We stayed here for two nights at the end of September. The resort is beautiful. Grand lobby, spacious room, beautiful beach, etc. I definitely would give the facility a 5-star rating, however, its service quality definitely requires improvement. Here I name a few:

1) We were told that the hotel provides free airport shuttle. The odd thing is that you can not book it more than a day advance. It HAS TO be 24 hours prior to the day of service. That's not necessary but they followed this rule seriously. That's just not convenient while our schedule was hectic already.

2) Check-in was ridiculously slow. There was only one lady at the front desk and there was like 5 groups before me. The lady really took her sweet time scanning passports, filling out paper after paper. Mind you, the hotel lobby didn't have AC and the temperature was over 90F. I was sweating like crazy. I was in the line for like 30 mins and then it took another easily 20 mins when it was finally my turn. I also had to exchange some USD to CNY. Gosh, I regret doing so because I didn't realize she had to handwrite all the serial numbers down and yet, it was paperwork after paperwork.

3) Room cleaning was also very slow and way behind schedule. We waited til like almost 3pm the next day and still no one came. After a few trips to the beach, we ran out of towels and our room got sandy. We finally had to call someone up and demanded service.

4) My 5-year old daughter was playing at one of the pools where they had all these blown up big floaties. They were super slippery and she slipped down one of them and was trapped under the floaty (which is like 10 ft x 8 ft ish). She managed to get out of it and was trapped behind it, where my husband couldn't see. She was crying hysterically and screaming for help. Two hotel employees (they may not be life guards but they are definitely hotel staff) were right next to her while my husband was on the other side of the pool. He screamed for their help since they were closer and could get to her much quicker. Both my husband and my daughter couldn't speak Chinese, however, seeing such a scene, language barrier shouldn't be a problem here. A Chinese couple next to us also had their boy trapped under the floaty and were trying to get help from these two hotel staff. To our very disappointment, these two guys ignored it completely and rather being entertained. When both kids were pulled out by my husband and the Chinese couple, my husband lost his cool and demanded a manager right away. It took them a while to finally agree to get the manager over. The manager apologized profoundly and offered to cover medical bill should it happen. He called back later that evening to check on my daughter and mentioned that the two staff on site were disciplined and they had made modifications to those floaties to ensure safety. They also delivered fruit basket and a stuffy bear to our room. Luckily my daughter was doing fine besides being scared. We were very disappointed with the pool staff but we appreciated the way the manager handled it.

4) We witnessed many times Chinese tourists letting their young children go potty on the beach in public. I am not sure if that's cultural accepted but at a 5-star resort, I don't think that should be allowed.

5) We appreciate having the toilet in a separate room from the tub/shower room. However, soap should be also provided by the sink in the toilet room. Common sense?

6) We visited the noodle restaurant a few times and my daughter had fun watching them making noodles. Service once again was very slow there. They offered children plastic ware, but the plastic spoon tip was like chewed up and it was fuzzy looking. My daughter didn't want to use it at all. One male waiter, (maybe manager?), was super helpful and knew how to hassle. The rest of the waitresses were just slow and seemed lost most of the time.

7) The indoor kid's playground was cute and offered quite a few options. They required adults wear socks, which is a neat policy. However, I saw an older guy walking around without socks. A few grandmothers with their toddler grandchildren eating on the mats. There were a few wet spots on the mat and I feared it was pee since we had seen more than once how Chinese parents just let their babies go wherever they needed to.

We had a 2-bedroom suite, spacious, new, with everything. One room is particularly fit for children with very cute wallpapers, beddings, many dolls, very beautiful dolphin ceiling light. There is a big balcony for the room. Views good too, down there is bush with swimming pool. The pools are of great fun.

It's understaff. Things requested from room came very late and after a several urges. But in general, staff are polite and I could see they had tried the best already. It's just a matter for the management to train them up more.

As you can expect, the buffet breakfast is very crowded and noisy (it's CHINA!!). Staff had already tried their best to clear dishes up.

Choice of restaurants is rather limited. We dined at the sister hotel Belgonia next to it.

I chose it because it had 2-bedroom. Otherwise I think there are other better choices. It's far from airport (over 1 hr) and taxi driver in China didn't give us an honest and reliable feeling. The driver sending us to this hotel refused to use meter but a price agreed. We had no choice as we arrived late at airport around 9:30pm at the dark. There is free shuttle bus from and to airport and duty-free mall though.

Spent 3 nights in this nice holiday resort with nice beach, however, the management and service was obviously out of date:

1. I was told at check in that as the room was booked by travel agency, the loyalty points could not be registered in my loyalty program. However, I would like to ask the hotel policy maker, how much % of business conference guests stay in this hotel ? Do they all book rooms via your hotel website ? As most of business guests book hotels via their corporate travel agencies, your policy would only make them to choose their conference hotel which can contribute to their loylty program!

2. The room is very large and well designed. However moisture is so high in the room and you couldn't sleep well despite you keep all windows shut and air conditioner on all day. I asked to replace quilt with a dry one and even called in a dehumidifier! It is still the same with the new replaced quilt feeling soaked.

3. The shuttle bus driver who sent us to Sanya airport (dept at 11am, 29July 2017) was terrible! He shouted to us when he was told that we would like to go to international terminal right after domestic terminal stop. He wanted us to walk from Domestic to International terminal as it would make him turning another round inside the airport.

4. I intended to make this remark on their Starwood hotel website, however, you couldn't! They keep asking your SPG login pwd, hotel booking #, reject your submission, reset your pwd, etc BEFORE you can write a single word. Do they really want to hear you? Do they really care about their customers ? This is a classic example in MBA cases.