Sexually assaulted by staff during our honeymoon, and management didn't care
We came to this resort for our honeymoon, expecting the relaxing, romantic start to our marriage that everyone dreams of. Instead, we left with an experience that we are still dealing with, months later.
We booked a couples massage at the spa (a Lomi Lomi massage, which involves being almost completely undressed). During the massage, the male masseur, who I was never introduced to and was never asked if I was comfortable being treated by a man, repeatedly brushed against my genitals while working on my inner thigh. I stopped the massage immediately and walked out. It wasn't until I was alone that it fully hit me, and I had a severe panic attack. My wife's massage, with a female masseuse, never involved any contact anywhere near that area.
We reported it the very next morning. Management's response was to offer me a free drink and move on. For the rest of the week, we were brushed off repeatedly, with no real update or acknowledgment. On our last day, we tried again to get a straight answer, and management still couldn't tell us that anything had actually been done.
We were not asking for anything extreme. We asked for three things: a policy change so guests are asked whether they're comfortable with a male therapist before a massage, the staff member to attend sexual harassment training, and a refund for my half of the massage. That's it. We just wanted to be able to move on and salvage what was left of our honeymoon.
Instead, we had to personally track down and email every contact we could find in upper management, and even the ownership group, to get any response at all, and even that only came three weeks after we'd already left. The final answer was a refund and a vague statement that they had "reviewed" their policies, not changed them. To make things worse, we later found out from a staff member we had become friendly with during our stay that the spa staff and management were telling people we made the whole thing up, and threatening legal action against anyone who said otherwise.
This should have been one of the most special trips of our lives. Instead, it's a memory we're actively trying to move past, to the point that we've talked about redoing our honeymoon elsewhere just so we have something better to remember. We've traveled and had massages in many different countries, and have never experienced anything like this. Months later, we're still dealing with the emotional aftermath, and the way management handled it, denying, delaying, and ultimately doing nothing meaningful, has made it so much worse.
If you're considering this resort, be cautious about the spa, and know that if something goes wrong, don't expect management to take it seriously.
