Royalton St Lucia

In our opinion this is a wonderful resort, very friendly staff especially if you interact with them and the they go out of their way to help. If you are looking to find the odd problem you will find it BUT they are so minor it won’t detract from an amazing holiday. The room was cleaned daily, mimi bar restocked every day as well. Our butlers went out of their way to help with whatever we needed and the food was a lot better than we thought it would be. If any of the Royalton staff read this review we would like to thank you for making this a very special holiday for us. Read less

Currently staying at the Royalton hotel in St Lucia. All I can say is avoid. Not worth the money. My husband and I have stayed here on a couple of occasions and the standard and service have deteriorated. So far the food in 3 of the a la carte restaurants has been underwhelming. Zen which was our favourite in the past served beautiful starters however our main meal was inedible. We both ordered Teriyaki chicken which consisted of dry chicken cubes served in a pale brown soup would be the best way to describe it. Armadillo restaurant I had the santa fe salad. Should be renamed a plate of lettuce followed by the Shrimp and Pepper skewers. Still looking for the peppers which must have been camouflaged by one of the 4 shrimps. Came out of the restaurant starving and hubby bought me a bag of crisps from the " shop" in the lobby. $19 for a bag of Cheetos. Didn't know whether to eat them or frame them. A new reservation system has now been brought in to book the a la carte restaurants. You must download an app and that is how you reserve a table. Took 4 days to get my app working. Maybe this is necessary is peak times but certainly not in January. Restaurants are dead. Bring an iron. The hotel no longer provides an iron or ironing board. They do provide a steamer but I prefer the old fashioned way. You can request a kettle but you are initially told to heat up the coffee maker but not put in coffee. The rooms are cleaned on a daily basis. But I forewarn you not to make the restaurant booking at 6pm. Our room was being cleaned at 4٫45 and we couldn't get into the shower until the floor dried. Absolutely hysterical. Could have auditioned for dancing on ice. No longer have dressing gowns or slippers in the rooms and it's the small touches that we miss. We're currently in a swim up room and have used cheaper hotels with the same types of room. Unfortunately this is going to be our last visit here. It used to be worth paying the extra money for the " luxurious " touches. However have stayed in cheaper hotels that were every bit as good or if not better. Read less

We had an amazing time. Room was lovely, Butlers were really great and made our daughter’s Birthday special. Food in the buffet was really good we ate a lot of cooked fresh to order. A la carted we’re also lovely and the Butlers were great at booking these for us. We liked the free water sports on the beach which felt like a bonus as other places you have to pay. At Lucia is incredible and we did a few excursions and feel like we could easily come back to see more of the Island. Street party was a real highlight. We did a tour with one of the local tour guides on the beach and had an amazing time. Kids Club - my daughter loved the team they were brilliant. Every day she was asking to go and said it was the highlight of her day. The activities on offer were really good and she came away with some crafts and a tie dye t-shirt. We also enjoyed some of the evening entertainment but were mostly jet lagged. The St Lucia night was the best. Sure there were maintenance issues here and there but we are not ones to let that ruin our holiday. We would love to come back. Read less

This was overall a good holiday with a few negative issues. We were on the “ordinary” AI package. Good ~ majority of staff friendly and helpful. Room was large , clean & comfortable. Block 4 so nice & quiet with lovely views. Beautiful gardens We had no issues with dining ~ breakfast & lunch in the buffet were always good although the drink/ coffee service was a bit hit & miss. We had no problems booking evening meals at the restaurants using the app , the steak house was our personal favourite. No issues at all with drinks - loads of choice! The pool area by the hotel is nicer and quiet. Negatives ~ this is sold as 5* , unfortunately there are a number of issues that in our opinion don’t warrant a 5* rating. The layout & design of the hotel mean that there are no “quiet areas” to sit in the evening with friends to drink & chat. Our evenings were at times spoilt with blasting karaoke & loud music. Sun bed cushions are horrendous, stained & ripped. We would have at least 3 towels each on them. Beach maintenance is non-existent, quite a bit of rubbish left by inconsiderate people. Sun bed cushions need to replaced with wipe down versions , collected & stored away overnight and not left out to be rained on. A lot of them have bird droppings on them 🤮 A daily rake of the beach to take up rubbish, cigarette ends etc would be good. Very loud music from the large pool spoils the sunbathing on the beach - we don’t mind a bit of background music but it was incessant and at times not especially appropriate and incredibly loud. We had a good holiday but there were issues. We would recommend because the good outweighed the bad ! Read less

