The hotel is beautiful but the service was really lacking. For example, the games (ping pong, shuffle board, etc) closed at 7pm.
I had ordered a hot eggplant sandwich and it turned out to be a cold sandwich that lacked eggplant.
The breakfast buffet was ok and very busy unfortunately the staff was not efficient in getting supplies replenished.
Generally, it gave the appearance of a five star hotel but it missed the mark with mediocre service.

This was not at all what you expect from a Kempinski Hotel (even the one in Shenyang is much better). The rooms are just normal for Sanya and the staff was really incompetent. Don't expect any help from the reception! The rooms were not clean at all and I had to tell the staff how to clean a hotel room.
The best thing is the spa - ok, no Chinese staff, but friendly and compentent Thai people.

We have spent a week in Kempinski Sanya early November, the weather was fantastic and the see was warm, though very unsteady.
Now to the hotel. In generally I would like to say, that we liked our stay, but actually that has nothing to do with the hotel. We have chosen Kempinski in Sanya, because we know Kempinski hotels in Europe, which is absolutely luxury style. Well, we didn't expect to have the same level like in Europe, because we have heard about the problems to find the english-speaking staff, and that the service level on the island is not the same like Bejing or Shanghai. But still we have expected at least a kind of luxury hotel. Well, forget it. The hotel area is quite nice with huge swimming pool and a lot of green and flowers, and fish ponds, and waterfalls. But that's it actually.
The most dissappointing were the rooms. We have booked deluxe ocean cabana, the room with the direct entrance to the swimming pool and ocean view. When we walked into our room we have discovered, first, there were no ocean view, but a view of the wall of the opposite buiding. Actually no cabana rooms have the ocean view, because all the rooms are situated on the ground floor(because of the pool) and the vegetation is so strong, that you have a garden view more then ocean view. Second problem with our room was the cigarette smell. We have booked the non-smoking room. But when we have told that on the reception, they told us that ALL cabana rooms are smoking rooms. Well, but there was not a word about it on the hotel home page. So we have asked for another room, which we have got. The executive room on the top floor of another buiding, with the real ocean view and non-smoking.
The room itself is no way luxury, very huge though, also for chinese hotel, is is a kind of very businesslike and functional, like a hospital ward. You have no decorative objects in the room. Only one picture, hanging in the toilet?! No flowers or plants or something that could make the room a bit cosy. Though the hotel is very new, opening at the beginning of the year, it looks like it is at least 10 years old. We liked the balcony and a bathtube. The bathroom was again very functional, but nor really inviting. Generally, the room was not that clean, that it should be. And I bet, they never washed the floors in a whole week we have stayed there.( the room has no carpet, and just a tiled floor, where you could see a lot of spots).

Well, hardly in the room, we have faced the second problem: air-condition. Our air-condition showed the temperature of +11 degrees, and it was at least +30 in the room. it was functioning, we noticed, that the cool air is coming out of it, but we couldn't adjust it to the temperature we wanted, because the display was out of order. So we called the house-keeping, and they sent us a boy immedialtely, but that didn't help much, because we couldn't explain him, what the problem was. he told us all the time, the air-condition is working, what do you want. After 20 minutes discussion and several telefone calls, the other guy came, who realized what the problem was,and repaired the display.

The same evening we went for dinner to Paulaner. The hotel is ca. 30 minutes from Sanya city, so you are more or less depending on the hotel restaurants. There are 4, or actually three restaurants. The first one in the main building, which is serving breakfast and a kind of buffet dinner, which we visited only for breakfast. The chinese one, which was pretty empty all the time. We had dinner there once, and it was OK, though nothing really special. Then there is The Catch, grill and fish restaurant, which is actually a part of Paulaner. Paulaner has its own brewery and german food, which was OK for China. We had almost all days our dinner in Catch, which was mostly grilled fish or something, which was good, though pricy.
Well, the first evening. I have orderes a glass of white wine, since I don't drink beer. The wine I have got was bad. It had a wrong colour, smell, to tell nothing about the taste. So I have sent this glass back and asked for a new one. It have taken me about 10 minutes to explain, what was wrong, then I have got another glass, which was OK. Next evening, I also ordered a glass of white wine, the other one, which was fantastic.So I wanted to order the whole bottle. To my big surprise the answer was: sorry, the wine is sold out. First I thought it should be a kind of linguistic problem, because I still had a wine in my glass. After 30 minutes and communicating to 4 different staff members we cleared the problem: the wine was sold out indeed.

What I want to say, is, no matter what problem do you have, you must be ready to endless discussions and explanations, or you call for german manager immediately. The staff is very freindly and willing, but it doesn't help if they don't speak english.

They have a wine bar, which was pretty empty all the time, and a lot of wine on the wine list was sold out, and the lobby bar, which was really nice.

The pool area was really nice. They have one more smaller pool in executive club building which we were using instead of a central pool, because there were no people at all, only two of us, and because it was 2 m deep. The beach is nice. We have heard the beach in Yalong Bay is nicer, well the only difference is the colour of the sand, and much more people on the beach inYalong Bay. We liked the beach which was very big and clean.

My conclusion: the hotel is OK for a short break. But don't stay there if you expect a higher level vacation.
I wonder, what they will be doing after Mandarin Oriental and Ritz Carlton are opened. The competition will be really hard for Kempinski. The location near the airport is not a real problem today, since the first plane arrives at about 1pm and the last one at about 9pm, and there are only few planes during the day. But we have heard that there will be more internnational direct flights to Sanya airport next year. I suppose,I wouldn't like to stay in Kempinski Sanya then.

My wife and me are staying at the Kempinski hotel, we had a garden view room instead of booked mountain view room as a free upgrade due to "early" booking two weeks in advance.
Pros:
- large, modern up-to-date rooms with LCD TV, open bathtub at balcony (but nothing for shy persons due to part visibilty from other rooms) in addition to shower in room
- large, great pool area with one large water slide for adults and a small one for children
- private beach area
- Paulaner restaurant for those who like original German food
- free shuttle bus at 11 AM to Sanya city (in front of McDonalds) and return at 6PM (but you must ask staff several times to get to know which bus it is, it is the bus with "Kempinski" written on side)
Cons:
- lies beside where the airplanes fly in to the Sanya airport (you can see and hear the planes but this is no real problem)
- noise from floors: there are wing doors that make loud noise if closing, so at night if someone walks through the doors on the floor it can be heard in the rooms (my wife woke up several times)
- staff is only partly speaking/understanding English, so do not expect to get advice on how to travel by public transportation to the sights around Sanya
- it is about 30min by taxi to the city center
- at Paulaner, it may happen that you get first your meal, then the drinks, so you must be patient sometimes...
Actually, we will stay second half of our vacation in Yalong Bay at Hilton, so I will see how is the difference...