In this article, I want to talk to you about the memberships at Hard Rock and other resorts as well. I’m going to focus on the Hall of Fame membership at Hard Rock, which is the highest level, because it costs about 300,000 to be a member. I was actually the second member and now there are 90,000 members total, but still only about 250 Hall of Fame.
Now, there’s a reason, of course, for the heavy price tag to become a member, but I want to talk to you: Is it worth it? Is it something that the resort can actually keep up? Do you buy these kinds of expensive memberships and you don’t get the benefit? Normally we’re not supposed to talk about these publicly, but you know me, I don’t care. I’m here to tell you stuff that is actually true. So let’s just go with that.
Understanding the Hard Rock Legendary Membership Reviews
At the end, I’m going to talk to you about also the Hall of Shame because, yes, I mean seriously, you have 250,000, a lot of people rich in there, and they behave pretty badly, and that’s sad. I’m going to talk about those two, and when I publish this, the groups of the Hall of Fame will know who they are, trust me. Let me explain that and that, and how also that affects you as a non-member.
The Truth About Booking with a Member
First of all, there are about 26 or 27 benefits that you get as a Hall of Fame member, some of which I can pass down to you. For example, if you use my membership to book. All right, so access to all the Hall of Fame benefits is only available to the members and the beneficiary of the member. That’d be my kid and my best friend who’s on my membership because, you know, I don’t have any family members that I could give the membership to.
The idea is this: A lot of people on eBay right now are saying, “I’m gonna send you with the black bracelet in the Hall of Fame benefit.” This is a lie unless I’m with you physically at the resort; you will not get that. This is the biggest thing here honestly. You really have to make sure that the person will be there with you or you can’t have those benefits. Sometimes they’re going to try to put you as a beneficiary or you lie passing for them. Don’t do that. You’re going to get the blue VIP bracelet, not Hall of Fame benefits.
Exclusive Resort Credits and Perks
You get 2,000 resort credits you can use at the spa, okay that’s cool. I have hundreds of thousands of resort credits in my membership and I give them as many as you want to people that travel on my membership. But for me, I have 2,000 every time I go; that’s cool.
Express check-in and check-out means basically technically when I show up they should know who I am and they bring my luggage quickly up and stuff like that. Of course, express luggage, yeah okay, they’re going to come pick up and bring my luggage in priority before other people another group.
The Power of the Bracelet
At that price, I understand why the black band exists. It doesn’t matter if it’s black or another color; they might change it. The diamond at Palace are not white. The idea is this: You have a specific color bracelet that people identify you as a Hall of Fame member. Does it give you more benefits? Well, yes, quite a lot, but I mean, do the people perceive you differently? Not that much.
It’s not like they said when I bought my membership where, you know, they’ll put my pictures and they used to take my picture and they say, “Oh we’re gonna put in the bathroom and everybody will know that you’re on Hall of Fame and bow to you.” Exaggerating, but the idea is this: It is true that they’re supposed to do that, but that never really worked.
Service Experience: Staff and Butlers
Next, the staff welcome. Now, I don’t need the people with the sign and say welcome when I come in. It’s a bit of both; sometimes it’s going to be extreme, I’m going to have the manager come to see me, and on the other end, I’m going to show up at the resort and nobody knows I’m there. They don’t even know I’m in Hall of Fame and it’s like, “Hey chico, just go to the counter and get registered.” You’re like anybody else. They don’t know you. Tell them you’re in Hall of Fame and they say, “Well, if you were in Hall of Fame your butler would be there.” Maybe the butler is busy, maybe the butler forgot. I don’t know. Anyways, so that happened.
The Butler Benefit
Now speaking of the butler, that’s the real reason why you want to be on Hall of Fame. You have your own personal butler, so it’s basically I’m Batman. The idea is this: So you have a guy that’s gonna follow you around. “I need to have wine, I need to have like whatever alcohol they don’t have on a menu, I need to have a reservation for the restaurant or tour a chair or something.” I just text my butler, “Butler do it.” That’s nice to have. It really helps out. It saves you administrative time to save me from staying in line, you know, to do my restaurant reservation or something like that. It helps; it’s nice.
