The hotel is in a great location. It is not far to walk along the beachfront where there are shops and bars to browse or stop for a coffee or alcoholic drink. Various other things were not so good. The friendliness of the hotel did not come across to me… Sometimes staff were okay sometimes dismissive, sometimes rude. An example is the first night we arrived there we put our bags in our room and went into the small bar. We bought a gin tonic and after a while we picked up our drinks to go and look where the dining room was as saw no signage at the time. As we stood outside the bar looking around us, the female Bar worker came out, snatched the drinks from our hand and poured into plastic cups before thrusting it back into our hands. No words were spoken, I understand health and safety rules but we were only stood outside the bar and it was the way it was done. However, a later incident with some friends, a couple we had met, was carrying their bottle of wine from the food restaurant up to their room, but the waiter in the restaurant snatched the bottle from his hand and told him ‘No’ he could not leave the restaurant with the wine that he had bought and that it must stay in the restaurant in the fridge until they returned to the restaurant.. after a tug of war, another member of staff said, yes he could take the wine to his room. It is not the rules that I am against here but the way that the rules are enforced without any manners at all.
It was October and so we relied on the entertainment in the hotel. There was a TV screen saying what would happen in the day, mostly Zumba in the morning, (never happened!), lotto i.e. bingo was listed at various times. The bingo lasted all of an hour or less. One ticket and the prizes were a cup of coffee if you won a line. 😄 Another night we went into the conservatory – this is what the concert room is it is a long conservatory at side of the pool.… this evening it had listed a karaoke night; it was a little miserable in the conservatory as there were buckets all around the room as we had had rain that day … can’t be helped, but I am setting the scene. So we’re going to have some cheer, and maybe sing at the karaoke. The room was a third full and the so-called entertainment guy announced over the mic that nobody wanted to do karaoke and so they were going to do lotto/bingo. We had experienced the lotto previously so obviously didn’t want to do it again! When he came to our table, my friend explained that we would join in the karaoke and maybe other people would eventually come along. He said that he had already asked everyone in the room – we didn’t see this – and no one wanted to do it and one singer, i.e. me, could not sing all night and so there was no point. And with that, he placed our bingo tickets on our table..
Now I want to say, this is a lovely hotel. It’s only been done up this year and the rooms are quite luxurious, nice foyer and a cozy bar… I was not impressed with the conservatory for any kind of entertainment… or the quality of entertainment. They did have an artist on a couple of times whilst we were there and the room is not conducive to a good sound for music. Plus the artist just came in set up and started singing. There was no compare or anything like a show in the room. Now this wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t October and there was nowhere around where we could go for entertainment elsewhere… We had looked.
Now I appreciate this is not important to everyone but it is to us. We like the entertainment in the evenings at a hotel and had checked that they had entertainment… And also was attracted by the fact that they had a spa room etc. It was after all a wellness hotel. Wrong, although it did not state this when booking, the spa and any facilities in that area are not available in October… so you should not expect this in low season.
The worst thing about the hotel was the food… limited choices, virtually the same thing every single night, and morning. For dinner, it was usually pork chops a pasta with a separate plain sauce, some kind of stew, Chips, every night. The biggest bug bear with the food was that it was cold every night, the plates were not warmed either. Fortunately, they had a microwave on side where we could warm our dinner to a more palatable taste every night. This is said to be a four star hotel, the extra star was gained after the refurbishment. But unfortunately the food lets them down, their attitude when enforcing any kind of unnecessary rule lets them down, and their lack of signage in the foyer area is a small thing that could be rectified to make it more accessible to the layout when you first arrive. We had a lovely holiday and the hotel layout was lovely, the pool area was pretty, and the bar, though small was relaxing. Also, there were plenty of bars nearby where you could take a walk out have a drink or have a snack. Just a few things let it down, and talking to other people they felt the same way regarding the cold food every night, and the repetitive choices. However, the salad bar was lovely and it was fresh. Put for the reasons I have mentioned I would unfortunately not use this hotel again.
