TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Royal Islander La Plage: Week 49

Greetings:
I am sharing observations of my experience of Royal Islander since my arrival Saturday. Clearly, the priority was to get the resort up and running in a condition that would allow guests to be comfortable and not hindered by ongoing remediation.The resort is operating at @90%. By that I mean most all of the rooms can be occupied. Some rooms have remaining work to be done.....a sliding door is not closing; interior work not complete, etc. Some guests are being accommodated in alternate spaces. There is work ongoing in public spaces and some infrastructure. For example, a number of wiring ducts for telephone, wifi and TV that are normally hidden from view are exposed. The lobby check-in desk and lobby bar are a work in-progress. Many rooms are missing one-thing or another. Some rooms the TVs don't work. In others things like shelving in the refrigerator are missing. As each quest is acting like a quality control inspector for their room, the resort staff is to be commended for the patience and response to guest complaints. On the very plus side, the grounds look great. The jacuzzi, pool, deck, and chairs are all new and operating.

The terrace level rooms seem to have been completely redone with a new style of furniture and layout. I will try to get into see one today.

The Tortuga Beach Cafe is open and updated.

News about La Teresse in next post.

Have a friend there this week also who said just about the same. Good for the resort to have reports from the guests in case something not already on their "to do" list comes up.

Sounds good over all. I haven't been following RI in particular--Did they gut all the rooms or just do a refurb?

Its great that they are 90 ready but when rooms are occupied and things need to be done or missing items I wonder if those will really get done in a timely way. Something to be said about waiting till everything is perfect before you reopen rather than waiting for repairs during occupancy.

Even if they were 100% complete, sounds like they would be fully open by a couple of months from now, not 2020...

I am so so very disappointed that RI was not forthcoming about the readiness of the resort. I am glad also that i couldnt get a flight there and back, probably because of the condition of the airport.

After more than a year i am surprised that so many problems are waiting to be resolved. Have to have a discussion about my maintenance fee!

Good news-Having stayed at RI and LaTerrasse many times I am sure 90% is much better than 110% would be at many other resorts. This is much better than waiting 2 years for a resort to reopen. You can take it to the bank the staff will respond immediately to any concerns. Counting down the days to arrival on January 27th at LaPlage and LaTerrasse for a month long stay on the island.

I'm willing to wait for 100% repairs. Would not want to show up to have to request this and that and then wait on island time to have a response. Time on island is to short to have to wait for repairs or furnishings that should have been done before opening.

Thanks for taking time out from your vacation to make the post. Personally I thrilled the RI is open - I would have been happy with 60% ! Just give me clean sheets, a working shower, the beach and a pool. As a twenty-year owner I'm confident that the staff - god bless them! - is doing everything humanly possible to make our stays as wonderful as possible.

Thanks for taking time out from your vacation to make the post. Personally I thrilled the RI is open - I would have been happy with 60% ! Just give me clean sheets, a working shower, the beach and a pool. As a twenty-year owner I'm confident that the staff - god bless them! - is doing everything humanly possible to make our stays as wonderful as possible.

It is 2FerTuesday! LOL

Sweet to hear. Enjoy!

Thanks so much for the update!

Looking forward to your post about LaTerrasse. We are supposed to be there in March, Hoping it will be open then.

I'm with you Scubaman, and I've seen where the staff sometimes will borrow from some other room to help out, then that room
ends up short of the item for the next person.
Notice a little sarcasm in the reply to your first post ?

"Notice a little sarcasm in the reply to your first post ?"
Oh yes. I'm used to it.

As promised...Observations about La Terrasse

The work on the exterior of the building seems complete but the scaffolding on the street side remains in place. Some of the units are occupied by full time unit owners and some employees. The other units have patio/balcony door and slider frames waiting to be installed. The lobby is filled with furniture and is not operating. I suspect that most timeshare units do not have furniture. Stored in the garage below the building is a lot of building materials and boxed interior elements. The pool area looks intact but has not been cleaned and the pool is not filled. However, the terrace garden is in good shape and open. Staff thinks that the timeshare units might reopen sometime in January but did not speculate of when in January.

I was just on the island Friday and I had to stop and see how it was. I walked the grounds and it looked beautiful. When I walked inside it looked good except that they were using the activities desk as the registration desk. Of coarse I didn't get to look in any rooms. It looked as good as ever and the lady's at the desk were more than hepful as always. I am just glad the are open. The rest of the village is like a ghost town. Maybe with traffic they all will come back.
The garage across the street is shut down as they are storing stuff for construction. I wish the had a sign posted. That would have saved me having to back up the ramp.
I with Timnboston I don't need much. I'm just glad they are back