The Palms Turks and Caicos — Hotel in Providenciales

2 star service for 5 star price tag. We have been coming to Turks for many years, but this was our first time staying at The Palms - unfortunately, it will be our last entirely due to the poor service over the 7 nights we spent here. This hotel will not survive the new Ritz and the St Regis (coming soon). Overall I believe The Palms has a management / allocation and adaptability of staffing issue which I will detail below.

We chose this hotel as we always enjoyed visiting for lunch/dinner and their cuisine does not disappoint - however the service ruins the experience. Regardless of if the hotel was at max capacity (which it was during the first few nights of our stay) or empty (towards the end of our stay), it often took 10-15 minutes for waiters/waitresses to take our drink order, and food/drinks often came incorrect (I once had to ask 4 times for a side of mayo). It’s important to note that there were always 5-10 waitstaff standing around the bar area; however, at any given time, only one of them would actually be working.

It was also impossible to eat at your beach chairs as not a single staff member came up to us to ask if we needed anything - one day we were successful as we asked a security guard to radio someone. Food and drinks that others somehow ordered also were left at their chairs for the rest of the day / not cleaned up until 4/5pm.

The communication with the front desk and concierge was extremely difficult. Upon calling the hotel over a month before our arrival to set up a private transfer from the airport, I was instructed that I needed to email my request / they didn’t want to process anything over the phone. I then sent 4 unanswered emails (following up every few days) for 3 weeks. Finally, the day before our arrival I was assured a private transfer would be arranged. The morning of our flight, I sent an email because I had not received any details regarding the driver / confirmation number etc. unanswered. I followed up mid-flight. Unanswered. I sent a last email when we landed, when it was clear no driver was waiting for us. We waited in line and got a taxi. No one at the hotel ever acknowledged this situation upon check in or after a few hours at the hotel. We finally sent a final email to the general manager that night expressing our deep disappointment. The night manager promptly called us, and offered us a complimentary dinner. This complimentary dinner was still on our bill upon check out, and I needed to ask twice for it to be removed (including once on email which went unanswered).

The concierge also offered to book us a NYE dinner at Parallel 23 at 6pm (their fancier restaurant), specifically noting to us that this was even though they were “fully booked”. We arrived, and were the only patrons until about 6:30 when maybe 3-4 more tables arrived and the live music eventually started once there was more than us to play to. This would have been fine, had we not asked earlier that day to possibly push our reservation to either 6:30 or 7pm but were repeatedly told they were “fully booked”. The majority of the tables around us remained empty until we finally left at 8:30pm. This was overall just a baffling experience as we still can’t understand why they weren’t able to accommodate a later seating / were insisting the restaurant was fully booked when it very clearly wasn’t.

I will end on a positive note. The rooms were clean and housekeeping was friendly. The spa was great. The hotel is quiet, even though it is also very kid friendly - we enjoyed the “adults only” section during the day that was very peaceful. The staff - especially Abel, Dwayne and Wilmer - are all very friendly, helpful and warm (again, I do not think there is a staff issue, but rather a management / resource allocation issue). The food (once you finally get it) is delicious and consistently good. Last, the location and beauty also saves this hotel / almost makes up for the extremely poor service. Next time we will stay at the St Regis (about 50 yards down the beach) and maybe have a meal or two at The...

This was a clean hotel on a beautiful pristine beach BUT I cannot say this is truly a 5 star hotel experience. Again, nice space but I would give it 4 stars at best, depending what quality of a place you are looking for your money/experience. A few notes on what I would expect at a 5 star hotel that this place DID NOT provide/address:

-The overall friendliness of the staff left something to be desired.

-The service was generally pretty slow, for example:

-after leaving a voicemail at the spa on our first afternoon to book an appointment, it took the spa over 24 hours to call back. -left message at with the concierge for the tour desk requesting to set up some diving activities and never received any call back. -called for room service one evening, and when nobody responded we were transferred to reception where we were told room service was busy and would call us back, with no indication of how long that would be.

-After a couple of days, the resort manager called our room asking about how our stay was going. We provided some honest kind feedback, referencing the above experiences. But we were surprised with the manager’s defensive attitude to honest feedback—instead of seeking to address the issues, we received only excuses and no sense of apology for the level of service.

-At check in, we were asked to provide days and times that we wanted the room cleaned presumably to limit interaction for Covid purposes. The house keeping was good quality and for sure the place was spot on clean, but they never came at the time of day that we were requested to provide.

-After arranging our own scuba trip off site when we didn’t receive a call back from the tour desk, we asked the front desk the day before if we could arrange for a cab early the next morning. We were told that there are “always cabs waiting at the hotel starting at 7am” and were promised a cab would be ready in morning when we needed to leave. Sure enough, there was no cab ready in the morning and we almost missed the boat for our scuba trip.

