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Introduction to The St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort
The St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort ("one mountain, one sea, one estate") is located on Hainan Island, about a 10-minute drive from Yalong Bay Tropical Paradise Forest Park. It is about 1 hour by car from Tianya Haijiao, 40 minutes from Sanya Phoenix International Airport, and 30 minutes from both the Sanya duty-free shop and Sanya Railway Station. The elegant guest rooms feature modern interiors and floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of natural light. Each tastefully decorated room comes with a 46-inch flat-screen TV and a private bathroom with a bathtub. Leisure options include tennis and massage treatments. Guests can also go fishing. The hotel also has a private home theater. Yan Yue Seafood Restaurant serves a selection of fresh seafood, while Ming Xuan Chinese Restaurant offers Chinese specialty dishes. The Drawing Room and the pool bar serve refreshing drinks.
Compared with other hotels, the St. Regis is a bit more secluded. It is surrounded by a river flowing into the sea and backed by the mountains, so privacy is excellent. Every time we took a car back to the hotel, it felt like we were heading back into the mountains. That said, DiDi rides, food delivery, and even Meituan medicine delivery all worked there, so it was still pretty convenient.
Overall, this is a stylish hotel. Standard rooms and suites are located in the main central building, while quite a few standalone villas are tucked away among the hills and trees, giving them a strong sense of privacy.
Booking
For this stay, we used the FHR reimbursement benefit from the AMEX Platinum card. We happened to have three Platinum cards, so we booked one night on each card. It is best to use the same name for all reservations so check-in will be easier. The trick is to log in to one person’s AMEX Travel account (that is, their AMEX account), then choose “use a different card” at checkout and pay with someone else’s Platinum card. As long as an FHR booking is paid for with a Platinum card, the reimbursement should post automatically. It does not matter whose account the booking is made in.
Also note that prices shown in AMEX Travel do not include taxes. At checkout, depending on the hotel, there may be an additional 10%-30% in taxes and fees. So if you are trying to stay within the $200 reimbursement amount, it is better to choose a rate slightly below $200.
FHR benefits vary by hotel. Most properties include room upgrades, breakfast for two, 4PM checkout, and noon check-in. Hotel credit is not guaranteed and depends on what each hotel offers, and this St. Regis Yalong Bay property does not offer a credit benefit! It seems they replaced it with complimentary airport pickup, but you can only choose either pickup or drop-off once. Given the distance between the hotel and the airport, a taxi is only around 100rmb, and a business van is about 200rmb, so it does not feel as valuable as a $100 credit. That said, this pickup benefit can actually be used to have the hotel pick you up from any location no farther than the airport. For example, on this trip we had them pick us up at the InterContinental Tianfang, which was pretty nice. Also, because we split the reservation into three separate one-night bookings, we used the first night’s confirmation number to arrange pickup to the hotel and the last night’s confirmation number to arrange drop-off at the airport, and that seemed to work too.
One thing to keep in mind: after booking through AMEX Travel, AMEX only gives you the AMEX Travel confirmation number. If you want to contact the hotel to discuss arrangements or combine several nights into one stay, I would recommend using online chat to contact AMEX Travel customer service (regular AMEX customer service also works) and ask for the Marriott confirmation number. I also found that after getting those numbers, the three upcoming stays automatically appeared in my Marriott account, whereas they had not shown up before.
Check-in and Lobby
Since Christmas had just passed, the property was still fully decorated for the holiday.
Check-in took place in a small room, and it was pretty crowded during the day.
The lobby had a nice atmosphere.
As soon as we got to the front desk, they told us that neither FHR nor Marriott Platinum status would help—occupancy was too high, so no upgrade was possible. So we had no choice but to accept a standard base room.
Stay Experience
This stay happened to be for our wedding anniversary, so we called the hotel in advance. The hotel said they would decorate the room a bit and provide a cake. We had noted a room upgrade request as well, but as mentioned earlier, occupancy was simply too high, and even FHR + Marriott Platinum could not get us any upgrade at all.
