Simpson Bay Resort, Marina & Spa — Hotel in Saint Martin

An interesting start to what turned out to be a wonderful experience at Simpson Bay Resort — an added plus to|our August 2025 vacation in Sint Maarten. 🇸🇽 ||Upon check-in, William, the guest service check-in representative, expressed the room was a really good room. I immediately responded how excited I was that we selected the resort and was looking for to relaxing and enjoying the island water, resort’s accommodations, views, and activities; the representative confirmed all would be accomplished. I then mentioned again how excited I was and mentioned I had read some really good reviews along with some reviews that were no so good but I was going to lean on the positive reviews. As part of my comment I mentioned the negative comments were primarily regarding building B, and at that time the representative looked up, and with his look I asked which building were we assigned; the representative stated building B but he assured me we had a really good room and great view. With William’s assurance of the great room, I said okay, I’m was going to trust him and I did. William saw my expression and said he would have a driver take us to the room to see if we liked it prior to completing the check-in. |Unfortunately, as we were approaching the building my gut was telling me “this is not where I want to start my vacation”, but I was willing to see the room. Needless to say, my gut was on point — was not a good building, room pick, view, etc. Considering we’ve traveled to Sint Maarten several times and understood the previous storm devastation on the island, we still preferred not to have the back of the resort that showed visible rebuilding and vacant lots as part of our view. As we went to the room, the building was definitely one of the buildings that had not had a face lift or maintained well at there were broken window screens (not completely attached to the windows) and visible patch work to the building. Now in as much as this may not be important to others it was indeed important to me. However, I must say upon entering the inside of the room, the layout of the room and the amenities were comfortable, but getting to the room was not appealing nor did I believe I would have felt safe in the back of the building with window coverings not secure. ||As such, I immediately decided the building and room was not going to work for us and definitely would have had a negative impact on our stay. Therefore, I went to the guest services and requested to speak with a manager, of which John Pierre Batiste was more than happy to speak with me. Senior Batiste understood my concerns and addressed them. With limited availability, Senior Batiste informed us that there was potential opportunity to move us to move us to another building but the room layout would be the same; we confirmed the layout of the room was not the concern as I re-expressed my concerns. Senior Batiste was successfully able to move us to a different building and we were ever so grateful. We were enjoying our room, the resort, and of course as always the island. ||Unrelated to our stay at Simpson Bay Resort but an experience we encountered during our vacation and Simpson Bay Resort was truly a blessing in helping us to resolve a matter regarding our daughter and son-in-law resort. Our daughter and son-in-law was staying at a different resort that had mildew smell so strong that upon us entering their room we new it was not good for them to be there. We reached out to Simpson Bay Resort Manager, Senior Francisco Gomez, and I can’t say enough amazing things about him. Senior Francisco worked magic. Again, with limited availability, he was able to accommodate our daughter and son-in-law, and how he managed it was uniquely accomplished was truly a blessing. ||Another unfortunate experience for our stay at Simpson Bay Resort... going back to the newly assigned room by Senior Batiste, the room’s air conditioner stopped working after two days of being in the room, of which were were totally enjoying. Upon many attempts of fixing the AC, I reached out to Senior Francisco and he immediately took action; he told us to go enjoy our day and he would have things worked out when we returned — either the AC would be fixed or we would be assigned another room. In addition to his immediate concern of correcting the AC problem, he was also concerned about continuing to enjoy our vacation and maintaining close proximity of keeping my family’s rooms together, of which was an added plus to his concern factor. When we returned from enjoying the day, Senior Francisco confirmed the AC needed more repair work and he had already assigned us to another room and made accommodations to assist us in moving to the new room. The new room worked well — AC worked wonderfully, great view, very comfortable. ||By the way, William redeemed himself… In as much as I am familiar with driving on the island, I wanted to confirm I was on the right track to getting to a location and William eagerly gave me point-by-point and turn-by-turn directions —oh my gosh, does this young man know his island, that answer is a BIG yes! 🙌🏽 ||Grant it, I had read several reviews, of which sometimes I take with a grain of salt as everyone’s experience doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be the next person’s experience, but while saying that, I consider and weigh the positive to negative comments and have used one’s negative comments as conversation when politely expressing how excited I am looking forward to the stay, hence not wanting to experience such negative experiences. ||As I typed this I giggle because in as much as this sounds like a bad experience, trust me, it really turned out to be such a blessing with great experiences and more fond memories. We met so many wonderful people and staff members, and the resort turned to be great with a great experience. In my view, it’s not that you had a problem, to me it’s more important how the problem was addressed and resolved. ||A big thank you to William, Senior John Pierre Batiste, and Senior Francisco Gomez, for making sure our vacation accommodations were an added factor to us having a great vacation — they genuinely care! By the way, I don’t want to leave out Bernice, in housekeeping, your service was amazing and it was always a pleasure to have been greeted with your beautiful smile! We I’ll be back and we look forward to seeing you all again and creating more...

