My wife and I spent 5 nights at the Fortress in September 2008, staying in an Ocean Room. On the face of it, this is a stunning hotel, but it doesn’t take long before the cracks begin to show. Ultimately, the Fortress fell short of what one would expect of a good 5 star hotel.
Our room looked amazing, but I did ask myself if anyone was actually bothered that there was a Bose sound system. Frankly, I don’t intend to spend long enough in a room to care whether there is a Bose system or anything less flash. Perhaps the money would have been better spent on some half decent electric wiring or better housekeeping staff (as to which, see below. The lighting for the room seemed completely unfathomable, with there being nothing remotely logical about the combination of lights that came on. Also, the window blinds seemed like they must have been bought on the cheap as they seemed to break whenever you want near them.
The bathroom, again, looks impressive, but the layout didn’t seem particularly well thought out. There were “his and hers” hand basins at the opposite ends of the bathroom. This meant that if, for example, you only took one tube of toothpaste (does anyone take “his and hers” toothpaste on holiday?) you either end up going back and forth between hand basins or, as we did, just use one hand basin. The bath also seemed to be shoved in the corner as an afterthought. This may all sound a bit picky, but this is a fairly new hotel and a bit of functionality wouldn’t go amiss.
The biggest problem with the Fortress (as others have referred to) is the service. Service in the restaurant (and at breakfast time) was very much with a smile, but was, at times, a little amateurish. The main issue, though, related to housekeeping, which was just poor. We’ve stayed at places before where the housekeeping is below par, but it never ceases to amaze me that some hotels seem to focus on aesthetics and forget about the basics. Our experience was that there was no consistency whatsoever about the housekeeping at the Fortress. Sometimes our water was replenished and other times it wasn’t. Sometimes we’d get fresh towels and other times we wouldn’t. Every now and again a face cloth would appear or our bath robes would disappear. We’d come back to our room in the evening to discover that we’d amassed a small collection of hair conditioner, but had no shampoo. We had several problems with lights not working, both in the entrance to our room and over our shower. After 2 or 3 visits from the hotel’s electrician, the light at the entrance was fixed, but we gave up on trying to get the shower light fixed and resorted to washing ourselves in the dark. All in all, it’s just not very good.
The other disappointment for us was the lack of eating options. You would think, looking at the hotel’s website, you’d think that there were a wealth of dining options for the size of the hotel. In reality, you’ve got one option. The distinction between “Pepper” and “Heat” is that one is the inside part of the restaurant and the other is the outside, terrace, part of the restaurant. However, every evening, we were given two menus (one for “Heat” and one for “Pepper”), the content of which was about 60-70% identical. By the end of our stay, we were really struggling to chose something different and/or interesting. The food, itself, was fine, but nothing special and, even by 5 star hotel standards, a bit on the pricey side. The only other eating option was “Wine cubed”, which I think was empty every night of our stay. From the outside it looked a bit like you’d be eating in a glorified fish tank. If you wanted to eat there, you had to order from a very restricted menu (possibly, a set menu come to think of it) about 24 hours beforehand. The food on offer was clearly going to be better than the rest, but the hotel seemed to think that it could get away with charging Michelin star prices for food which clearly wasn’t going to be anywhere near Michelin star standards. This probably explained why nobody ate there.
Finally, as other reviewers have mentioned, whilst the Fortress is next to the beach, you can’t realistically use the beach and, for the most part, the tide is too dangerous to make it safe to swim in the sea. And you will get hassled a bit, which we didn’t really mind as these people are simply trying to make a living, but I appreciate that some people may find this a little irritating.
All in all, if the more attention was paid to issues such as service and functionality, this could be a great hotel. As it is, it’s not worth the money. If you’re more accustomed to going on a nice package holiday to an all-inclusive in Mexico, the Fortress will be the most amazing place you’ve ever stayed at. If you tend to be a bit more independent and informed, you might be disappointed. The hotel is still very good, but we won’t be staying there again as I’m sure we can do much better.
