Anguillla: CuisinArt Resort (April 2016)

My spouse and I stayed at the Cuisinart Resort for four nights in late April 2016. (The resort is owned the Cuisinart company that makes small household appliances.) We booked our reservation online through American Express travel because they offered us a better rate than was available on the Cuisinart hotel website; however, alternately, we could have booked our stay through the Leading Hotels of the World site instead. The hotel requires full pre-payment for your stay; if you need to cancel, you must do so 30 days in advance. (We rarely encounter such a strict cancellation policy.)

Cuisinart is located in Rendezvous Bay on the southwestern coast of Anguilla on a 2-mile long stretch of white sand and turquoise water with views of neighboring St Martin. Cuisinart’s whitewashed, blue-domed buildings are reminiscent of the Greek islands. A Mediterranean-style tile terrace with gardens and a seemingly mile long swimming pool are located at the center the property. The pool, and its connecting water elements, are a focal point of the resort, leading your eye from the lobby toward the blue sky and sea beyond. The Cuisinart property hosts the island's only golf course; designed by Greg Norman, this 18 hole course was previously called Tenemos.

The Cuisinart Resort offers 90 suites and 7 private villas. The suites range from junior suites to one-, two,-, and three-bedroom units, which are some of the largest on Anguilla. For example, beachfront one-bedroom suites measure 1,800 square feet, whereas beachfront two-bedroom suites are 2,800 square feet. All lodging options offer balconies and at least partial ocean views. The private villas offer even more space and privacy. Suites feature tile floors throughout, accented with blue and yellow furnishings, area rugs, and floral wall art. Note that ten main beachfront lodging buildings (each building has three floors, and each floor holds two or three suites) do NOT have elevators, so if you have mobility issues, either request a room on the ground floor, or book a room in the three-story main building, which has an elevator.

We booked a one-bedroom suite, which was enormous! A long foyer/entryway with a second (windowless and somewhat cramped) full bathroom leads to the large living room, which offers a sofa, chair/ottoman, coffee table, side table, and entertainment unit (with a flat-screen TV and a DVD player). The separate bedroom (which could be closed off with a door), features another sofa and chair, another coffee table, a king-size bed abutted by two nightstands, a desk, a mini-bar refrigerator, and a Nespresso machine. Each room in the suite has its own air-conditioning controls and ceiling fan, and the temperature was always cool and comfortable. A large walk-in closet (with shelves and hanging options and an electronic safe) preceded the immense master bathroom, which has a separate water (toilet) closet, monstrous pedestal soaking bathtub with glass block backdrop, and large glass-walled shower as well as a two-sink vanity with a small stool at which you could sit to dry your hair or apply makeup. The hotel provides a hair dryer, bathrobes, slippers, and a large golf umbrella. Our suite’s main terrace was accessible from both the bedroom and the living room, and the sliding doors feature screens so that you can allow the breeze in without the bugs. The large terrace held two reclining cushioned lounge chairs and a dining table with four chairs. The only thing missing was an umbrella – because our suite was located on the third/top floor, there was no shade or sun protection on either of our terraces. (Rooms on the first and second floors are shaded by the balconies immediately above them, so they do not require umbrellas, but nor do they receive full sunshine.) The master bathrooms are made of marble, and most have indoor and outdoor showers. Note that the outdoor shower is just functional – there is nothing attractive or spa-like or luxurious about it. The resort could do so much more with the private solarium/terrace (located off the master bathroom) that houses the outdoor shower if they make a little design investment. As it is now, the small enclosed but open-to-the-sky terrace constructed with glass blocks on two sides includes two reclining cushioned lounge chairs and a small side table, but it unfortunately is not somewhere that you want to spend time. A full selection of complimentary Rusk toiletries is available, including shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, body wash, and even free hairbrushes and hairspray. Twice daily maid service is provided, and you receive two bottles of complimentary water and a full ice bucket at evening turndown time (which usually arrived before we had left for our 8:00 pm dinner).

We stayed in building 1 (Athena) and the noise from Bankie Banx Dune Preserve kept us awake on our last evening. The music began at approximately 10:00 pm and lasted past 2:00 am, when we finally fell asleep. (The loud music was a surprise, because the establishment was not supposed to be open on Saturday evening. We actually went to the Dune Preserve on Friday night to listed to a local band play, and the noise on Friday night was not nearly as loud as it was on Saturday night when nothing was supposed to be going on !) We suggest to the hotel that they not place guests in the Athena building unless all other buildings are occupied; for the amount of money that we paid per night, we expected to have a good night's sleep! We could not even sleep with our screen/sliding doors open that evening because of the deafening sound. The noise level would have been even louder, except for the fact that the air-conditioning equipment on the roof of our building was so loud itself. We are not sure which was worse - the bass from Dune Preserve or the constant running of the A/C unit. It seemed that the fan in the master bathroom water closet, as well as the hot water, created much noise on the roof. We mentioned the noise issue from The Dune to our check-out agent, but she just smiled and said a quick “Sorry”. We also mentioned the noise in an online survey that Cuisinart asked us to complete, but they just said “Thanks” via email and did not address any this issue or any of our other suggestions (which we will detail towards the end of this review).

