We were so disappointed with La Playa this time. In November 2023 we stayed at this hotel and loved it, so we decided to go back and spend another week, even though it was much more expensive than other hotels in Orient Bay. Apparently, the management was never there. It seems that housekeeping lacks training, and they would come in at odd hours. (one day at 9:00am, another after 3:30pm) They never change the water for the mops, taking the dirty water from room to room. Furthermore, they only changed the bed sheets after 5 days because I asked them to. The vane of the A/C was falling apart so we asked them for some tape to fix it and stop it from falling. Hopefully all this will be better after the coming renovation. We had to buy our own paper towels and dishcloths for the kitchen, as they don’t supply you with any, and our entire sink area was full of water due to the leakage of the coffee maker. What’s the use of a complete kitchen with detergent and sponge and nothing to dry the dishes/utensils with? The pillows were lousy.
The rules for using the beach loungers and umbrellas seemed to have changed: you cannot take any of your own snacks, not even water. You must use their restaurant that now belongs to a separate owner. (this isn’t disclosed when making reservations and not standard in other St Martin hotels, where we have been coming to for the last 25 years).
As a precaution for being rainy season, they taped out 1/3 of the parking spaces within the gates in case it