How anyone could complain about Sea Island, the Cloister, the Beach Club, the Lodge, or anything else on Sea Island is beyond me. We were here for my sister's wedding and it was amazing. Melissa (wedding coordinator) was a lovely person and was always on hand to help us with everything. Our family had to plan most of the wedding from a distance but Melissa made it easy and made us feel secure.
I Had not been back for four years and in that time the rennovation completely transformed the Island.
Working in a 4-diamond hotel myself I know what really good service is and boy does The Cloister have it. We actually stayed in a condo on the island with access to all of the other buildings. The gym/spa are the best I have ever experienced. It is truly a wonderful place. I read another review that said she was disappointed to she had to drive places. We really didn't drive anywhere. The island is very bike friendly and it might take you 5 minutes to bike between buildings or 10 minutes to walk....max. Not at all a disappointment. More like discovering something new every day. In fact, writing a review for an establishment like this seems ridiculous somehow. It is the best and nothing else needs to be said.

We booked though WhataHotel.com We got a GREAT rate. There are not enough words to describe how wonderful and awesome this hotel is. The weather was nice during the day, cold at night but perfect to sit by the fireplace with a glass of wine. The new beach club is amazing. The food (no matter where you choose to eat) is out of this world as well as the service you will receive. I would recommend this hotel to everyone. There is nothing bad I can say about the The Cloister. We are already planning our trip back. We plan on using whatahotel.com to book us again.

This is probably the most luxurious place that I have ever been to. I could write a book about how great our stay was. Rather than a novel, I will say this, It's expensive, but rest assured that your money will be well spent. The service, amenities, food, and activities are among the best in the world. One example, complimentary use of a car while staying there. By the way, it's a new Range Rover that they let you use, all they ask is that you let them know if you plan to drive the car out of state. Their website is very detailed and I urge you to explore each page as it serves as a perfect guide to all they offer.

We visited the Cloister in late September 2007. While it was expensive, I felt that overall, it was very much worth the price paid. We had booked an $800 room and when we were ushered into the suite where the Prime Minister of Japan stayed during the G8 conference, I actually wondered if we had been upgraded or if they had made a mistake - the room was so gorgeous. It looked similar to the presidential suites I have viewed at hotels like the RItz and the Four Seasons (only slightly smaller), but the quality of the construction was much higher than what I've seen elsewhere. The furnishings were also spectacular, like something out of Architectural Digest. Handmade rugs from Turkey, beautiful curtains, four-poster beds, incredible linens, wonderful toiletries - it was a dream come true. It sounds crazy, but I thought $800/night was a bargain for this room.

WIth a few exceptions, every staff person I encountered was absolutely lovely. (There were a couple of women in the restaurants that needed re-educating on customer service, but other than that I found the staff to be wonderful.) For example, when we dropped into the horse facility (off-site), the lady who runs it immediately offered to give us a personal tour of the entire facility (which is beautiful) even though we were just "looky-loos." You could tell she totally loves her job and sees the vision that the owner of this property has for the resort.

We ate at two or three different restaurants on the property and found the prices to be fairly reasonable and the quality of the food to be generally quite high. One problem: most require a collared shirt and a jacket for men; but loaners are available.

It's true that the outlying rooms are a distance from the main building, but it's less than a 15 minute walk and rides are readily available. We enjoyed our relative isolation and the proximity to the beach and we walked everywhere.

We had massages at the newly remodeled spa and this was the only time when we felt a little ripped off. Our treatments were good but not great and the price was very high. The automatic gratuity contributes to the sense of being ripped off. However, this one little thing did not detract from our overall experience at the Cloister. We would go back in a heartbeat.