Caresse A Luxury Collection Resort and Spa

it is amazing yet so peaceful the food is wonderful and the staff are great the whole experience provides such an amazing vibe

Beautiful property, shockingly poor service and management Not an 5 star experience. Unfortunately, this was the worst luxury hotel experience I have had, and certainly the worst I have experienced at a Marriott property. The resort itself is beautiful, which makes the level of service even more disappointing.

This was not about one mistake. Over the course of our stay, we experienced a remarkable series of issues:

• What appeared to be mold/mildew or moisture damage in our shower, which we reported and photographed.
• An entrée at Buddha-Bar that never arrived; after approximately 40 minutes, we were told it had been delivered to another table.
• Consistently slow pool service, where basic things like water, menus, towels and utensils often required multiple requests.
• A complimentary in-room dining/breakfast gesture offered by management because of the existing problems took well over an hour to arrive, and multiple items were missing or incorrect. The hotel acknowledged this in writing.
• On Thursday morning, staff woke us at approximately 8:30 a.m. because they incorrectly believed we were checking out that day. We were actually checking out Friday.
• Reaching a manager required repeated requests, including having to explain that I was not going to sit in my hotel room waiting indefinitely for someone to call me.
• We spoke with management in person on Thursday morning about the accumulating problems, so the property was well aware that this was not a single isolated complaint.

The final checkout experience summed up the entire stay.

As part of the service recovery, I had been told by a hotel representative on Thursday that a lunch would be complimentary. On Friday morning at 11:21 a.m., I proactively contacted the hotel to make sure it had been removed from our bill. I followed up repeatedly and specifically told them at 12:05 p.m. that we were leaving for the airport at 2 p.m. and wanted the issue resolved beforehand so we could have a quick checkout.

Instead, they told me they would address it at reception. I asked again at 1:07 p.m. and, after still receiving no confirmation, pointed out that this was my third request.

At checkout, it STILL had not been resolved.

We then had to spend our departure re-explaining issues that had already been discussed with management and extensively documented through the hotel’s WhatsApp. Management’s explanation regarding the complimentary lunch was that the employee who promised it had not been authorized to do so and that there “must have been a miscommunication.”

That is an internal hotel problem, not something that should become the guest’s problem while trying to leave for the airport—particularly after I had spent hours proactively asking them to resolve it.

Mistakes happen, and I am generally very understanding when a hotel makes one. What was unacceptable here was the pattern: something would go wrong, we would report it, management would attempt to recover the situation, and then the recovery itself would create another problem. Even at checkout, we seemed to be starting from scratch despite having documented everything throughout the stay.

I have stayed at St. Regis, JW Marriott and numerous other Marriott properties internationally, as well as plenty of non-luxury Marriott hotels. I have never experienced anything comparable.

The physical property and location are lovely, and there were individual employees who were courteous and tried to help. Unfortunately, the overall operation and management of our stay fell dramatically below what I would expect from a Luxury Collection property.

For anyone considering Caresse, I strongly recommend reading recent service reviews carefully. A beautiful resort is not enough at this price point when basic execution and service recovery repeatedly fail.