August 5, 2024||To Whom It May Concern,||Reference: SIMPSON BAY RESORT & MARINA|| Billy Folly Road, St. Maarten||I check in on 06/24/2024 to 07/04/2024. The cost for my family and I stay total $4529.96||Room 710A and 710B.||I wanted to highlight my disappointment with this establishment.|My first impression of the resort was warm and welcoming. The young woman at the front desk was exceptional, welcoming with a bright smile and made me feel at home. The housekeeping staff are exceptional, hardworking and always willing to answer the call.||The very first day into the two-bedroom suite we reserved was wow nice looking room. Nice to have two BALCONIES. I noticed immediately that both were dirty with bird feces all over the floors and chairs. They were old stains. I called the front desk, told us that the balconies were powered washed often. Well, they skipped this room. ||That very first day I noticed the rusty and dirty TOILET bowl and bottom of the bowl. I called and requested cleaning. No one cares. I have pictures.||That first afternoon after entering the room, we had to call the front desk requesting assistance with the second bedroom toilet that would not stop FLUSHING. ||Subsequently the TOILET issue, running of the toilet water nonstop continued. I would call and they would send a plumber to check it out. A staff attempted to use humor to calm me down by saying that pretend you are home, and you can just giggle the handle to stop the water. At least four trips for the same issue. The plumber that came to fix the issue told my husband he has this part to change but for now, it will work fine. He did not fix anything. Mr. Gipson can testify to this issue and how many times I called.||One evening after DINNER, I had to contact the front desk and requested to speak with someone regarding the dinners served. The food was not fully cooked, tasteless, uncooked and leftover meat. I can understand the same menu we received based on whatever arrangement made in advance but to serve stale, leftovers is degrading to our group. Not to mention serving us like the food was a gift. We had specific times to eat and were always rushed to leave the dining room. When we get to buffet table for dinner containers practically empty and cold. I have pictures. I was given the contact to Marcel Javois, General Manager. I never received a call for this matter that I reported several times.||About three days before we left, I got tired of going to the kitchen area to answer calls. I call to have the TELEPHONE in the main suite repaired. A young man came, and the manager said the line was disconnected from the wall and it is now fixed. That young men knew very well it was not fixed. However, left. Less than one hour later I called for the same issue and that is when I was told that they would have a repairperson come. So, you know that phone never worked and probably still broken. Guest Service Manager Francisco J. Gomez present and tested the phone himself and saw that it was not working after the repair was supposedly done.||Again, three days before our departure, I had to call maintenance because of a leak in the CEILING above the toilet in the main suite. Two maintenance man came fix the leak, changed the ceiling tile and left. No one offered to clean the room after that. I have a video of that incident.||Two days before we were to check out, we had a FLOAD in the room. That same TOILET flooded. The entire junior room, the bathroom, the hallway to the door flooded. Toilet water even spilled over toward the kitchen. My son and I had to grab towels and heavy blankets to stop the water from going into the kitchen area. I was informed that the hotel staff knew that bathroom had issues, knew of the part that needed to be changed prior to our entering the room. I have a video of this incident.||I was offered by Mr. Gipson to change my room. Throughout all this, Mr. Gipson was always kind and responded immediately to our call. I turned down the offer to move from the room when I had one night left before departure.||I spoke with Guest Service Manager Francisco J. Gomez.|I did not find him to be very helpful at the time of these incidents. I did not appreciate someone repeating well you were offered another room and did not accept it. I should have had that option the very first time we started to have issues with the toilet.||This was certainly a traumatic experience. My family decided to stay at your resort with a group of well deserving workers that wanted to be on the island to do God’s work. I had a more pressing engagement to service the days on the island. Therefore, I wanted to ignore many of these incidents, but they got out of hand. The amount of money I spent for the days my family stayed there was a total amount for the room alone cost me $$4529.96. Therefore, you see our stay was not free.