READ BEFORE YOU BOOK What you expect from an all-inclusive resort is subjective. People who state “Don’t believe the bad reviews” or “disregard the haters” or even the positive reviews as subjective based on the expectations and experiences of the consumer. If you go in not expecting much, with no real experience traveling, you might find the Royalton St. Lucia a great place to stay and nothing I write after this will make any difference. HOWEVER, if you are like me, and have traveled to many resorts and vacation destinations…. keep reading. ABOUT St. Lucia: St. Lucia is a typical island once governed by a larger country. Like those many other islands, once given rule over their own lands, the infrastructure along with the people…suffer. I am not saying that whatever country owned St. Lucia didn’t mess it up. I am simply stating that like most tropical islands, poverty and infrastructure issues are rampant. St. Lucia is about twice the size of a large American city yet due to its topography, traversing the hills, mountains and switchbacks makes getting anywhere, dangerous. This includes going from the small and very disorganized airport to any resort. A two-hour nausea inducing ride through these poverty-stricken areas on the way to your resort is normal. You can catch a helicopter from the airport to your resort for about $200 US. Another note before I get to the “lovely” Royalton resort…. If you have young kids or are sensitive to dead or dying animals, keep your eyes closed on the way to your resort. Basically, the beautiful landscapes strewn with trash, sinkholes and open sewers are filled with scenes from a never ending ASPCA please donate commercial. It is a sad way to start and end a vacation. ABOUT THE RESORT: …this affiliate of the Marriot group is 3 separate hotels on one resort. You have the Regular Royalton, Diamond club Royalton (buildings 7/8) and the Hideaway Royalton Building 1 and I think also 2. The latter 2 being adults only. This resort is a typical all inclusive and frequent vacationers will understand what I mean by that. Rooms come in several flavors with some swim out, some one bedroom, etc. Again, typical all-inclusive design and upkeep. You will see dirty surfaces, broken amenities, patched together pieces. Some will justify this as “its an island and getting items are not as easy”. This is false and typical lazy view of the Royalton management. Broken curtains, slapped together room parts are commonplace here. Certainly nothing Royal. Let’s be fair, most all-inclusive resorts in this mid-tier category suffer the same problems. The pools, entertainment and dining options are nothing new to those who frequent the all-inclusive resort vacation. One buffet for Breakfast, Lunch and dinner with several other specific options depending on your room level. BUTLERs. If you booked a room with Butler service, congrats as you have just wasted money. The Royalton St. Lucia does not understand what Butler service means. If I could equate it to something it would be a semi-private concierge. The “butlers” require you to use WhatsApp to communicate needs until 2200 hours. You are greeted in the AM with a generic message and given screenshots of the day’s activities. You can ask the Butler to book you reservations and ask questions about your stay. What they do not tell you is that you can do all of the things the Butler attempts to do for you, through the Royalton App. You can do EVERYTHING through the app and can do it cheaper than any Butler level room. Save your money and skip the Butler. The only BUTLERs that do their job are the ones at the Cabanas. These Butlers get it and will get you anything for the time you are in the private Cabana. STAFF: There are a handful of Royalton employees who do their job and do it well. Unfortunately, this the exception. I and many guests who I spoke too all agreed that the staff were rude and just going through the motions. There were 2-3 workers who knew how to make a cocktail. I ordered the same drink all vacation and got 9 different variations. The Royalton allows the staff to sell items to guests. Several times we were approached to buy various items the staff bring in to sell to the guests. That is a real poor business practice. Personal Experience: I will summarize some of the issues we encountered during our stay. 1. Three of us staying in one room. We were given a room with one bed. It took 2 days to remedy. 2. Asked for extra blankets for the room. 3 hours later I was in the lobby waiting for Blankets. Butler was asked, Butler we had named Merkle, prob the laziest employee I have ever encountered, was no help. 3. Curtain in the new room we were given didn’t close. This meant the sun just came in early am not only waking us up but keeping the room hot. Asked the Butler and management to fix. They never did. I just took a note from the Royalton maint dept and fashioned up a way to rig it myself to close. Piss poor service. 4. Asked to speak to the manager of the resort. That took 2 days. She came over, checked off some things, listened to us and left stay “let me see what I can do to turn this around for you”. When we got back to the room, we had flowers all over the floor, a hot tub going and hearts on the bed. Although thoughtful and likely a nice thing for a couple…there were three of us…So that was cringey and a piss poor attempt to make a guest happy. 5. One the third night, the locks on the doors failed to work. Locks on ALL the doors in the resort. It took two days to fix. This means you could not lock your door when you left for the day. Unacceptable. Add to that the several times we needed to back to the lobby to get our keys fixed. 6. The fire alarm went off at 2am, 4am and several other times during our week stay. Some were caused by guests smoking in their room. Others were just false alarms. I guess I am ok with it because it means they work. What I was not ok with was the 45-60 min timeframe needed to shut it off. There are several other issues with the staff and amenities. As someone looking to vacation here, I think I have put enough to let you make an informed decision. CONCLUSION: If you are looking for a non-mainstream vacation with less tourists and a Tropical Rain Forest atmosphere, St. Lucia will satiate you. If you are looking for a good resort with your family, the Royalton is no worse or better than most on the island. If you are a couple and want to visit St. Lucia…. Stay at the Sandals. In the Mid-Tier all-inclusive resort category, The Royalton gets a 3 out of 5. Not the best, not the worst. If we remove the all-inclusive mid-tier moniker, The Royalton is a solid 2 out of 5. I won’t visit St. Lucia again. If I was, I would stay at the Sandals or maybe hit the high-end resorts like Jade Mountain. If you are going to stay here, lower your expectations. Read less