-The resort did offer free Covid testing for our return back to the US which was very nice, but the staff running testing were rude.

-The spa was nice but perhaps had limited staff operating(?) Both times my wife went she had to wait for awhile for someone to appear at reception. Again, could be due to Covid, but spa amenities were also somewhat lacking (no water, fruit, etc available while waiting for your service outside in the humid heat).

-Throughout our stay we had friends purchase several bottles of champagne from the resort for us for a birthday celebration. We brought one to breakfast and were told that we were not allowed to consume it at breakfast without paying an extra charge. Eventually, a manager came and allowed us to drink the champagne (that, again, had been purchased at the resort) without an extra charge, but it was just another example of something you don’t expect to have to deal with at a 5 star resort.

-Wi-Fi was spotty and unreliable in the room and throughout the resort, especially at night.

On the positive side, the beach was amazing and our stay was saved with wonderful beach dinner. Nakesha was so friendly and took wonderful care of us. At the time of our stay there was only one full dinner restaurant open (there is another bar lunch restaurant) and the food was very good.

It still amazing beach/island but no more then 4 star place for the money. Not one to leave anything negative in a review, but there were enough instances here where the resort was missing those extra hospitality touches you expect from this level of resort. If you are looking for a true high end 5 star place that goes above and beyond, I would recommend another resort. If you find a good deal and are okay with a still great 4 star place, it’s still...

Went on my honeymoon here and stayed for 7 nights. Immediately upon getting there, without even a greeting, an employee approached us and asked for a credit card by sticking out her hand which kind of rubbed us the wrong way. Didn’t say anything else and upon getting the card, walked away.

Our room was very clean and the pool and beach were never overly crowded, making it easy to find a spot at anytime.

Upon getting there on the first day we realized that drinks were outrageously expensive. A specialty/frozen drink is $15 each and with tax for 2 drinks it is $40 (taxes include a gratuity and a local 12 percent gov tax ). We were made aware on our 2nd day that a majority of people go to a local liquor store and buy their own alcohol to mix their own drinks because it is far cheaper. ALSO, do not buy the liquor from the spice shop located at the resort. It is overly priced. For example - a bottle of their local rum at their shop was $42 and at the local liquor store outside of the resort it was $18 - For the exact same bottle of booze. After realizing this, we went to the liquor store and mixed our own drinks for the rest of the stay.

Also, if you are interested in eating local caribbean food do NOT eat the resort food at their restaurants (72 West, Parallel 23). The food is decent at these locations but it is fine dining which you can eat anywhere and it is expensive. Going to these locations you will almost certainly spend $100 when including drinks, appetizer, and a tip. We were told by an amazing employee (Darrin) that the local food on the island is amazing. We ended up going to Mr. Groupper's 5 times during our stay and the food is absolutely incredible and the best part is that it is only a block away (5 min walk) from the resort.

Lastly, due to the drinks being so expensive we barely saw anyone ordering drinks from the swim up bar or the other bars at the resort. BUT they do have happy hour daily at the bar located on the sand by the beach and drinks are 2 for 1 (equates to $7 a drink). The only down side is happy hour is only 1 hour long and there are days when many people are there and you don't have the opportunity to have as many drinks as you'd like because there is only 1 bartender making drinks for everyone. Lastly regarding the happy hour bar .... when we arrived we went there on our first night and was told happy hour was 5-6pm. The second day we went back and when we arrived (at 5) we were told by a different bartender working that happy hour is actually from 430-530pm. The following 4 nights we enjoyed happy hour from 430-530 and went from happy hour to dinner. On our second to the last night, we arrived at happy hour at 430 and the bartender from the first night was working. He told us that happy hour didn't start for a half hour (5) and we would have to come back. We mentioned that we have been coming for the last 4-5 nights for happy hour and were told it was 430-530 and the bartender became argumentative and tried to tell us he had been working the last 4-5 nights and it has never started at 430 (which wasn't true). This employee's customer service was HORRIBLE and all over the fact that we arrived 20-30 min early for happy hour.

ALL IN ALL, if you are looking for a vacation that you wont spend a lot of additional money upon arriving, this location is not for you. Due to it not being an all-inclusive you will spend a minimum of $1,000 extra dollars upon arriving for drinks and daily meals (which varies obviously in how many days you stay), which is in addition to how much you spend prior to arriving for the cost of your room (which for us was over $5,000 for a 7 night stay). Also, if you don't mind fine dining type food and eat at the resort everyday then this resort will work for you, although the food is decent (far from good). If you don't like traveling outside of the resort but like eating local food then this resort is...