||Guest Service Manager Francisco J. Gomez called me after I got home to discuss this matter. He was fully aware of all the incidents. I informed him that I want a full refund for the room. It was not one incident but many catastrophes that took place during our stay in that room. He offered restitution but with many limitations. I informed him on the phone that I should not have any limitations to any arrangements or offers to smooth a sour taste that I have with this resort.||I received his email regarding these incidents. His resume of the incident differ somewhat. Guest Service Manager Francisco J. Gomez email to me on July 21, 2024 to make an offer for me to return the resort a free 3 night stay my family and me. I should have told him how much airline tickets, room and meals cost us for the time we spent at this resort.||I did not take him on his offer for fear of my life, security, lack of poor service and retaliation.|I hope this does not happen to...

Beware: If you are approached by ANYONE on the island asking if you are over 30 and if your income is over a certain amount, they are trying to sell you something – whether it’s at your hotel or while walking through the streets. Our stay was for one week during July 2017. Immediately after checking in, we were instructed we had to go to the concierge desk next, where we met the cause of most of our troubles – Steve. He spent almost 2 hours talking our ears off and offered us a free room upgrade – a room in the Flamboyant building (right on the resort’s beach) with an ocean view as long as we attended a 90 minute presentation the next morning at 9am. The room we ended up getting “upgraded” to, though, was a room in the B building up the hill with barely any ocean view and right next to where the garbage is taken out each day. The “ 90 minute presentation” was actually a 3.5 hour (9:00-12:30) timeshare presentation. Just prior to that, we told Steve we weren’t happy with our room and he asked us to check with him the next day regarding switching to a different room. The next morning, we returned to the lobby to meet with him and he wasn’t there. Another employee at the concierge desk mentioned he had left a note with a new room number on it, but we’d have to wait to meet with Steve before moving. We ran a quick errand, returning only about 15 min later. At that time, Steve was deep in conversation with another couple and the lobby was packed. We took a moment to look at the location of the new room on a map and realized the new room faced the parking lot so we would probably be better off staying in our own room, not to mention having to waste EVEN MORE hours in the lobby rather than on vacation. We then quickly informed Steve that we would just keep our current room, he acknowledged, and we left. The next evening, the Operations Manager knocked on our room door to inform us that we were supposed to have moved out. We explained the situation and were left alone. The next day we went out to explore and came back to find that our room keys weren’t working anymore (presumably because we “were supposed to have moved out”) so we had to go BACK to the lobby, but when we got to the concierge desk, Steve completely ignored us and acted like he didn’t even know who we were! We had to get it sorted out with a different employee and the front desk. Once we got back into the room, we noticed a strong smell of sewage and a manager offered to resolve the issue by moving us to a different room in the same building, stating that she would call us back after checking what was available. In the fifteen minutes before speaking with her again, a bellhop attempted to enter our room with another hotel guest! Once we were finally able to move rooms, that one ended up being just fine. Our stay was 6 nights (Thursday-Wednesday) and we had to deal with the concierge desk or the front desk because of the concierge desk for all but 1 day! It was extremely disappointing, but it our major room problems all stemmed from Steve – his attitude and sales-driven mentality were disappointing. The rooms themselves, though, are nice. We were in a Studio – 4, which has a full kitchen, seating area, eating area, and plenty of extra towels in the closets. The kitchens have stainless steel GE appliances. Other than the sewage smell in our first room, the only other concern we had with the rooms were the doors. The front doors of both of our rooms didn’t close fully. The first room’s door was considerably worse. The pools on the property are nice, but they close at 10pm while the towel exchanges all close by 6:30pm – not sure why that’s the case. It’s extremely...