"We spent 6 nights at this hotel but came away feeling somewhat underwhelmed.
When I place a review, I always try to ensure it's an honest and balanced one based solely on my experience, so here goes.
We arrived late morning but had to wait until 3pm before our room was ready, no issues there so we did the pre check in and left our bags in the luggage room.
(I was slightly concerned this was adjacent to the reception desk and the key was just given to anyone that asks for it - would recommend you don't leave anything of value in there)
The reception area is spacious, warm and inviting and like everyone else in the hotel the staff were fantastic.
Unfortunately this was not the same throughout the rest of the property......
Let's start on our room which was on the 15th floor - yes it was very clean and spacious but oh boy it was very dated - the decor was like taking a trip in a time machine back to the 1980's.......dark wood very much the order of the day. I was intrigued by the coving on the ceiling - it was positioned with a gap between the wall and ceiling around the entire room, just could not work out why this was?
The bathroom was a bath with shower - again nice and clean but it was definitely showing it's age. On the morning we left there was a very strong smell of dirty drains coming from the bathroom....thank goodness we were checking out shortly afterwards!!!
There is no kettle or complementary tea/ coffee in the room.
The outside and pool areas were very good with plenty of seating and sun beds around the pool. What was very disappointing was the lack of segregation between smokers and non smokers in the seating area.
We sat outside one evening and in the end went back to our room due to being surrounded by cigarette smoke, this was also noticeable when sat inside watching the entertainment as the open doors allowed the smell of the unpleasant smoke to drift inside.
Definitely something for the hotel to address - being a non smoker it was very unpleasant.
Finally let's turn our attention to the buffet restaurant. We were staying half board.
Again staff were brilliant but you just could not fail to notice how uncoordinated the restaurant was, I will elaborate:
- the disjointed layout of the food options for example bread for toasting being in a completely separate location to all the other breads, hot breakfast options not being grouped together.
- again at breakfast, the only hot drink options were coffee or hot chocolate, no tea that I could see......on top of this guests had to get their own hot drinks from a machine rather than having it brought to the table.
- personally I found the hot food options at dinner to be somewhat underwhelming and once again the layout did not have a natural flow......so many peoples paths criss crossing and getting in each others way.
- food labelling was very hap hazard. No only from listing the foods in different languages but then actually understanding what the food is......best description of a desert I saw was ' cake cake' - no information that I could see for food allergies or anything being offered that I have seen elsewhere for gluten free options etc.
- finally despite the great staff, no one seemed to take leadership in ensuring hot food options were replenished or indeed on the last morning of our stay there were no plates or dishes available at one point.
In conclusion the hotel claims a four star rating, in truth it might be a push to even claim two stars especially in the restaurant.
As a parting comment, we woke one morning to find workmen removing the skirting boards and carpets in the corridor - there had been no mention of this work being done.......
Despite all this it's not a bad hotel, it's one which really just needs a major investment/refurbishment and big re think in terms of its offer and operation.
Would we chose this hotel again, on balance probably not."