The resort offers babysitting services, mountain bikes, bocce, croquet, billiards, children’s playground, fitness center, room service, two lighted tennis courts, watersports equipment, complimentary self and valet parking, and complimentary Wi-Fi. The hotel contains a media room/business center with a few computers and printers as well as a lending library. (The room once held a pool table, but no longer.) Several shops are available: one sells clothing and resort wear, one sells jewelry, and the last sells sundry items (snacks, souvenirs, sunscreen).

Cuisinart boasts the island's only hydroponic farm, with a greenhouse that grows tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, and herbs. You can tour the farm, lush tropical gardens, and orchards at designated times (the resort provides you with a daily schedule). The Venus Spa offers 16 treatment rooms, a Turkish hammam (steam room), indoor and outdoor relaxation areas, water-therapy rooms, and a heated seawater Thalasso pool. Cooking classes are offered on several days of the week: Japanese class (Mondays), pizza and cookies (Tuesdays), pastries (Thursdays), and chef’s secrets (Fridays). Wine tastings are available on Mondays and Thursdays, and rum tastings on Wednesdays.

Cuisinart has five restaurants and four bars:

Café Mediterraneo, which is located poolside, serves breakfast and lunch. A daily breakfast buffet of pastries, fruit, granola, coffee, juice, yogurt at Café Med is included with your room rate. You can also order this breakfast delivered to your room at no charge. The ladies working in Café Med for breakfast service are NOT friendly at all; it was very disappointing to see unsmiling faces every morning. (The men we saw working breakfast were more friendly.) See our separate review of Café Mediterraneo on Tripadvisor.

The Clubhouse Grill (located at the golf course) serves lunch, and Italia (also located at the golf course) serves dinner. (The hotel provides a golf cart shuttle between the main property and the golf course.) The Lobby Bar serves lunch, dinner, and drinks in a partially open-air environment; sometimes live piano music is available. The Beach Shack is open for lunch and drinks.

Tokyo Bay and Le Bistro at Santorini (the resort’s more formal restaurants) serve dinner only. The Chef's Table is available at le Bistro Santorini on Wednesday evenings, which includes 8 courses and wine for $195.00 per person, or you can try the a la carte or tasting menus at Tokyo Bay. The 9-course Chef Joe's Omakase tasting menu at Tokyo Bay was phenomenal, and the chef is very personable. This meal was the highlight of our stay not only at Cuisinart, but on our entire 9-day vacation to St Barth and Anguilla. The quality of the food, and the service that we received from ALL of the employees at Tokyo Bay is truly exemplary. See our separate review of Tokyo Bay.

Now on to the not-so-good things:

The Cuisinart Resort needs to replace the umbrellas on the beach. We walked up to the nearby Sunshine Shack for drinks, and their umbrellas are in perfect condition, so Cuisinart cannot blame their condition on the strong wind because the umbrellas at the Sunshine Shack are fine. Even more disturbing – Staff at the Cuisinart Resort need to rake and remove the seaweed/sea grass on a regular basis. Debris spoils what could be a stunning, beautiful view. We saw no one rake the entire four days of our stay, despite the beach attendants having almost nothing to do because no one was sitting on the beach (In contrast, again at the Sunshine Shack, their employees were raking seaweed daily, so it is clearly Cuisinart’s choice not to maintain their beach. The poor condition of the beach is truly unacceptable for a hotel of this level! (Depending on the time of year that you visit, nightly room rates start at $500 for a basic room, and reach $2000+ per night for larger units). The beach itself would be beautiful if not for the seaweed and the tattered umbrellas. Beach service was incredibly slow, despite the fact that we were often the only couple on the entire resort beach. The beach attendants deliver complimentary bottled water in a sort of small sturdy see-through plastic shopping bag filled with ice. The staff dispenses complimentary sorbet at 3:00 pm, and the portion size is impressive! Although we had looked forward to using the beautiful swimming pool, the large number of children who were permitted to behave uncontrollably and disruptively made it impossible to do so.

Regarding the concierge service, we spoke to two different employees regarding our departure on an Air Anguilla flight, connecting from Anguilla through Sint Maarten and then back to the US, but neither one of them (one man and one woman) could advise us on what time to arrive at the Anguilla airport or what we would have to do upon arrival in Sint Maarten (for example, did we need to go through customs and immigration, or were we just in transit?). In general, employees need to be more assertive and knowledgeable and to use louder voices. Another example - The gentleman from the front desk who checked us in was very friendly, but he was so soft-spoken that it was difficult to understand him.

Our stay at Cuisinart was fine, but after coming directly to Anguilla after an amazing stay at chic Le Sereno on St Barths, Cuisinart really could not compare. For us, Cuisinart Resort was much too large, impersonal, and reminiscent of an all-inclusive resort for our taste, but everyone else seemed to be having a great time there.





















No comments: