My wife and I stayed at the Caravella Beach Resort...

My wife and I stayed at the Caravella Beach Resort from 22-26 March 2019 in a deluxe guest room. Overall our experience was 3/5, the stay was nice but the experience came across less as a resort and more as a hotel charging you extra for almost everything. While all inclusive options existed, we opted for a normal room and free breakfast, but even knowing we would pay for lunch and dinner, most of the other resort amenities were pay-to-play . Despite this, and some some completely avoidable issues from the hotel, this property could have easily been 4/5 or better.

Service/Hospitality (5/5): The staff was great.

Amenities (4/5):

Hotel Pool (5/5): This hotel pool was one of the best we have visited at any hotel resort worldwide.

Ala Cart Food (5/5). Great Restaurants.

Buffet Food (3/5). The live counters were good, but the rest of the options lacked any variation. while breakfast was included, if you wanted a bottle of water with your meal you were presented with a bill at the end. This added to the overall transactional feel of the resort. I understand of paying for water during the day, but a bottle with the breakfast should not be an issue.

Drinks (3/5). The drink menus at every location boosted craft and signature cocktails with long lists of ingredients and garnishes. however, after trying all the drinks the quality and presentation were subpar. Several times drink orders were incorrect altogether or improperly mixed. We got the feeling there was one person who could make the drinks correctly and then everyone else just trying their best to copy them.

Spa/Gym (2/5). These were both giant letdowns. Being a resort, we imagined a large spa with well priced massages. Instead we found a very cramped and poorly equipped hotel gym (1 treadmill, 1 elliptical, 1 bike, dumbbells to 10 kgs, leg press, pull-up bar, and all-in-one cable station), with a locker room that housed very small massage rooms. Massages were relatively expensive and only offered up to 45 minutes. We did not attend yoga, which was only offered only once a day from 0800-0900 after listening to several guests mention the classes were subpar. A great spa, decent gym, and yoga offered several times a day (sunrise/sunset, etc) are all easy fixes.

Rooms (3/5). The room was dated, but was a good size, very clean, a nice private balcony, and an A/C that worked really well. The bathroom also had a great separate shower. 4/5, however, there was absolutely no sound proofing and you could hear everything happening in the hallway and every room also had a terribly loud doorbell and it could be heard from surrounding rooms. Music from parties even at the beach were easily heard and loud guests coming back constantly woke us up. While we will not ding the hotel for guests, the rooms themselves were so miserably sound proofed that even quiet guests were audible. Bring earplugs if you want to sleep.

Trips/Excursions/etc (2/5). The hotel was well maintained, but seemed to be lacking in the overall resort category. Despite a lot of staff, and token events posted on the wall each day, there was no events coordinator to be found organizing anything by the pool or at the beach. Organizing a pool/beach volleyball game or golf/cricket lessons, would be easy and give the hotel that resort feel. The hotel claimed they did not have a taxi service, but the front desk would call you a taxi with fixed rates that appeared 3-4 times the price they should be (round trip of 12 km was over 25 USD). We called to arrange pickup from the airport three times prior to arrival, each time we confirmed our complimentary pickup/drop off, however, on the last day the hotel informed us that this was not in our package and produced a receipt from when they charged us the first day, but had not told us. These lack of options and forced high rates made it feel like hotel management was milking guests.