We're a young family (8 month old) and this was our first vacation. Our second time to Sanya.

Highlights:
-- Room was great. Spacious. The only problem was the carpet- a bit stained.
-- Housekeeping was great. Very nice and accommodating.
-- Breakfast buffet was ok. Got a bit boring after 3 days.
-- Restaurants were ok. All were good but the night time buffet. It was a rip off for something called a Seafood feast. :-( We didn't really eat dinner on site often and enjoyed a long walk to the Crowne Plaza complex to eat.
-- Amenities were great. I can only speak to the pool really but the photos of the hotel do not do the poolside justice.
-- Location was good. It's remote but there is a small grocery store nearby and Crowne Plaza is about a 30 minute walk which is no big deal when you're on vacation.
-- Bed was great. My husband and I slept great and even when baby needed to join us, it was still very comfy.
-- This is not a highly English-speaking friendly hotel except for the front desk.
-- Value great. It was cheaper than the Sheraton or Ritz but we still enjoyed it.

I'd stay here again as a family. Would try another place, though, for a couple's retreat.

Been there in may 2011. Hotel is positioned as 4+ stars, but I would not rate it this level. Rooms are good, but our room was not always cleaned timely, sometimes only at late noon. Breakfast was tasty and with very good variety of dishes and cousins. Lunch was not bad but not cheap as well :-) the remarkable feature of this hotel mentioned already by many visitors is paid Internet - definitely for 4+ stars hotel this is ridiculous... Beach was relatively good with white sand, but not very clean as well as water at sea. I like snorkeling but this site is useless for this sport - sea bottom is absolutely empty - just nothing there...:-( we've been visiting all three restaurants in the hotel: only one was vey good ( don't remember its name, but that's the one located closer to the sea) , Chinese one and one more where we had breakfasts we did not like too much... Staff at the reception was friendly and helpful, they even had Russian speaker who gave us a good hand a couple of times as his colleagues were not so good in English... Conclusion: I will never go there again as well as to China in general - I would softly say I was not too impressed...I like to have vacation with a minimum negative emotions/ impressions, but in China we had too much of those... I could not meet "the great Chinese culture" - seems it's disappeared long ago... I had this feeling in Beijing as well as in Sanya...
By the way- few words about taxi in Sanya: crazy drivers were overspeeding on the narrow roads in the cars not equipped even with simple seat belts. And it's absolutely useless to ask them to drive slower: they don't (normally) speak English...

The staff speaks little English, it results in a number of misunderstandings: orders mixed up, etc etc. In 9 ot of ten cases we had wrong orders brought to us.
Food is very bad quality. Its better to eat in neigbouring Ritz Carlton.
Spa is obnoxious. Thirty minutes of wait and receive a very dissapointing treatment!
Gym is hot, AC does not work.
Kids club is very good.

This is my second stay and the hotel is still a nice place to chill out with your family. Had connecting room on high floor at block 7 with nice sea view to enjoy and relax. Rooms were big, nicely decorated and well laid out with bath room next to the balcony which was refreshing to wake up to with full sea view.

There are many pools to choose from and they are all great for all ages. The beach was huge, clean and not busy and there are beach activities, such as, para sailing, water scooter, etc, which you need to pay.

The food at china harvest was excellent and my family enjoyed most of our dinners there. Service at the hotel was top notch as most of the staff go all their ways to please you and make your stay memorable. On this point, I would like to commend the staff there for being honest and went all the way to find the iPhone which my son left in the room when we checked out. We only discovered it on our way to the airport and it was too late to turn back or we will miss the flight. We called the hotel and the staff went to look and find the phone straight away which we were most grateful. The staff had difficulty in sending the phone by courier back to us in hong kong and tried a few alternatives and all the time never giving up trying to sent the phone to us. We finally managed to resolve the problem by sending the phone to another city in china which was convenient for us to pick up. For this, the staff should be commended on and my wife had sent our appreciation to the hotel for having such a wonderful staff and team working in this wonderful hotel. If we have the chance to come back to sanya in the near future, we will definitely stay in this hotel and look up the staff who had helped to recover my son's iPhone. Thanks again