troisanges' Reviews

How can you NOT fall in love with this place?!

After 15 years of raising children, my husband and I decided it was time for us to have a second honeymoon. We chose the Royal Hideaway after much research and from the outset it seemed to match our criteria....it had to be somewhere we could fly to relatively quickly (my husband couldnt take an enormous amount of time off of work, and I am TERRIFIED of flying, so the less time in the air the better) ,it had to be located in the beautiful waters of the carribean, it had to be all inclusive, it had to be no children allowed (we not only wanted to have a break from OUR kids, we didnt want to deal with OTHER peoples children either) and it had to have a romantic feel to it. Royal Hideaway was on the mark with every single item on our list. There was not one thing about this resort that I can complain about....the food was amazing at each restaurant we tried ( we did not try Azia, as we are not big sushi fans) but heard from others it was excellent. Palazzo (Italian), Spices (Mexican and Carribean) and Ventanas (gourmet) were all AMAZING, even though the portions are quite small by American standards....I have to admit that our first night when our dinner was served, we looked at each other and quietly giggled, both of us thinking " wow we are going to starve to death down here" but the food is so amazing that it frankly satisfies without overindulging, and because it is all inclusive, if you are still hungry you could order more if you wish...we never did because the appetizer, main course and dessert seemed to be filling enough after a day in the sun and lots of wonderful drinks.

Our room was located in Villa 26 and our concierge was Ramon who couldnt have been nicer or more helpful, always smiling and willing to help us with everything....our room was beautiful, not an ocean view, but we were down by the pool and ocean so much it really didnt matter. We signed up for the Royal Romance package, so we received complimentary bathrobes from the hotel, an assortment of fine bath products, a bottle of champagne, and chocolate covered strawberries. It also included dinner on the beach which we tried to schedule twice but it rained both nights so we had to eat elsewhere, but they tried to make it as special and romantic as possible for us anyway. I just cannot say enough about the service and the feeling of romance that is at this resort....we absolutely fell in love with each other again, and we couldnt have picked a more wonderful place to do so.

The only negative I can think of, and it is not something the resort itself can have any kind of control over, is that there were a few people staying there that obviously had a lot of money and they made no effort to hide the fact, acting very snobbish to the staff and the rest of us "poor folk" I certainly didnt go down there to make friends, but there is nothing wrong with just being friendly to people, and some of the guests apparently didnt see it that way. But like my husband pointed out, the nice thing about this resort is that the staff treats everyone equally, and they didnt bring Joe Millionaires drink any quicker than mine, and treated us as if we were royalty.

I cried when we got on the plane to come home, not just because I hate flying, but because I felt like I was leaving somewhere I could happily spend the rest of my life....we frankly cant wait to go back again!

Reviewed on: June 18, 2007