My husband and I stayed at Collective for my birthday this past weekend. I really hate writing negative reviews, but unfortunately, I had very high hopes for my visit and my biggest concern was my safety, which is a deal breaker for me and likely most others as well.
My husband and I left our tent for dinner and came back to see furniture moved around, food in our bed, all the sides and windows closed, and a very strong smell of marijuana. Clearly someone wanted to have fun turning our tent into a hot box, but the fact that someone could just easily walk in is extremely concerning. We immediately head to the check in area to raise our concerns and all we were offered was a freshly made bed. When we were told we could head back after standing at the check in area for about 30 minutes, we were told that the people who came into our tent were removed from the property, but they were clearly still in the vicinity as we could hear and see them causing a commotion in the area. They were clearly under the influence, but I don’t know if they have anything that could hurt someone. When I asked staff if the individuals were removed from the island about an hour later, I was immediately dismissed for asking about the situation and never received confirmation. No one at the property let guests know when these individuals (who may have gone into other tents too for all I know) were gone. As a result, my husband and I could barely sleep because we were concerned about our safety as we were sleeping in a tent that is simply zippered closed for “security”. No one at the property ever checked back in with us or offered us anything as a result of our safety issue.
While this is an island and there is security for the island, it appears very easy for someone to be able to come in and out of the Collective property. I have no idea if the people who came into our tent were paying guests or not, but all it takes is someone avoiding security when the island closes and the wide open gate onto the Collective Retreats property or the short fences to be able to get on the property.
In addition, the safes in the tents are only slightly larger than a hotel safe. Given the lack of ability to lock the tent space, I would have at least expected a locker sized safe to sufficiently fit our belongings. Were are lucky that none of our belongings were stolen when the unexpected visitors came into our tent.
Also, while not safety related, we paid a fee that included WiFi and we did not have WiFI in our tent.
All in all, safety should be a top priority for any kind of lodging and it simply didn’t exist, which is abysmal for a place that cost us $700 for 1 night.