The St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort — Hotel in Sanya City

The moment we got here, it was literally a peace of mind experience. All you need to do is relax and enjoy the St. Regis Live Exquisite culture.

We were greeted by the assistant head butler. Checked in was being done in our suite. As you can expect from a St. Regis brand, everything would be flawless. Love the fact that our suite temperature was set at a colder temperature as we liked, and I wouldn't know what negative things I could talk about. I couldn't possibly fault this property.

I am not quite sure if this was something that most chinese hotel does in China, but everything seems to be huge and majestic. Not that I am complaining, but I do see a lot of similarities in the few properties we tried during our trip here in Hainan.

There are a few things to take note on. I can understand the direction of the property is taking. From what we've learned, 95% of the businesses are coming from the local Chinese. So, there are some difference between the St. Regis culture practice here and others outside of China. There is are some minor changes in the 5 signature butler service. Coffee and tea service is chargable unless the butler will prepare it from your own coffee supplies in the room. Packing and unpacking service is on request. But the service provided by the butlers are unquestionably flawless. Don't be shy to ask and they are able to get things done. A special shout out to our butler during our stay, Superb. And yes, he is as superb you can expect from what he is able to provide. Thank you for making our stay so memorable.

Shuttles are discontinued from what we've learned, but don't even bother to head out from the resort. You will have plenty of things and activities to keep you busy enough to head out. The signatures of the the St. Regis brand are the grand starcase and the chandelier. We had fun looking out for it and we finally found it just hours before checking out. For those who really love the brand, go on and hunt down these two. I can tell you that it is worth the effort.

We had a tour around the property assisted by our butler Superb. It's wonderful to get to see around the property. It is the largest property by land size in Hainan.

We were there at the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The weather is just perfect. There are relatively a lot of seaweed washed up during this season. You can join in with the team on cleaning up the beach. Quite fun to be honest.

There are two main pools at the resort. One is the heated pool and another one is the free-formed pool on the other wing. The heated pool is crowded most of the time, but you can understand why. It's a perfect place to take photos.

There is a multimedia room here too. More like a premium cinema. And to my surprise, they are actually showing the most recent movies. 6-8 pictures on the list. It is perfect for movie goers.

We had a tough time deciding where to have dinner. We end up in social. And then comes to the choice of dining ala carte or having the buffet. We opt out for the buffet in the end. Freshly cooked seafood to premium cuts and to the grill. Staff were attentive, and dinner was just delicious. I really love the lamb. Don't miss that out.

Breakfast at Driftwood. Good choice of sparkling, loads of choices of juices. The spread is reasonably good. And there is also a menu for guest to order from. I personally love the foie gras. Different from what the usual foie gras you have for breakfast.

We also had afternoon tea at the drawing room. A lot of sweet choices for my taste, but still a wonderful experience. And no stay at St. Regis is complete without trying the bloody mary. I actually don't know how to actually describe the taste, but give it a try. It is right in the middle between super delicious and super yucky. It is something you have to experience it to know what I mean.

On the whole, the whole experience from check in to check out. It is all about the #LiveExquisite culture. Though things may be a little different from other St. Regis around the world, don't discount this property. You are in for something wonderful.

Special thanks to Mr. Andreas for making sure everything was wonderful and taking the time to catch up with us.

Definitely one of my top 10 so far in 2018. Will return without even...

My family and I use free night awards for year-end holiday. However, everything is not as good as we expect, in fact, it is the worse hotel I had stay in my whole life. Here are some points:

(1) As a platinum member, there is no welcome letter signed by hotel manager in my room. This is the 1st time I do not receive welcome while staying SPG hotels as platinum member (2) There are bugs & insects in the room. Maybe because the garden is still under construction. (3) When we get into our room, we found the towel was used by someone. We request to change it immediately. When we first report it, someone in the lobby said it is impossible since he just check the room in the morning. But, the room is not ready while we check in. There is no time for him to check the room after the room is ready for us since my husband is talking to him all the time before we went to the room. He lied about this. (4) Since the garden is still under construction, there is a letter from the hotel suggesting do not open the patio windows while sleeping since it is not safe and there will be bugs coming into the room. There is NO air conditioner during the night and the blanket is very thick. By taking the hotel suggestion, we did not open the patio window. The room temp is very high. We can not have a good night sleep. We request the hotel to check the air conditioner, they send someone to check and tell us the air con is broken due to the bugs. They suggest us to change the room. We did. but there is no big improvement. Since it’s 11:45pm, we are tired and don’t want to argue w/hotel so we take the new room. The next day, all my family members said their rooms are hot during the night too. We realized the hotel just shot down the air con during the night and never tell their customers the truth. (5) For the heated pools, we ask the safety guard when it will be closed and his answer is around 9:45pm. This is another lie. The heated pools closed at 10pm, the safety guard just wants to be off on time so he changed the closing time by himself and ignore the customers’ right. (6) There are garbage in the beach. My family went to the beach around 7:30am. The beach is a mess, they send someone to clean around 8:30am. That is ridiculous. For other beach resorts, they will clean the beach around 6am while everyone is still sleeping and leave a clean & beautiful beach to customers who enjoy morning exercise. But , not here. (7) The construction workers were all over the hotels. They won’t let the customer use the road first. They just ignore the customers and keeping working on the construction. (8) Our rooms are in the 7th fl. The wooden/marble floor is not polished in the lobby and dust everywhere. (9) On the first night, we find one of our bag is missing. We put in the room. There are hotel beach slippers in the bag. We use hotel beach slippers to go to the beach in the afternoon. We put the slippers in our plastic bag since we don’t have time to take it out. We think we will use the slippers again tomorrow. It should have no problems. But the bag was gone when we came back at the 1st night. There must be someone checks our private bag and take it. Although the hotel return to us later. But, I can not believe that the hotel will open our bag and check what is inside. For the following several nights, we always lock out baggage before going out.

After all those things, we did not receive any apologies from the hotel management level. They seem do NOT care about platinum member who use free night rewards. I won’t suggest people to come here since I don’t feel any respect from the hotel. The hotel should not open at this time. Nothing is ready and everybody is lying. The hotel doesn’t care about its reputation. The hotel just wants to open early so they can make money ASAP. If you really need to come, LOCK your baggage when you are not...

Overall the stay was good, And we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but there a few drawbacks and inconsistencies. Marriott BonVoy members should consider carefully.||We stayed at the Garden view Villa which was huge and had its own inground pool. The room itself was extremely clean and everything was functional and did not look dated. However, The layout was a bit odd since we had a king bed in one room along with a shower and bath, and the a completely separated living room which you had to access by walking outside and using the house key. It seems like it would be set up for two separate bedrooms but one is functioning as a living room and kitchenette. ||In the our villa outdoor pool area the jacuzzi was completely not functioning and there was no water at all. When we commented, they suggested that they can fill it for us if we wanted but it just seemed like too much trouble and probable time waste. ||We were not offered welcome points and when I complained about it they simply didn't respond to my comment at all. When I asked about an upgrade as a titanium elite member they offered us a seaside villa for one night out of three, but we had to pay the additional cost which isn't really an upgrade at all.||The room itself was not ready when we arrived even though I had checked in the day before using the Marriott app and selected a 2pm checkin. They compensated us with a free coffee and one cocktail at the beach bar. When I summarize my complaint points in a WeChat message they then gave us a bit of additional attention over the next few days including providing one free bottle of champagne and a fruit platter which was sent to our room. I felt that the team members genuinely cared about providing us a nice experience but the resort itself was not as flexible. ||I have to give a special shout out to the staff from Malaysia who made an absolutely perfect Bloody Mary for me on Day 2. They didn't have any canned tomato juice but he sent to the kitchen and made it fresh for me with actual tomatoes. ||Speaking of which, the food quality was outstanding throughout and a particular highlight was the buffet breakfast at the Villa brunch location located seaside. ||In terms of swimming facilities only one of the main outdoor pools was open which was actually the one smaller pool with a view of the sea. The other main pool located closer to the villas is more intricately designed but it was not open. Not sure why but I suppose during the lower season it's too cost prohibitive to run. The Beach itself felt pleasantly isolated in the view was fantastic of the surrounding Bay area. There is a limited swimming area but it was sufficient. They were not many guests attending the beach area and as a result the seating selection there is quite limited. Additional seating is available up the small stairs with still a nice view of the bay and the beach. Note that the swim up bar at the main pool was not functioning and look like it had been shut down for many a month. The escalators which help you to move up and down the multi-level floor at the main lobby we're also shut down with cobwebs and a look of general disuse for many months as well. The elevators function perfectly well however. There was a small petting zoo and cart track as well as a movie theater but we didn't try any of them.||Regarding price and value overall I felt it was a bit overpriced but still luxurious enough to warrant the spend. Note that we booked the room via the Marriott app and I found other online options to be lower cost by quite a bit. When I called the hotel to ask why that was so they advised me that if you book via the other third party apps you don't get any night credit and you don't get any Marriott points. I felt it was a bit of a disservice to Marriott members to...