So the butler is somebody that’s dedicated for two or three couples, and the actual concierge may have like 50 people to take care of or might just be a person in the resort that everybody goes to see. So this is the difference. My concierge, you know, my butler sorry, is directly for me and takes care of maybe five people that’s it. That might change, you know, with covid, less staff, but normally that’s what it is.
Room and Amenities Upgrades
Ocean view room guaranteed—now this is cool. There’s an upgrade of about 300 per week for you. For me, I get it for free, but the problem is sometimes when I call for a reservation they say, “Well sorry we don’t have any ocean view room,” and they’re technically not allowed to give me any other rooms. So that’s a bit of a problem.
Now the premium liquor. If you follow a bit the news on the travel and stuff like that, you would see that in Punta Cana in 2018-2019 a bunch of people died from tainted alcohol. Not at Hard Rock, but it did happen. Also, the resort knows that some people abuse the alcohol. They removed the dispensers from the room. So now as a Hall of Fame, I still have access to those and my guests would too. You just order them at the front desk either by the glass, but a bottle no issues, you still have that. If you’re from Expedia, well, go get them at the bar downstairs.
Internet launches and business launch, yeah they don’t have that anymore now. It’s because of Covid-19; it makes sense a little bit. Also, everybody has their laptop, iPad, iPhone. I can just text my butler and say, “Print me this page or that,” no issues, or do it for me, so no issue.
In-Room Perks
Two bottles of wine per week, okay. If you read any review on Hard Rock, you’ll understand that as a Hall of Fame member, the bottle of wine, to be honest with you, is probably like five or ten dollars more than what they have at the restaurant for everybody else. So it’s not that crazy of an upgrade. We get, you know, a slightly better bottle of wine and that’s it, but we get two per week, that’s a perk.
Special pillow menu and aromatherapy. Aromatherapy is basically just an essential oil burner with a bit of water makes the room smell nice. I use lavender if you wanted to know. And pillow, you can have a foam pillow or kind of other pillows you can ask that or foam on your mattress or different kinds of things as a Hall of Fame. 300,000, they can buy me my own mattress and just leave it there when I need it, but anyway.
Pool and Beach Privileges
Reserving the chairs at the pool and the beach, yes, definitely. This is really the thing that’s nice. It has two disadvantages and we’ll talk about that now. First of all, yes it’s nice because I can just tell the butler tomorrow, “Every day of the week these are the chairs I want,” and they get there. Sometimes you’re gonna have people that are not happy that my sign is there. They’re gonna take the sign, they’re gonna chuck the sign in the bushes or something. And you know, I’ll have to take the pool concierge and say, “Hey, could you just hold these two to get out of my chair?” These things happen.
The Hall of Shame: Chair Hogging
Now this is where we’re going to talk about the Hall of Shame. There are people, because it’s in my contract yes and it’s in theirs too, that they can bring 50 people in the resort and those 50 people can reserve 50 chairs. Then you’re going to get like, you’re going to go by the pool and I’m not going to show you this video on their name but you know who you are. You’re going to have 50 chairs reserved and nobody else will be able to reserve chairs. That technically it’s not too much of a big deal if they use the damn chairs. The problem is when they don’t.
Cabana Usage Issues
Next about the cabana by the beach which is free for me—200 saving per day, 1,500 saving per week, yes that’s another perk. Why am I jumping on this? Because it’s the same thing. These guys will reserve a bunch of cabanas and they will not use them. That sucks.
If I know tomorrow that I’m going to go to Chichen Itza or whatever visiting something or I’m going to be at the spa or something, I’m going to call my butler and say, “Tomorrow I’m not gonna use the cabana.” Or it’s tending after in the morning and I’ve already used the cabana for two hours and I’m not gonna use it anymore for the rest of the day because it’s getting too hot, I’m fed up with it. I’m not using the cabana so give it to somebody else. But they don’t do that. People just shush it and the entire day while the cabin is not used and you know somebody else could have used it. The chair, same thing, that’s bad. Hall of shame.
If you are planning a trip, be aware of currency restrictions at your destination to avoid any hassles, just like these chair issues.
