Butler Service vs. plunge pool

[zginger]

I'm sure that this questions has been asked but I couldn't find it. We would like to book our trip for July and are trying to decide what room to book. We both love the idea of the master suite with the plunge pool. I (husband) like the idea of the room being on the ground floor; she likes the plunge pool. However we also saw that the penthouse with the butler is available the dates we are looking at...Is the Butler service worth the extra cost? What does it include? Thanks.

[2New2MN]

Hi,
Others I’m sure will have different opinions, but we rarely utilize the butler services. As members, the butler service is included with our benefits. In six trips, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve asked our butler for any assistance. Go with the master suite with plunge pool. We had one of those rooms during our third trip and it was wonderful. If you can, get one of the suites that is next to the beach.

K&J

[tj71903]

The Butler is nice but you see him 2-3 times a day max. We love Hector and he's always great to us. He'll schedule your dinners and help if you have requests. Up to you if you use him or not.

As far as the rooms, get the Penthouse. Great views, larger heated pool.

[nokidclub]

How/when do guests interact with the butler. Do you just call a special number? How do they get in touch with you to confirm the dinner reservations they made on your behalf?

[zginger]

The Butler is nice but you see him 2-3 times a day max. We love Hector and he's always great to us. He'll schedule your dinners and help if you have requests. Up to you if you use him or not.

As far as the rooms, get the Penthouse. Great views, larger heated pool.

Thanks for the suggestion. If I'm being honest I enjoy showing off my redheaded wife...and the idea of having a plunge pool on the ground floor is appealing to me...but I know the second she reads "larger heated pool" we're getting the penthouse.

[zginger]

Hi,
Others I’m sure will have different opinions, but we rarely utilize the butler services. As members, the butler service is included with our benefits. In six trips, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve asked our butler for any assistance. Go with the master suite with plunge pool. We had one of those rooms during our third trip and it was wonderful. If you can, get one of the suites that is next to the beach.

K&J

What we save on the NOT getting the penthouse we can use for the erotic massage...we shall see. Thanks for your response.

[tj71903]

How/when do guests interact with the butler. Do you just call a special number? How do they get in touch with you to confirm the dinner reservations they made on your behalf?

You can call the number from the room but we never do. We are somewhat easy to find as creatures of habit (same chairs, same routines, etc) and he’ll turn up a few times per day just to check on us. It’s a neat trick.

[tj71903]

The Butler is nice but you see him 2-3 times a day max. We love Hector and he's always great to us. He'll schedule your dinners and help if you have requests. Up to you if you use him or not.

As far as the rooms, get the Penthouse. Great views, larger heated pool.

Thanks for the suggestion. If I'm being honest I enjoy showing off my redheaded wife...and the idea of having a plunge pool on the ground floor is appealing to me...but I know the second she reads "larger heated pool" we're getting the penthouse.

Understand. From my perspective I've never sat outside on the patio (plunge or not) for all that long. We liked the penthouse because we could go down and enjoy the resort (be at the pool, hot tub, etc) the entire day but when we wanted to decompress, relax, etc it was hard to beat sitting in the private hot tub (which seats around 6 people by the looks of it) and watching the ocean, the sun rising or setting, etc.

[mercedese350]

Here's our perspective. Our usual room choice is a high floor Master Suite. We like separate bathrooms and the extra room gives me (Mr) the ability to work without annoying Mrs for an hour in the morning. The ocean view is important to us, the higher the floor, the better. We also like the doors open at night and don't want uninvited visitors during the night! At check-in on our last trip in Nov 2020, we were offered a reasonable price to upgrade to a Penthouse. We took it and enjoyed the experience.
Laying out in the sun in the early morning with breakfast was great and it gave us extra sun time at night if we didn't head to the hot tub. As non-members, the butler service gave us more choice for dinner, past that we didn't use him. The view was fantastic and we enjoyed the plunge pool. Mrs loved the bath looking at the ocean. The downside was one bathroom (Mrs takes sooooo long to get ready!} and the stairs in super high heels. Would we pay full price for the penthouse? Tough call but probably not. We'd take the Master. We'd definitely choose it over the Mansion due to the ocean views. We just booked a Penthouse for 9 nights from May 23rd. There were some great deals on the Desire site and can't wait to get back. Join us for an after dark party on the roof and we'll show you around.

[ksr]

We've had the penthouse 3 times and have a penthouse for our April 5 to 11 trip. The rest of our stays have been in master suites. The master suites with two full bathrooms are my choice. Jill loves the rooftop. Having said that, in the past couple of years the penthouse got a bit pricing, in our opinion, so always the master. We love the butler, usually Hector. We tip him well and ask him to several things for us. Examples are ice and wine in the room daily at 5 pm, standing reservation at The Pearl, and late night room service (free with the penthouse). He always checks in with us 2 or 3 times a day to see how we are doing. Been in the plunge pool once, not the room just visiting, and it was veryyyyyyyy small. If stairs are an issue for you, penthouse may not be a good choice. The heated, larger rooftop pool is nice and the rooftop makes for great parties.

[loraandsteve]

The butler service doesn't really seem to make any difference.
You can call them if you want anything, but we almost never needed anything. (stayed in Penthouse Suites on 6 trips)
We tell them when we want to reserve dinner for a couple of nights, but then we drink too much in the jacuzzi in the late afternoon and cancel the reservations.
Be there second week of June in penthouse suite.