The St. Regis Longboat Key Resort

What an amazing getaway not far from home! My wife and I decided to spend our mini moon here. We are huge fans of the St. Regis, since we experienced two hotels on our engagement-moon in Italy, Venice and Florence. This property is new and it had everything we were looking for and more. They have a grand entrance with welcoming staff. Michael, the head bellman, gave us a warm welcome and informed us of the sea turtle fountain covered in Swarovski crystals centerpiece out front. We later met Jack and Rose, the tortoises on property. Jason checked us in. He was extremely kind and patience. He took the time to answer our questions. And as foodies, we truly appreciated his recommendation of the Chicken Milanese at Riva. It was one of our favorite dishes on property. He was also kind enough to put us in one of their best rooms included in the complimentary upgrades for Platinum Elite Marriott members. Our room was located on their top floor at the end of the hall, with a stunning view of their pools, lagoon and private beach. It was perfect for us. The bathroom was covered in marble and it had double sinks! It was a sizable space with a large rainfall shower and a bathtub. The bed faced the balcony glass sliding doors so we could wake up every morning to the sunrise and picturesque views. The walk-in closet was also very nice with a full length large mirror. Darren took great care of us by the pool and beach with food and drink orders. Great guy and it was a pleasure getting to know him. Shoutouts to Elson, Faith, Michaels, Joe, Darren, Rajan, and Timothy. They all made our stay on property an amazing experience. We can’t wait to come back!

Lunch at the Riva -- We were really looking forward to a fabulous experience, but unfortunately it was very disappointing. Six of us came for lunch. Surprisingly the restaurant was not very busy. There were only 2 other tables occupied in the dining room. The Hostess sat us beside a table of 10 people, 6 children and 4 adults and our table was in the corner beside the door to the patio so was very busy with staff going in and out. It took over 30 minutes to get the bottle of wine that we had ordered and 2 cocktails. We know it's a new restaurant, but the wait seemed very long for such an exclusive restaurant. Sadly the meals seemed to take even longer. Again growing pains of a new restaurant however no communication from our server. The thing that was really hard was we were a table of 6 adults that were sat beside a table with 6 children that were completely unsupervised by the adults at the table. They were chasing each other around the table, throwing paper airplanes throughout the restaurant and playing basketball with scrunched up paper, all while the parents were on phone calls on their speaker phone. We honestly felt like we were dining at "Chucky Cheese's". The disappointing part is the staff did nothing to help with the situation --- ask the parents to keep their children seated in their chairs would be a good start or asking us if we'd like to move tables. We all have grown children and understand kids are kids but this was a scene from the "gong show". If this is the type of environment you are trying to create we definitely won't be back. On a positive note -- the food was excellent, the grounds are spectacular and we enjoyed our drinks down at the Monkey Bar afterwards -- trust me, after that experience, we all needed one!

We stayed for our 'Babymoon' only a few weeks after the second hurricane to hit this area in a month. We knew not everything would be open, but we were shocked to see 99% of everything was up and running. Only the adult pool wasn't open at the time of our stay (Early November so almost certainly up and running now). Despite that, our stay was truly fantastic and relaxing. The Spa is so luxurious, brand new and everything we could've hoped for (bonus for the cold plunge as well). The food was pretty awesome as well. Our favorite was Riva for both breakfast and dinner. The smoothies over bfast were incredible and the wine selection for dinner were A+. The MVP of our trip was Jose (or jokingly Guiseppi at night). He was our server for dinner multiple nights at Riva and honestly gave us a truly memorable experience. Additional kudos to the pool staff who made our days relaxing and enjoyable. Thank you very much Darren and Brady. Hope to come back soon with our little one! p.s. our only critique is we wish the outdoor sushi restaurant (blanking on the name) had more "non-seafood friendly options". We don't mind 1 or 2 choses, but we felt we couldn't eat here being non-seafood folks.