Palmaïa-The House of AïA: All Inclusive Wellness Resort

Best vacation and really appreciate the environmental efforts. You feel like you’re living in a mini forest city and can enjoy the jungle. Room was great, food/coffee/alcohol was great, staff were the best I’ve ever encountered. Everything was fantastic - to me this is the definition of a perfect resort. No complaints at all. Hope to come back.

So very disappointed in Palmaia, House of AIA. We first visited this resort in May 2023, and fell in love – so much so that as soon as we got back home, we canceled a 2024 cruise so that we could afford to return in the fall and planned to make Palmaia a yearly destination. We thought we had found our dream vacation. Unfortunately, when we returned in November 2023, service was just not the same caliber, and definitely not the 5-star experience we encountered during our first visit. Room service was lacking and required almost daily requests to have items restocked. The adult pool had children in it daily. After 3 days of being patient, we brought it to the staff’s attention and were told to ‘take a picture’ and send it to our Nomad guide. Staff members simply ignored the problem. The adult pool bar was often not open within the advertised hours or not open at all. Even when it appeared open it was not staffed – on multiple occasions we left after waiting more than 20 minutes for service and had to walk to the outdoor bar for drinks. Communication with the spa – a highlight we had budgeted for and looked so forward to – was confusing and frustrating. After reaching a point of no longer even wanting a massage, they did apologize and offered a discount for our couples massage. This was appreciated but really put a damper on the beginning of our visit. All these issues were brought to the attention of staff members, and upon my return home, we wrote an email to the Guest Relations Manager, Eduardo Perez. Mr. Perez responded timely and did apologize for our experience, but failed to acknowledge our concerns with any kind of explanation or assurance that these issues would be resolved in the future. I replied and asked if he would be able to address the issues – after all, some kind of assurance of resolving the issues would have been helpful and would allow us to feel comfortable with future reservations. This was November 29, 2023, and I have yet to receive a response. I am just touching the surface on the issues and have only summarized our feelings in the interest of brevity. While we most likely will not return as a result of our most recent visit and resulting customer service experience, I can say the location is very beautiful and our meals were delicious. While many of the staff seemed new and were lacking in customer service skills, many staff members were fantastic and went above and beyond to provide excellent customer service. Our massages once finally scheduled, were fantastic as well. For the price point, and based on our last visit, we can longer rate this resort higher than 3 stars.. It could simply have been a bad/off week for them, but based on management’s response – we don’t know as the concerns were never properly addressed. They have so much potential but obviously the management is not addressing the shortfalls that have been brought to their attention. IMO, they are charging customers for a 5-star experience, and simply not delivering.