Hi all. We have a master suite booked 1/29 for 3 nights. Visited Desire 3 times, first time at Temptation. I have questions about a few amenities listed on the inclusions page. This a quote from another recent thread but it's why I am asking questions. "The entire east side of the pool has reserved all the pool side sun chairs for premier members, but hardly anyone is so they sit empty. So for everyone that isn’t premier you sit either under the speaker system and get your ear drums blasted out or freeze in the shade. Tables sit empty at bash, because if you want the table you have to buy a $150usd bottle of moet to sit there." Included in the tower amenities are 'Exclusive sundeck area for Tower guests' and 'Pool & beach concierge service'. Is the 'exclusive sundeck' the one on top of the tower? Are we considered premiere members for party pool chair purposes because of our room category? GF won't be happy sitting in the shade lol. And what does the 'Pool & Beach Concierge' do? What does the butler provide? I recall reading reviews that seemed pretty positive about their butler. Hoping for warm and sunny weather.
We had a master suite in November. The butler can get you chairs reserved at the pool. We never had chairs on the reserved tower deck ours were always at the shallow end of the pool and we had him do that for us everyday. Our butler made our dinner reservations for She, late checkout request, filled our requests for bottles on the patio bar, would run us up buckets of ice when room service said it would be 30-40 minutes. Our hot tub was also having issues the first day and he had the people there fixing it before we got back from bash. We had Ivan and he was awesome!
The sun deck for tower guests only is near the sexy pool bar but a little further away from the action. It is rarely full. However, being in a master you can ask your butler to reserve chairs for you in the spot you wish. And can specify whether you want full sun or umbrella etc. And yes they will treat you like premier members. As for other perks use the butler to make dinner reservations. Also we would have the butler bring some appetizers to the room in the evening. Always good to have a snack when waiting for the Mrs to get ready for dinner In the past we have also had them get us cups for beer pong, obtain rolling papers, and make Jell-O shots for us.
Not sure it was 100% clear, but the tower seating area by the pool is not the same as the premier deck. The tower seating is to the right side of the pool when facing the ocean (near the Sea Flirt restaurant), while the premier seating area starts around the middle of the pool and extends to the left side of the pool when facing towards the ocean.
Thanks for the replies. This sounds promising and we will plan to take advantage of the butler service.
@Jen&Kyle Kyle, how much did you tip your butler? We are in a Master suite for the first time for 8 nights this April. No idea what is appropriate to tip a butler, assuming you call upon him regularly, but not excessively? Will a butler fetch us coffee from the coffee shop in the morning? Can I have him stock our bar with whatever bottles we want (are ones TTR has)?
We have a master suite for a few days for our upcoming trip, but have never really made use of a butler. I could certainly see us using them for reserving chairs and dinner reservations, but I am at a loss as to fair tips for these types of requests. Thoughts?
I have read here that it's good to tip the butler at the beginning of the trip (to ensure good service), and then at the end, not small tips as you go along. But I am also interested in hearing from people who have stayed in the Master and Penthouse suites. Jen&Kyle have stayed in both on more than a couple of occasions.
We tipped moderately each time and then a larger amount at the end. It probably ended up being $250+ at the end of a 4 day trip. We maybe had him take care of one or two things each day. Ours went above and beyond on a couple of requests so we adjusted accordingly. Get to know your butler, bartenders, servers etc, they love to share their life experiences and passions! The staff is awesome and it really does feel like going home.
What we have done is tip them $60 right from the start and set an expectation that we will take care of them if they take care of us. Then I follow up with what restaurants and times we would like which night and where we like to sit at the pool. They will typically need to get back to you after they check on the restaurants and arrange the pool spot. When they do, if they were able to obtain what was requested, I give them another 20 and for each time we make an adjustment or another request then another 20. If they come back and say sorry we could only get you 9:30pm at xyz I will usually counter with ah that is too late for us and we really wanted the original request. Can you keep checking for us and let us know if something opens up and they can squeeze us in. I don’t tip at that point as they haven’t gotten us anything we couldn’t have gotten on our own. But almost 100% of the time they will come back with the restaurant and time we wanted and then I tip them another 20. Sets an expectation that hey if you help us out then you get rewarded. If you give us the typical everything is full speech then that did us no good and you no good. When we make special requests like them having to get the rolling papers or solo cups when they are off property or making Jell-O shots I will usually tip a little more. Depends on the level of difficulty. I would agree with the previous poster that it likely gets close to 250. Depends on how helpful the butler is and how many requests we have. That figure of course changes drastically when we have a party in the penthouse or master. I think (and sorry this is a guess as I don’t recall exactly) I gave our butler for that 100 up front and another 100 later as they did such a good job in ensuring some apps were delivered, the bar was stocked, the room was prepped and in getting the two bar tenders we wanted at the party. Of course we tipped the bar tenders separately. Hope that answers everything. Let me know if you have any follow up questions.
