sanya where we were looking forward to our stay in St Regis Sanya from 31 Dec 2023 - 2 Jan 2024. We booked 2 Marina View double rooms for the 2 nights stay. Check-in process was average, the staff didn't make their guests feel extremely welcome and just robotically checked-in per booking (unlike other highend resorts where we have experienced more personal check-in experience). As we were eager to find out what year-end activities were available at hotel so we can decide if we will reserve our NY eve dinner with St Regis (rather than venturing out of hotel), there were only 2 choices of year-end dinner options which were Chinese restaurant or year-end al fresco buffet dinner where we felt the only eagerness from check-in staff to sell the rather costly dinner at ~1200rmb/pax. We were also introduced to our butler (The only saving grace of this hotel), Kevin, and when we asked if there were usually any welcome drinks for guests at check-in, Kevin arranged for drinks for us. As we were relaxing in the lounge with our welcome drinks, overlooking the ocean from the lounge foyer, we saw the setup of the year-end dinner party and immediately felt relieved we made the decision to not book the dinner as the setting was rather tasteless.
Room was double bed for my family of 3 adults, so i had to share a bed with my sister, while my mum took one bed. We were never provided any option of adding extra bed (costs never advised for this option). We slept fine despite this. Bathroom was big and spacious but the shower head was leaking throughout the 2 nights stay despite feedback. Amenities in the room was made for 2 pax and had to be topped to 3 pax only upon requests, no initiation from hotel despite knowing the occupancy as 3 adults. I did check and confirm that the room was good for 3 pax occupancy, so expected 3 pax amenities made up daily.
NY eve dinner at Chinese restaurant was nice, tasty, what you would get in any decent Chinese restaurant. We were recommended to take up set meal offered on Wechat and added on ala carte dishes which worked out well for us 5 pax/2 families together.
After dinner, while strolling along the hotel compound out to the beachfront, we saw fireworks go off at the far end of the beach (out of St Regis compound) as we had been informed earlier in the day that fireworks application were rejected by the government on NY eve at St Regis. Bad luck for us.
We also decided to have a drink at the beachfront bar, where a year end music medley/music deejaying party (of course at a cost to hotel guests of ~500rmb/pax) was held for paying guests only. We somehow managed to find some seats out of the party zone where we could still order ala carte drinks. We ordered gin tonic (if i didn't remember wrongly, it was slightly less than 100rmb), we were served the drinks in plastic cups, photo shown. The presentation was worse than any cafes would have served their complimentary water in, let alone my expectation of a cocktail from a decent bar! I also include a photo of the gin tonic where we ordered from Hilton Haikou a few days later to show the contrast of the presentation of the same drink, not to mention the gin tonic at Hilton Haikou was also cheaper than St Regis's. We were accompanied by boring singer singing monotonous 70s and before songs. Even as the deejay tried to hype up the atmosphere, she was met with multiple power trips where we found out from staff the next day that it was due to the hotel's first attempt at holding a year end countdown party that explained the bad put-up of display of performances and unpreparedness.
As we put across all the disappointing experiences of day 1 of St Regis stay to our butler Kevin, he was patient and took in the feedback one-by-one and tried to rectify as much as he could in order to improve our experience with our stay. While he offered a room change for the faulty and leaky showerhead (which we rejected since we do not think much will change even with a view change to Ocean View), complimentary 2 sets of hi-tea for our whole group, complimentary transfers from CDF, we really appreciated all these extra miles he provided. The hi-tea was a total disappointment as we saw a grand display of more than 80% of overly sweet and rather tasteless desserts (again, not the usual hi-tea we would have experienced in other 5-star hotels where we will see a good mix of tasty savoury and sweet snacks/dishes). There was an overwhelmingly large quantity of sweet items, not to mention, 2 hot chocolates/2 ice chocolates which were totally tasteless. The worst was the green christmas tree cake where i bit into acryllic bits! I initially wanted to pass it off as eggshells, which was just as bad, but upon scrutiny, they were indeed acryllic pieces! I couldn't believe what I ate and immediately called the lounge manager to clarify what I just found. He also confirmed after looking into the pieces that they were indeed foreign material, not belonging to any cooking materials, where was found. As we spoke more with lounge manager, Dennis Ooi, we realised that the array of hi-tea was quite the local palettes where quantities and displays were kind of the priority in most hotel chains offering hi-tea in Yalong Bay (something all of us, where we come from South East Asia, as travelers who experienced other 5-star resorts cultures, cannot quite fathom). Dennis did assure us that he is working to try to turn this culture into a more international experience as much as his experience of working in other Marriott hotels bring to him but as he was also fairly new in the role, it will take time. In compensation, he and butler Kevin worked to provide complimentary meals for the rest of our stay in St Regis where we really appreciated.
Breakfast in St Regis again was one of HUGE spread of lacklustre dishes without any unique point in taste or much reflection of Hainan culture, except for Hainan noodles. Taste was average but nothing to rave or complain about. Again in one of the "green" sweet item where my group ate, another even bigger piece of acryllic found. We really wondered if there was issue with the same batch of green-like batter that had any mishandling that cause us to bite into similar acryllic material on 2 seperate occasions on 2 consecutive days. This was really unacceptable, again we had to feedback to butler Kevin (by sending the photo of the foreign acryllic material in the items eaten) to let him know this disappointing and harrowing experience, imagine the dire consequence if someone ingested the sharp end of the acryllic material and could potentially cause catastrophic results. Not to mention, our companion who bit into this material was over 80 years in age. Totally unimaginable.
By this time, it was no longer about any further compensation that could salvage our poor experience with this hotel, we really just wanted to make sure that hotel staff and management hear about these bad experiences time and again during the short 3 days span and work on improving the points one-by-one.
We were eventually mediated with butler Kevin by a discount of the hotel stay (we paid twice of the usual hotel rates due to the year end peak rates) and complimentary meals, except for the set meal where we were sold into ordering at the Chinese restaurant during NY eve. Other than that, we were left with no apology letter, no further words from hotel management on our constant feedback. One major reason we went with this hotel was the renowned hotel chain name, but to leave with such bitter tastes in our experience with St Regis Sanya Yalong Bay. There were other choices in Yalong Bay we could have chosen but our choice with St Regis left us feeling very uneventful and absolutely resolute that we will never return to another St Regid, even if the hotel management will be an entirely different team.
We also refuse to ruin our year end holiday by our stay with St Regis and went on to have more pleasant stays with Crowne Plaza Sanya City Center and Hilton Haikou where they may not be as prestigious in Hainan as compared to St Regis Sanya in name, and cost less of a fraction of what we spent in St Regis. Much much better in all aspects than St Regis Sanya in our opinions.
My personal opinion to anyone who will read this review is that if you are an international traveler and looking to find a nice resort in Sanya, please avoid St Regis for the time being, unless you are purely looking for just staying in the room and not stepping out, not ordering any food. I am really unsure if there will be any concrete actions where the hotel will take or any changes that butler Kevin, lounge manager Dennis can effect in the near term, you are better off some other resorts. The fact that I have spent this effort to write this long long review is my sincere wish to St Regis Sanya to improve. Hope St Regis can take time to review and fix all the problems where this group of travelers have pointed out so that you can benefit your future travelers with better services, rather than having more disgruntled customers going forward. All the best St Regis Sanya Yalong Bay.
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