Our stay at the Sheraton Haitang Bay was unfortunately one of the worst experiences we have had in 10 years of visiting Sanya. I will preface this by saying that the room was fantastic and the pools and facilities are pretty good, but the experience of actually staying there was really not good. We are actually still in the middle of this week long holiday but have left the Sheraton early and cancelled the remainder of the booking, we’ve moved to the exceptional Shangri-la next door. This is going to be long below, if you don’t want to read it all the summary is simply to not choose this hotel, go next door as it is so much better.
The problems started before even leaving home. I had heard very little about the booking apart from the confirmation and hadn’t received any confirmation of the ‘free shuttle’ included in our package that we had already requested online through the booking website. I called the hotel and the person answering didn’t speak English, I was passed to someone that did and told that we did have a reservation for the free shuttle but only for 1 person. Our booking was for two adults and two children! I requested having all of us on that reservation and was told they would see what they could do, eventually I got a call back confirming it and instructions to go to the SPG lounge at the airport arrivals. Once we actually arrived at the airport at Sanya we soon found that there is no SPG lounge at arrivals, I asked staff at the airport and others and no one knew what I was talking about. I decided to call the Sheraton to check and yet again the person answering the phone couldn’t speak English. I was passed to someone else who was also unhelpful before finally being passed on again. This person did not seem to understand we were at the international terminal and not the domestic, he suggested I walk to domestic (with two kids and all our luggage). Then after a couple of minutes he changed his mind and said I should go to the bus park, he could not direct me to it though and there were no signs for a bus park. I asked more people around and no one knew. The guy on the phone eventually asked if I had WeChat on my phone so he can send me a picture. I don’t have WeChat so decided after 20 minutes of walking around in the heat to give up on the free shuttle and just get a taxi at our own expense. A little annoyed we arrived at the hotel.
The next problems came at check-in. First having spoken to 3 of their staff just before arriving I expected at least an acknowledgement of the screw up or an apology for the shuttle problems. But nothing. They didn’t even know about it at the desk when I asked. We had booked a family package that was supposed to include a number of things. The people on the desk appeared not to know this and didn’t mention anything about these things. I raised it as it was supposed to include a free evening meal. The woman behind the desk seemed confused and I had to show her the package details I had printed. She then fetched a voucher for the meal. We did not receive the supposed ‘Children’s Check-in’ or the ‘Children’s star card’, so I have no idea what they were on the package. I asked about the children’s activities included and got a blank look. We were tired and a bit grumpy already so just decided to go to the room. The room itself was a 2 bedroom family suite which was really nice, as mentioned at the top. The only issue with the room was that the safe was already locked. I figured that wouldn’t be a problem to fix so tried to call reception. The phone rang… and rang … and rang. I tried a few times but nothing. I decided to just go and ask myself in person after breakfast in the morning.
The first morning when we woke up we went to breakfast early to avoid the free-for-all that happens around 9:00am due to Sheraton stuffing the hotel with really cheap package groups and deals. It was ok. I went to the desk to get the safe fixed and experienced, for the first time, staff running away and hiding out of view so they didn’t have to speak English when they saw me approach. Not a good thing for Sheraton’s 5 star resort staff to do. We went for a swim after this and after finding one of the extremely dirty and grubby loungers to sit on (seriously they need cleaning) I noticed that no one had any towels. I went to the towel kiosk and he just shrugged, no English spoken. Looking around people were bringing down bath towels from their rooms, that seemed a little odd for a 5 star resort. Eventually another man turned up with a bin full of towels (I assume clean) and everyone just dug in to grab them. After our swim we returned to the room and there was a knock at the door. The staff member had a piece of paper with signatures and waved it at me while talking in Chinese. I have no idea what this was about and eventually after realising I didn’t understand she left. About 20 minutes later there was another knock on the door and this time I got more clipboard waving and Chinese but this time with an envelope. I took it and opened it, inside was some sort of coupon for something with a letter. I have no idea what it was for or what the letter said as it was all in Chinese.
