"Stayed one night. First impressions the paid for parking was easy to get to. The check in staff member was okay until I asked about the parking and showed him the ticket and asked about free parking. He got all prickly about the price of it, telling me and my husband the cost and that we had the option of paying for it now, or when we checked out. That we could pay at the end of our stay or at the ticket machine. We only asked about free parking and didn’t mind paying for secure parking but he acted like it or we were going to be a problem over it. He was very aggressive which left us with a poor first impression. I guess they’ve had push back from other guests because there are signs outside saying free parking. He was also very unhelpful about pointing the way to get to our room or how to get to the restaurant, spa, pool, bar etc. We asked someone else who showed us where the lifts were and we figured out where to go for our meals and where the spa and pool was. We also had drinks in the lobby bar but unfortunately didn’t find out about the rooftop bar until after we were home.
Next is a confusing lay out. The hotel is built on a side of a cliff. The lobby is located on the 8th floor. The hotel is 12 stories, so there are 4 floors above it. Our room was located on the fifth floor so we had to go down three floors. Along the corridor you have windows on one side that look out onto the ugly underground parking. To find your car, if you parked underground, you’d have to take stairs from your floor to get to your car, which was no good if you had luggage. There was no straight forward way to get from your floor to your car without stairs involved unless you were on floor seven or took the elevator with your luggage to floor seven where there were no stairs involved to get to your car but you still had to wheel your luggage outside around the building and back through another door and into a lift to take you to the level you parked your car at. Not ideal! We ended up moving the car outside so we had easier access with our luggage when loading up.
The room we had was nice and comfortable with a great view of the beach. The A/C was fixed at 19c. We would have been more comfortable had it been set at 18c. There was no way to adjust it but we managed with putting the room fan on as well. Wouldn’t like it though for more than one night.
We went for half board and we feel this was a mistake as the food selection wasn’t up to snuff. There was no seafood available when my husband had fancied a prawn cocktail. Outside vegetarian, all there was for dinner options were meagre portions of pork, beef, turkey, chicken and fish. I ended up mostly just having sweets for dinner. Breakfast was of poor quality and selection with an odd mix of paprika flavoured sausages and rice, odd tasting greasy bacon, pancakes and french toast without maple syrup. Terrible coffee. The only good thing I found was cava and orange juice and the freshly made omelet was very good.
Pool area is locked up quite early. We came down after having an early dinner to find there was no access. You have to pass by a small outdoor toilet block to get to the pool area and it reeks. We came down the next morning and laid on the loungers for a moment to enjoy the poolside in the shade of the palm trees, wish we could have spent the day there as it felt really relaxing but we had to check out and get to the airport.
The clientele is mostly older. Not really a place for families I think. Though the small pool area (which is also open to the public for a fee) has a kid friendly slide with gangway ropes, it feels separate from the hotel as it’s located a fair distance away.
Overall it wasn’t as good as our hotel stay at the H10 Estepona Palace Hotel, which worked out to be only €10 more for the same amenities - one night, half board. I couldn’t manage for a week here and be happy but I could at the other hotel.
Views are nice and some interior spaces are good but overall it was average at best."