Exclusive Dining and Events
Special table special dinners—this is amazing because it’s on the beach, it’s a nice experience. Sometimes they put me in the wine cellar, sometimes they did other things. Yeah, they put me in the wine cellar and other kind of like locations and it’s kind of cool. Everybody looks at you like, “Wow, okay that’s nice,” you know, and you have a special experience maybe different wine, different kind of food and that’s okay, it’s fun.
The disadvantage with this is that, and this is for everything in life, it’s not part of their normal standard operating procedures. So generally the chef has to do special exceptions and it’s not going to be that much tailored or very easily done. So if they’re a bit overwhelmed in one restaurant or if the restaurant is very far from the beach, then your food’s going to be cold. Maybe the service is going to be long. It’s never as fun the location is, but not the food as opposed to eating at the restaurant normally. So this is a perk but not necessarily that much of a great one.
Events and Tours
Front seating and events—this is true, that works, that’s great. So essentially they’re going to escort you and you’re going to have the front row seat at every event. This is amazing. Awesome being a Hall of Fame for that is great.
Seating in tours doesn’t work. Again, special you know like dispensational new standard operating procedures, whatever the reason there the resort will give you on this one. The reality: it doesn’t work because the tours don’t belong to Hard Rock or other resorts so that generally doesn’t work because they would have to have an arrangement with the tour company. I’ve seen it work once out of 50. That’s fine, it’s not a big deal if you sit at the back of the bus, okay you know, come on. It is not like flying SFO to SGN where seating really matters for 14 hours. But yeah, that doesn’t work.
Preferred scheduling at spas and activities and events—I don’t know if that really is true. I would have to ask my butler but the reality is I ask for a restaurant table, you know I get my table I don’t care. You know, is it priority? Is it special? Was did they boot someone else to put me in? I have no way to know. I don’t know if that works; they say it does.
Additional Benefits
Hydrotherapy—yes, I can go in Punta Cana and Riviera Maya, I can go get in the spa and you know get sauna, jacuzzi, steam, whatever and I don’t have to pay. Anybody else would have to pay a hundred dollars.
Late check-out—okay, my plane is late in the afternoon or even late at night. I can stay at the resort all day and I don’t have to pay that you know the the late checkout fee. Great, this is nice.
Round-trip transportation at the airport private—yes that’s cool. Having a guy with a little sign, if he doesn’t forget about you, you know to escort you to the resort. This is great. Generally, On Tour is an amazing company to do that in Mexico; works very well. So yes, I don’t have to wait you know for other couples or try to find the Hard Rock guy and somehow him to find a minivan to bring me in with other couples. I have my guy picking me up; this is cool.
Membership Levels
The last thing is you know the different level of Hall of Fame. People that have like me like five hundred thousand dollars, we have platinum meaning that we don’t have any limits. We can go anytime, anywhere, get all the rooms, presidential suite or whatever. And if you go, I can give presidential suite, I can give you all kinds of rooms that not much more than what you would pay on Expedia and you would have access to rooms that you normally don’t have access to in any period whatever which is very nice.
It’s comfortable, almost like walking in chacos on a long hike, having everything arranged for you.
Hall of Fame Perks Summary
| Benefit Name | Real World Experience |
|---|---|
| Resort Credit | $2,000 credit, useful for spa and extras. |
| Personal Butler | Dedicated service, handles reservations, saves time. |
| Room Upgrade | Ocean view guaranteed (subject to availability). |
| Beach/Pool Chairs | Reserved daily, but plagued by “Hall of Shame” hogging. |
| Private Transport | Reliable private airport transfer, no waiting. |
| Hydrotherapy | Free access to spa water circuits (Sauna, Jacuzzi). |
| Late Check-out | Free late check-out helpful for evening flights. |
Is it worth to spend 500,000 or 300 entry point to become a Hall of Fame? No, because I don’t want more Hall of Fame; we have 250 so I don’t want you to join because I don’t want to have the competition on the chairs. Is it worth it? It depends on you. I traveled three months this year to Hard Rock. Yes, if you travel that much, if you have that kind of free time, if you like these kinds of perks, if you don’t want to have any hassles. If you think that for you having your chair reserve and having your butler to not you know like worry about all these things and having extra perks, if you believe that this is something that’s worth it and you have the money, then do it.