Well wot can i say....if your names not down (V.I.P) ya not gettin in to any of the good parts of the lifestyle hacienda!! Wot a waste of my annual leave at work i wud rava go to skegness for 2 weeks..!The weather was lovely thats about it..BE CAREFUL THO AS I PASSED OUT 2X IN 1 DAY THRU THE HEAT!The food is HORRIBLE. It was my birthday while i was out there and we could'nt book a restaurant to save our lives.We went at the allocated times and they said "It is full!" and tryd to big up the restaurant everybody used.There is only 1 shop on site which in extortion..!! You cannot leave the complex as there is nowhere to go!! Please read this before bookin and wastin your time and money on that pit!! The V.I.P's are like royalty over there,every sunday night they have a huge party with a live band,fireworks the lot..and everybody else has to watch from afar...The V.I.P'S are the most rude people ever what visit there! The staff constantly hound you into goind V.I.P they say they need only 10 minutes of your time but it's actually a hour.Dont be fooled they are trying to sell you timeshares...DONT DO IT!! To top it off there is absolutly NOTHING to do at night let alone day...There is no inside bar incase it rains what a waste of my hard earned money....DONT GO!!

returned on 26th june 08,weather really good, food ok, la carte you had to book 24hours in advance, although every time you tryed to book all resturants were full! the men trying to sell time shares were pestering you all the time!the shop on the resort was very expensive,night entertainment only lasted an hour then there was no where to go unless you went to v.i.p disco were you had to buy drinks.staff lovely and did some good trips, monster truck,horse riding and ocean world.

My husband and I arrived to the resort planning to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary . The food at the buffet was decent, if repetative. As an RCI timeshare exchange we were classified as "VIP" and had access to the "VIP" beach section and the upgraded liquer. The rooms in the Penthouse area were clean and well kept and the weather was nice. Surprisingly they didn't try very hard to pitch us to become members.

However... the amount of information that the hotel provides, and the helpfulness of the staff is sorely lacking. We had to ask about every little detail. The safe in our room had no lock, so we had to ask the staff what happened - at which point we found out that we would have to pay $20 to rent a lock. That is ridiculous. We have traveled extensively and this is the first time we had to pay for a lock. The staff also kept unlocking the patio doors everytime they came to clean. At that point we were glad that we had the lock to secure our passports and digital camera.

There was no information in the room about the SPA services, resort policies like locks and dining options(we've never been to an all-inclusive before), TV channel guide, internet rates (we found out it was $8 per hour), upcoming events or special guest events. You have to ask multiple times to get any excursion brochures from the tour desks. Again, this contrary to every other travel exerience I've had. The Maimi newspaper was only available at the main reception (out of 3) desk.

To figure out our guest "status" we had to ask the staff several times what the differences were. Apparently were were "VIP" (as opposed to regular visitors) with our Blue shiny bands, hence the special beach access. So when we saw the advertisments for a "VIP" trip to see July 4th fireworks and U2 cover concert, we were excited. However we were denied access because we weren't "Lifestyle VIP" (aka. owners with Gold shiny bands). Oops. Apparently there are different classes of VIP, which three separate staff members failed to tell us about. Every time we asked for a flyer or details on the trip we were always assured "there will be information later". No one informed us that we were not eligable, and there was no information "later". I consider this to be on par with lying. At best it is willful disinterest because we were second class guests that had Blue bands not Gold bands.

There was construction everywhere and no "Wet Paint" signs. I ruined my favorite shorts because of it. Even when warned, the staff did nothing to rectify the problem.

At other resorts the staff would frequently circulate to check on drinks and food. We were lucky if the people at this resort came out once every two hours. The restaurant booking policy is poor and only two out of the four restaurants are open on a given night. We were promised fresh fruit in our suite every day, but only got it the first day we arrived. Another lie. They offered to "deliver" anything we wanted to the room - but we were wary of extra fees that they might add on - and declined. There was no information about what we could ask for and what we would be charged, and what counts as room service. Could we ask for a whole bottle of liquer at the bar or a bottle of champaign in the room on our anniversary? We don't know.

Be prepared to pay 4x the going rate for any extra bug spray or suntan lotion. Not surprising given the location, but be forewarned. Also, the all-inclusive rate is paid by number of beds not number of people. Since we exchanged into a 2 bedroom with only 2 people we still paid the 4 person rate. $350 per night. Is that normal for an all-inclusive place?

All in all, this resort lacks the service to make it a really great place. This goes hand-in-hand with their decline in ranking from an RCI Gold to an RCI Silver rating. If you only care about a room and lots of sunshine, then this place is fine. But if you care about service and knowing what is going on, this is not the place. Oh, and their website is also quite unhelpful.

We booked a 5 night all inclusive at this resort. This resort is so sub-standard unless you book at the VIP section. There was a tiny section for beach lounge chair, the rest of the area is for VIP. You will have to have the VIP bracelet to get better service. The drinks were horrible, the food was okay and the a la carte was a pain because you have to book it 24 hour ahead and is always booked up but when you look at the restaurant the restaurant is almost empty. We met other guests from UK and they complained about bugs all over their room.

One of their sales staff convinced us to a membership sales pitch where you pay from $15,000 to $100,000 to become a VIP member. Once a member you can rent VIP accomodation for discounted price. This membership supposedly extends to your family and friends. They lied about an 8 bedroom villas rent for $800/week if you are a member and you can get it all year round (52 weeks). So we figure out, we can rent an 8 bedroom villa to someone else (in 18 weeks - we get our money back). We signed the contract, the following day, we talked to other VIP members, we found out that there is only one 8 bedroom villa in this resort as of May 28... and that if you didn't pay premium membership, you will never get the 8 bedroom villas. The majority of the villas are 3 bedrooms, but again we didn't pay premium membership so we will be at the bottom of the list to get 3 bedroom villas, which was never explained during the sales presentation.

We wrote a cancellation letter the following day after we signed the contract and spoke to the customer service manager and she acknowledged and signed our cancellation notice. They tried to convinced us not to cancel but we found more things they lied about, like they have thousands of affiliates in other countries that we can use but we went to their interactive website, It was less than a hundred. You can however, use the RCI and pay exchange fee, which is why we never owned timeshare.

The manager said it will take a week to credit the money to our account, but until now, we don't see money credited back to our account, and worse of it all, the people does not even update you of what's going on. Our representative has once replied saying that our email was forwarded to the admin office, no details as to when they are going to credit our account. We are in the process of disputing the charges with the credit card company, (Bank of America).

The sales people were bunch of liers. We've been to many other all inclusive resorts and this was the worse experience we ever had.