Hoteles cerca del Friar’s Bay Beach, Collectivity of Saint Martin

Me and my husband stay in the Ance Marcel Beach Resort another 10 nights and it was amazing! Well managed property, attentive and professional staff ( special thanks to Stephane and Nadia !), clean rooms( everyday cleaning ), outstanding restaurants, delicious breakfast, free private gated parking ,great service at the beach- what else can you dream of during the vacation? It’s our 3rd stay there during last 13 months and we’re not been disappointed . Every little details has been taken care by management , Stephane always available and on top of every question. Thank you! Highly recommend it!

The hotel room was quite spacious with plenty of hot water and good air conditioning. There was a kettle in the room which was wonderful and used everyday! The bar was nice with very friendly staff and drinks were very good and reasonably priced. The resort grounds were very nice and the young palm trees will added the needed shade in a few years (hotel suffered hurricane damage). The area the hotel is located is fairly quiet with only a few dining options to walk to. There is a small well stocked grocery store and delicious bakery only 10 minutes on foot. The restaurant food was very good and located on the beach, but when we were there the wait times were incredibly long. I don't know if the hotel is short staffed or something was off, but additional bar help could have resolved a lot of the waiting for water and drinks. The hotel did offer shuttle service by an employee for $25 to airport and to Marigot. We were on the first floor and had to deal with ants in the bathroom everyday. We called the hotel before booking the room to ask about beach access and were told there was beach access, but the water in front of the hotel is a lagoon and we saw no one in the water. We went to fitness center and the paper towel/wipes to clean equipment after use was empty. Beach towels and umbrellas were sparse at the pool so get there early otherwise sit under a palm tree away from pool. On a rainy day we asked if the hotel had umbrellas to borrow and were told ”they are broken”. The hotel has arrangements with airlines to accommodate guests when airlines cancel flights and 4 out of 5 nights there was a canceled flight which then added 20+ more guests than expected and this was part of the problem with the slow food service.

The overall experience was good but there was one BIG issue that would make us question if we would stay here again. The beach and location were great. There are several high end restaurants 5 minutes walk away and multiple places to get a drink and lunch up and down the beach within a short walk. The pool is really nice, it’s not on the beach, but we still enjoyed it. Room was very clean and no issues whatsoever. The view from the room is a little run down looking and not exactly what you would expect from a resort. The issues: They are stingy on the towels. You have to present a towel card and you only get 1 towel each. I’ve seen towel cards at cheaper all-inclusive resorts, but never seen this at a small boutique resort before. We would have liked to have 2 towels each, but this was a minor inconvenience. WiFi is strong enough but it kicks you out if you close your phone for even 2 seconds. You have to log back into the wifi over and over again and it gets very frustrating. You only get one old fashioned key, and the cost to replace it is 150 euros. It’s not a big deal but it’s added stress that you have to keep track of one key and if you have 2 guests that want to separate, there is only 1 key to share. The BIG ISSUE we had that really turned us off is how actual hotel guests are treated at the beach. We stayed 5 days in the most expensive suite room in the entire complex, yet we were treated like 2nd class guests at the beach area. We went to lay down on the chairs and after about 30 minutes, the beach attendant came over and told us we have to leave and go sit on the other side of the beach because apparently the area we were sitting in was for VIP guests (aka cruise ship guests). How can you treat cruise ship guests who pay $15 for a chair for the day as VIP, but ACTUALLY HOTEL GUESTS who pay a couple thousand $$ for a room are told they need to go to the non-VIP section. What made it worse is that during 5 days of laying out on the beach we were NEVER ONCE asked if we wanted a drink by the beach attendants. But for the cruise guests, La Playa Hotel staff rolled out the red carpet and were running back and forth making sure the cruise guests had a drink in hand at all times. Such a shame that La Playa would treat their own guests like trash and treat Carnival cruise day guests as VIP. Aside from this big issue, we really did enjoy our stay, but please beware you will be treated very poorly on the beach unless you come for the day from a cruise.