- The roses were very nice
- The bed was also decorated
- Rose petals were placed in the bathroom too
- When we came back at night, there was also cake and fruit
- There were not many highlights in the room itself, though the balcony was pretty nice
- From the balcony, you could see the private pool of the pool-access room downstairs, and from start to finish no one ever swam in it
- A fairly ordinary walk-in closet
- The mini bar had quite a few drinks, and after you finished them they could be restocked the next day, which seems to be standard practice at Sanya hotels
Breakfast
The St. Regis breakfast is definitely worth complaining about. On the first day, it hit us with an immediate disappointment. We went at 9 in the morning and still had to wait in line. There were six or seven people ahead of us, and we had to wait for a table to open up before we could go in.
I am not sure whether it was because it was around New Year’s Eve, but it was extremely crowded inside as well. The restaurant had signs saying masks were required when getting food, but in practice it was about half wearing them and half not.
The kids’ food section was not bad and had chocolate and desserts, though the taste was only average.
The only food item really worth praising was this braised beef noodle soup, which even had winter bamboo shoots in it. Very good.
New Year’s Eve
We happened to stay over New Year’s, so the hotel was very crowded. The hotel also hosted a New Year’s Eve dinner, and the price was quite something: a package for 1688rmb.
New Year’s Eve dinner
At midnight, the hotel also put on a fireworks show, which we could even see from our room.
Pool
The St. Regis outdoor infinity pool is quite distinctive, almost like a giant bowl set on the ground. The sides are also great for taking photos and showing off a bit.
Facing the ocean, you can also capture that seamless sea-and-sky effect, which makes for very photogenic shots.
Grounds
The overall property feels like a large estate. It’s comfortable to walk around, and it’s also well suited for wedding photos, ceremonies, parties, and more. During our stay, there were children’s birthday celebrations, class reunions, and other events going on. We also saw several groups of women going around taking photos, so it’s basically something of an Instagram-style photo spot too.
Beach
Compared with the Tianfang InterContinental, the beach at The St. Regis Sanya has a lot more going on, with plenty of places for photos. There are also children’s play facilities by the beach, such as a grass slide, wooden slides, balance beams, climbing frames, and more, making it a good place for kids to burn off some energy. That said, it was disappointing that when we went, the zipline was broken, and the staff didn’t seem to have any intention of fixing it. The grass slide also costs extra: 128 for 30 minutes, or 228 for all day, which felt like a rip-off.
The private beach is directly connected to the hotel, and it only takes a few minutes to walk there.
Beach chairs, towels, and water are free to use. The beach carts can be used for a fee by scanning a code.
There’s also a small slope between the part of the beach near the water and the beach chairs/activity area. And compared with the Tianfang InterContinental, the sand at the St. Regis is much coarser and not very comfortable to walk on.
Some parts of the shoreline even have large rocks, making them unsuitable for swimming or surfing. That said, the rocks can also be fun for kids in their own way. I didn’t take this photo myself; it’s from the internet, and in person there actually weren’t this many rocks.
Food and Drink Nearby
Lin Jie Seafood also has a Yalong Bay location, in Bohou Village. Aside from that,
Bohou Village also has a whole street of snacks and barbecue, plus shops selling all kinds of crafts. It’s worth taking a look around while you’re there. It gets lively at night and has a very local, down-to-earth atmosphere.
Bottom Line
Overall, the hotel environment was quite satisfying, but the attention to detail was lacking. If breakfast requires a long wait, the hotel should either expand the restaurant or redirect some premium guests to a separate dining area. On top of that, the breakfast quality simply doesn’t match the hotel’s reputation, and it’s far behind the Tianfang InterContinental. Also, most of the hotel activities and kids’ activities cost extra. It’s not that charging extra is inherently a problem; different hotels can have different operating models. But if you’re going to charge for activities, there should at least be some thought put into the presentation and design. Very basic-looking activities like the little train, crab hunting on the beach, and the tire slide somehow cost nearly 100rmb per person, which felt pretty unreasonable.
If you’re staying with kids, you’d probably be better off choosing the nearby Marriott, InterContinental Haitang Bay, Yanlord, or Atlantis, since those have lots of complimentary activities and free children’s facilities. If you’re a couple mainly planning to hang out around the hotel, though, this property is still quite nice and very photogenic.