PALAU PACIFIC RESORT

We stayed 6 nights in an ocean front room costing about USD800 a night and am reviewing against that price point, based on extensive worldwide travel to over 30 countries staying in decent hotels around this price bracket. It’s worth noting that Palau in general is pricey given they rely so much on imports but this is meant to be the best hotel in Palau and it’s stuck in a time warp - I don’t think the rooms have had any attention for at least 40 years. When was the last time you took a shower in a cream bath with a shower curtain or saw cane furniture ?!! It was like going back in time - every single thing in the rooms was old with the exemption of a usb charging point. We were provided two small bottles of water in the room and enquired why they weren’t replenished - it’s because you can drink the tap water. Who drinks from the bathroom tap in an $800 room ?!! You have two other options - Fiji water at over $5 a pop (small bottle) or top up at the water station in reception - but get this - they shut it at 6pm … obviously because no one needs water after that time, right ? Definitely not at an $800 per night hotel ! The bed was really hard and we seemed to have two queens pushed together to make one big bed with 4 small and thin pillows. We requested two more and they took more than 24h to arrive. In comparison our next hotel was a Manila airport hotel for a night at one tenth of the cost and the beds and bedding were wonderful and so much better. I saw other reviews complaining about the beds. The breakfast was perfunctory. Coffee was a help yourself jug of filter coffee on a hot plate. There was a guy doing eggs which was fine and a few other sad bits and pieces. I thought they could have done a good fruit selection but it was v limited. We did a few dives with Splash onsite diving and they were easy to deal with and we saw loads despite the weather preventing us from getting to Blue Corner. The boat seemed a bit past its best (in keeping with the hotel) and they kept having to stop and fiddle with the engines before continuing. The dive master was a very uncommunicative - just felt like he was going through the motions. We never knew his name and he offered zero help with my wife’s BCD when she had an issue 10m below the surface or when we returned to the boat. Some of the staff were lovely - Melody in particular was wonderful and super helpful. The hotel is on its own nice bay and the snorkelling on the house reef was great - giant clams were great to see. Tons of fish of all descriptions. The hotel is about 15 mins from town in a taxi - $15 each way. We thought the hotel restaurant food was ok but again quite pricey - many mains coming in at over $30 each. A 330ml can of Asahi was $8. We ate in town a few nights - some restaurants come and get you and take you back for free to save $30 taxi round trip. A new large hotel is being constructed next door and there’s no impact from that but given that’s going to be new and presumably up to modern standards, this hotel’s days are numbered. So, overall for $800 a night this gets a 2 star review tops. It would need to be a quarter of the price to get to 4 stars.

There is so much to like about this hotel. Super nice staff. Palau is an incredible adventure. And if it was a lower price I would rate 4 stars. But its premiumly priced and so I'm judging on this metric. The food is pretty repetitive - and if you stay for 5 days you will get bored. The buffets have very little options to mix this up. There are a few too many "non premium" things like signs saying you will be charged if you don't return keys / don't' return towels. The buildings need a bit of a refurb. And not the fault of the hotel.. but its a very rocky beach. I think this is probably the best choice in Palau - we had a great time. But I think you'll end up questioning the price vs. quality trade off.

First things first - the country as a whole and this specific hotel are beautiful. We were lucky enough to book a lagoon view villa and were awed by the view the entire time. Our room was lovely and the personal pool attached to the villa was a highlight for our daughter. Breakfast and afternoon tea/happy hour in the Lounge was quite lovely. All the pools (and the lagoon) provided excellent swimming. That said, some things just feel a little "off" for a luxury resort. All the restaurants have basically the same menu which gets old after a couple of days. The hours for restaurants/workshops differ from the website to reality and many things seem to close early. The resort was pretty empty of guests when we were there and even though staff was around, it always somehow took extra effort on our part to do things like place drinks/food orders or book things. I believe we were there during low season (summer) so this may explain our experience. I'd still definitely happily return!