We decided to go to the children’s play room, which again is really nice. The staff didn’t speak any English so it took about 10 minutes to communicate through phone translation apps to order a couple of drinks and another 10 to explain we wanted to put the charge on the room (plus another staff member). We wanted to ask about children's activity booking as well for the next day but there was no chance of being able to communicate this. We ate dinner in the Feast restaurant. It advertises a buffet, I can only assume this was not on as the restaurant was completely empty with only a few bits of salad on the side. We ate the rather limited a la carte menu. It was overpriced and uninspiring.
The next day around the pool we really did notice the differences to the other 5 star resorts we’ve stayed in in Sanya before. No staff seemed to engage with guests, no one came to chat or play with the children like they do at the Shangri-la. Just staff standing chatting to each other or silently sitting all day. There doesn’t appear to be any poolside food or drinks available at this hotel. We decided to swim to the pool bar as someone had been standing there all day with no customers. He seemed a little confused at the idea of customers but eventually was able to bring in a few ice creams from somewhere else, some spring rolls that looked like they had been in a traffic accident and Parmesan fries with truffle (it was just a normal bucket of fries). Again, zero English spoken by staff.
For dinner we made the mistake of trying the take out option as the kids were tired and we were already at the play room again. I pointed to the big ‘take out’ board outside the restaurant. The waitress just shrugged. She didn’t speak any English but in the end showed me the room service menu and pointed out the door and gestured a phone call. I understood this to say to call room service. This was at 8:00pm. I went up to the room and tried to do just that. However I had the same phone experience. It rang … and rang … and went silent and I waited …. and tried again a few more times. It was at this point I figured the phone wasn’t working as this was all that seemed to happen when we tried to use it. I took another walk down to reception and informed them the phone was faulty and that we wanted to order room service. Yet again I saw the staff on my approach look, poke each other, giggle and then hide behind the partition leaving only one person to talk to me. This is a bit rude. The man behind the desk sent an engineer after about 20 minutes to fix the phone so we could finally order dinner. It turns out the phone wasn’t broken at all, it’s just that no one was picking up the calls for reception or room service. Finally by about 8:45 we managed to get through to room service to order …… but….. no one there spoke any English so couldn’t take our order. I realise this hotel is in China but this is supposed to be a 5 star Sheraton that advertises fully in English on it’s website, yet no staff can speak it. The front desk said they would send someone to the room who speaks English to take the order. They came after about another 20 minutes. It was now about 9:20pm having tried to order this from 8:00. The guy took the order and went away. After about 15 minutes a knock on the door and he was back again, having forgotten the order. We told him again and then an even longer wait. At a bit after 10:00pm the food finally arrived. For some reason he didn’t wheel the table in as tends to happen in 5 star hotels, he just brought in a tray and put it on the side in front of the TV. So we enjoyed our dinner sat in bed, 5 Star!
We decided at this point that trying to do anything at this hotel was going to be a real struggle due to the poor customer service, badly trained or motivated staff and the language issues. We have been to Sanya at least once a year for 10 years and have never experienced this is any hotel we have stayed in (we have stayed in most of the big ones in Yalong Bay and Haitang Bay before). We made the decision that in the morning we would explain the problems to the manager and ask to check out of the hotel early and move to a better one. We are on this holiday for a week and we want to enjoy it, not for it to be a constant struggle to do anything. Thankfully this was accepted (as well as the issues we complained about) by the acting manager. He informed us that all other management are away on business trips so the front desk manager is running the entire hotel. I can understand why this hotel has so many problems if the management are neither very present or engaged. I am not surprised the restaurants are all empty (apart from the breakfast crush) and that there is no atmosphere or buzz about the resort, it just seems poorly managed. This is not the fault of the front desk manager standing in, this poor management clearly comes from the top.
My recommendation is to choose any of the other excellent 5 star resorts in Sanya as many are outstanding. We have moved to the Shangri-la, the moment you walk through the door it is night and day difference. Staff are smiling and warm and nice with the children. Everyone greets you and chats, it’s how a 5 star resort should be. The Sheraton Haitang Bay is not a 5 star resort, no way near. The facilities are great but that is it. The service is bad and it is not geared up to accept international travellers at all, avoid it.
