Blue Horizon Boutique Resort — Hotel in Isla de Vieques

WE WERE ASSAULTED BY THE STAFF!!!

I am writing to voice my outrage at the treatment we received from the manager on duty April 30 (we believe her name is Akia) as we were checking out after a two-night stay.

We are 60+ year old world class travelers who have NEVER had hotel staff assault one of us and then summon the police. We are still suffering the pain, shock, and humiliation of being treated like criminals.

These are the salient details: I had requested a room change next to our friends, Dan Sanchez and Kim Gentile, for our second night due to unsafe and uneven cement flooring and cement falling from the celing in our “honeymoon” suite.

We were packed and ready to leave 4/30/24 when the cleaning staff arrived promptly at 11:00. We did not think it would be a problem to enjoy the remaining beers we’d purchased previously from the bar on our balcony. Two of us are disabled and three of us are cancer patients with Kim having stage 4 cancer We posed no threat or inconvenience to anyone.

At 11:05 Akia approached us in a physically confrontational manner to tell us we were late to depart and to accuse us of smoking marijuana, something we vehemently deny. Her tone and gesticulations were belligerent and an argument quickly ensued.

Rather than de-escalate Akia actively engaged in vulgar incendiary language (f—k you) andbecame extremely physically aggressive with Ms. Gentile (who weighs less than 100 pounds). Akia falsely accused her of recording the confrontation (something we should have done immediately), then shoved and swung at Ms. Gentile with her cellphone, injuring Ms. Gentile’s thumb. Ms. Gentile is currently at the hospital getting her injury examined as it is swollen with black & blue bruising.

My wife and I both witnessed this attack and we are attaching a photo of the manager with her phone in hand immediately before striking Ms. Gentile. We promptly left the premises and were waiting outside when said manager again approached, started screaming in an attempt to engage us in an argument again, and informed us she’d called the police. We made best efforts to ignore her but were shocked when a co-worker who identified himself as her boyfriend perpetuated the dreadful drama by also yelling and screaming at us. We’re adding a photo of these two employees by the gate verbally abusing and harassing us.

The four police officers who arrived spoke with her first and then took our information. Their assessment was that a miscommunication had occurred and that we should pursue other avenues for remedying this horrible experience. They stated they didn’t understand why they were summoned as there clearly was no crime and we did not need to be trespassed as we were anxious to leave and never return.

We generously overlooked many issues at the resort i.e., shabby/broken furniture, dangerous uneven cement floors, missing cabana shades, dirty pool, limited wait staff.

However, your front-desk manager assaulting one of us and then siccing the police on us served to defame us as guests and was an unnecessary emotional over-reaction by someone who is clearly not trained in offering hospitality, comfort, and safety to your guests. She has no place as a front-desk manager and does a poor job of representing your brand. I anticipate speaking with someone in upper management to address our disappointment with our stay at...

9/13/22 UPDATE- I’ve continued to contact the property regarding the refund and was told it would be processed yet again. I was optimistic something would be done when Mireya took my credit card info, but then was emailed stating I would only get a partial refund via check. Since the partial refund offer, the property and management has not replied to any emails. It’s taken over a year to get my refund processed, despite multiple claims from the property stating it would be taken care of.

I held off on writing this review in the hopes there would be some resolution to an accidental cancellation and charge, but 9 months later I’m still out almost $700 and no one can get ahold of management at the hotel.

I booked 2 rooms through AAA travel for a trip in July 2021, both were king ocean front w/ lanais. About a month and a half prior to the trip I was showing our booking to the other party traveling with us when I accidentally clicked the cancel booking button. There was no pop up or warning that indicated I had done this. It wasn’t until the screen reloaded and I received a cancellation confirmation email, that I realized what happened. I immediately rebooked the only room that was available on the AAA site; our party required 2 rooms.

The next day I called the resort since it was a non-refundable reservation, and there was no answer. A few days later I was charged $694.88, the full amount for the accidentally cancelled room. At this point I contacted AAA to resolve the matter and was told to call the resort because the charge was directly from them. I then called Blue Horizon and was told to call back when a manager was in the office. Over the course of the next few weeks, I made a handful of attempts at calling the hotel, at various times of the day, and could not get ahold of a manager. A week prior to our trip I finally spoke to another employee who informed me that the manager was no longer working there. I was told to contact AAA, again. I contacted AAA and they told me they’d handle the matter; it could be 6-8 weeks before I see repayment, but they don’t anticipate any issues since it wasn’t an intentional cancellation and I rebooked immediately afterwards.

Fast forward a few months, I still had not received the refund. When I spoke to AAA again, they told me the matter was pending. 2 weeks after that I found out more details in follow up email- AAA had recorded numerous attempts at contacting the property, to no avail. On 12/3/21, they were told by Felisha (manager) that the refund was being issued for the full amount. A few more weeks go by and still no refund had appeared. AAA recommended contacting my bank to escalate the issue, which I did. My bank was unable to resolve the matter because it had been more than 60 days since the charge was made. I relayed this information to AAA, who called the property again only to find out Felisha is no longer working there. A new manager, Cammy, would be handling the issue. AAA nor I have received any follow up from the hotel.

My overall experience with Blue Horizon hasn’t been great. The hotel is notoriously difficult to get ahold of and resolving billing issues has been a nightmare. As beautiful as the property is, I don’t know that I could recommend it to others because of...

Look at the most recent reviews before you book. Lots of 1 star reviews and for good reasons.

To start, if Ester greats you at the front desk I hope you have a mask because she will not be wearing one. If you need any help, good luck, because her attitude is so poor she won’t even bother to greet you or smile. This will set the tone for your stay. If you need to escalate a matter, Victor, the hotel “manager”will give you the runaround and never actually fix anything. He will also claim most things are out of his hands and you’ll need to email (not call because they don’t have a number) the booking office where someone MIGHT respond after repeated attempts and won’t even care enough to sign their name to the reply so you don’t know who you’re working with.

If you plan on eating dinner at the restaurant or having drinks at the bar - don’t. They aren’t even open most of the time, and when they are the service apparently takes forever. We weren’t able to find out because they weren’t open during our stay. And despite the Google listing, breakfast is not free and the hours listed for the restaurant aren’t correct. But, given the laziness of the people mentioned before, nobody cares to correct this on their Google listing.

Beyond the extreme lack of hospitality and service, the beach is full of boulders and rocks. That’s why you don’t see any pictures of it on their website. Wild horses are all over the island, but on the property they run around like true, wild horses. Be sure to stay clear of them or you might get caught in a stampede. For real.

And lastly, despite all the negativity in this review, I’m certain someone from Blue Horizon will reply with how fantastic they’re sure our stay was. If they mean so fantastic that we chose to stay at an air bnb by the black sand beach for less than half the cost and give up the $500+ we spent on our booking because it was that bad here, then yes, our stay at the air bnb was amazing.

Blue Horizon, in response to your response: we decided to book your place last minute as a way to enjoy our last day on the island and really pamper ourselves. We booked it from our AirBNB down the road and arrived no more than 2 hours later after check-in time. Again, we were greeted by a rude front desk attendant and quickly learned many of your amenities weren’t being offered as advertised. We politely asked that our reservation be canceled for these reasons (mind you this was less than 2 hours after booking) and were told that wasn’t possible. When asked to speak to a manager we were told the same. We let him know we would not be staying because there was nothing here that our Airbnb didn’t have - even less actually as our Airbnb had a nice sandy beach to walk along. He eventually told us to contact your customer service where we sent multiple emails before receiving a curt reply saying we would not be refunded. No name or phone number was ever given by...