[Mr Rick]

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other than the disappointing poker in experience, how was the trip... you like the hotel? Worth the $$$?

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The hotel was very nice. Beach was gorgeous. Some European women went topless. It took my wife 4 days to realize why I was so energetic in getting the family to the beach early every day. They have excellent beach chairs and huge beach mattresses.

My kids loved the swimming pool. Which aside from being too chlorinated, had a sit down bar and a couple of fun features (a huge float that you could climb and jump off of, volleyball, fountains, etc.)

Food was very good in some restaurants and so so in others. Make reservations in the French restaurant when you get there for as many nights as they will let you - it is amazing. We also liked the Italian restaurant which is open for lunch and dinner. The Japanese place was like any open table/grill in the US but fun for kids. I don't eat meat so I wouldn't know about the Steak house and Brazilian places... There is a Sea Food restaurant with a view of the beach - it was fabulous too. Be a little wary of the buffets - make sure the food is fresh (I wouldn't eat dairy type dishes that were left out) - a friend of mine had a stomach problem for that reason...

Now for the downside... They try to hustle you for things that made me laugh. There were people who came up to me to help me plan my next vacation. Seriously. I told them I was working on my current vacation at the moment.

If you get a car service to/from the airport their company may ask you to attend a meeting the next morning where they will try to plan your vacation. This scam is about steering you towards activities that they can charge you transportation for or they just flat out get kickbacks.

Then there was the whole towel scam. You have to get towels from the towel hut (unless you are on a super exclusive plan where you get your own swimming pool). But the towel hut often didn't have towels. Unless you were able to materialize some dollar bills. This is an all inclusive resort mind you... That also made me laugh.

But the biggest hustle was the "concierge" service. You pay a f*ckload extra and you are supposed to get a personal assistant who will make all the reservations that you need. We did it because I was told the room would be significantly bigger (in fact that there would be two adjoining rooms - one for the kids). Well, there wasn't a second room. I had to let that go. And actually the travel agent made up for it with a substantial rebate. But the actual "concierge" service was a joke. Don't get it. They did make reservations for the French and Japanese restaurants when we got there (those were the only two you need to do that for and it may be that without Concierge service they won't let you reserve in advance - only the day of by standing in line). But aside from that they did nothing. It actually took longer to call the concierge service and ask them to reserve something than it took for me to do it myself (I speak spanish relatively well but they speak english for the most part). And often I would have to chase them down to find out what the status of a request was. I don't play golf so maybe they come in handy for making those reservations - but I doubt it... I knew of one family that had left something at the golf course - so they asked Concierge to help them locate it and get it back to the hotel and they were told "thats not our job"... LOL.

The service throughout the hotel varied widely. Some of the employees were amazing and went above and beyond the call. I made it a point to tip these people. Others left me stunned at how little they did and how little they cared.

I like to focus on the positive. It was a great vacation and the stuff that went wrong was at least humorous.