Dead plant in patio of Shells Restaurant - they just don't care

Dead plant in patio of Shells Restaurant - they just don

We ate at Shells Restaurant for New Year’s Eve dinner, as well as for their breakfast buffet. The New Years buffet was expensive ($90 pp), but had all-you-can-eat oysters, crab, shrimp, sushi, ahi, champagne, etc. Although there was a lot of choice, none of the main meal options were vegetarian. We had called and inquired ahead of time and a front-desk manager had kindly arranged for a half-priced meal for Wendy given that she is vegetarian and also wasn’t going to be drinking.

When we arrived, the maitre d’ had the chef show us around the buffet and point out what was and wasn’t veggie. He arranged for them to roll some vegetarian sushi and prepare a plate of sauteed veggies (the regular ones had anchovies in the sauce). He was very attentive and helpful and we were very impressed with the level of service and care.

Unfortunately, our regular waiter was pretty terrible, he kept forgetting about us, couldn’t tell us which drinks were on the menu (we saw other tables with drink menus), and then never came by to see what we wanted for a second drink. (2 were included). He did drop the bill off and left without giving us a chance to stop him, and we were really confused about the 2 tickets we found inside. Finally, one of the hostesses tracked him down for us, and he explained that we could use those to get the drinks he hadn’t served/offered us.

Overall, the food was fine. There was a nice selection of cheeses, a wide variety of seafood, a salad bar, a sushi bar, several different kinds of meat, and some different desserts, including chocolate fondue.

We also ate at Shells Restaurant for their breakfast buffet a couple of times, and it was terrible. Sheraton gives you coupons for the buffet if you forego the daily maid service – one free buffet per skipped maid service – and this was the only reason we went. The buffet is convenient and has a beautiful view over the ocean. Some of the tables at Shells are actually out on a covered porch overlooking the beach. Unfortunately, the food and the service are both pretty bad. Despite the hot burners the food was on, it was universally cold. The scrambled eggs were a sloppy undercooked mess. The eggs florentine they had one morning were not only not hot, but the uncooked egg inside was actually still cold. The first time we were there the french toast was actually hot, but the second time it too was cold. There were a lot of different toppings – strawberry sauce, maple syrup, macadamia nuts, chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, coconut, etc. The idea was really nice, but the quality of the ingredients wasn’t what we would expect from the Sheraton – in fact, the chocolate chip pancakes at the Sunrise Cafe were MUCH better and they’re only $7.99 and served piping hot with ripe fruit garnish! The buffet at the Sheraton is $20. The service was poor, with the waitress forgetting our coffee altogether the first time. The fruit was okay, but not really ripe. The only tropical fruit was pineapple – but we were there in the winter – maybe in season in the summer there’s more selection? They did prepare well-done scrambled eggs when we requested them, and brought them to the table hot! There really wasn’t any of the food that we enjoyed and we would have been really upset to have paid for it! In fact, if we’d been there longer, we might have chosen the maid service just to keep her employed! Also, in keeping with some of the Sheraton’s other maintainance problems, one of the large plants they have out in the patio section was actually dead. It was there the entire week we stayed at the hotel. We’re not sure why someone didn’t at least remove it if not replace it – it sort of summed up the whole “we’ve given up” attitude at this Sheraton.