"We have just arrived back from a 10 night stay at the Benalma Hotel and we have very mixed feelings about our stay. Firstly, the hotel is lovely, big, clean, is right on the beach and has amazing views of the sea. Our room was very nice and we had a large balcony with a beautiful sea view. Breakfast was varied and plentiful. The staff were all very friendly and helpful and the wifi was great throughout the hotel, pools and beach.
However, we were half board and the Breakfast did not start until 8am and dinner was not until 7.30pm. The family pool doesn't open until 10am. The beach sunbeds do not belong to the hotel and are €8 each per day. The adult pool is very small with a little concrete area for sunbeds, fenced off with wire, next to the main public walkway on the beach, and looked a bit like a prison. Both pools are accessed using a gate and your hotel room card, but whilst we were there, locals just simply walked into the family pool off the beach, when the door had been opened by other hotel residents. On one occassion the guy at the pool bar went over and physically let a guy, his wife and child in, because he knew him and was shaking his hand as he let him in. He even gave him free drinks. Eventually someone complained and the manager came in and asked them to leave which they weren't happy about. Its frustrating as there are not enough sunbeds for the actual guests, let alone anyone else.
During the last 4 days of our stay, the hotel started to fill up with lots of Spanish families and loads of children. There were unfortunately lots of very noisy unruly kids running around the hotel and up and down the corridors late into the night with no adult supervision whatsoever. On our last 2 nights, we had young boys karate kicking our room door and other doors and then laughing and running off. This happened twice and on both nights!? Reception were called each time, but it didnt stop. On our last night, after the 2nd kick at our door at gone midnight, and after catching the young boys, who then ran off, my husband resorted to going down into reception in his pajamas to complain to staff and to speak to the parents, who were just casually drinking in the bar and paying absolutely no attention to what their kids were doing!? No idea where security were? The man on reception was very helpful though and just as frustrated as us.
Our room was cleaned every day, but on 2 separate days the cleaner forgot to leave us the towel for the floor, on another occassion they took our spare room key and another occassion they accidentally took my personal hair wrap towel. We advised reception, and the cleaner finally returned the towel to our room, whilst we were at dinner. However when we returned to our room after dinner, we were unable to access our room!? So we had yet another trip to reception to get the room key activated again.
Food wise, there was nothing for my husband who is a vegetarian, except the accompaniments, rice, vegetables and salad etc. Italian night, once a week seemed to the only night where there were a few great veggie dishes. Strangely, on Mexican night, they had no rice? Despite it being available most other nights. The milk was always warm nomatter when you arrived. We got to breakfast as soon as it opened and could not have cereal as the milk was luke warm.
The biggest issue we found was that this hotel caters for large groups. So its great, if you are part of a large group of ladies, or men on stag doos, hen doos, birthday weekends etc and you want to be able to drink as much as you can, all day until late in the night, and be loud and lairy when getting back to your room at 6am listening to music on full blast, with no care for other guests (yes this also happened!) But, if you are, like us, and looking for a relaxing holiday in the quieter end of Benalmadena, you sadly wont get it here. We had to contact reception far too many times with different issues and despite travelling regularly each year, we have never experienced this anywhere else we have stayed. The Benalma Hotel really has the potential to be a nice, quality, high end hotel, but its standards and clientel made it feel to us like a 2 star accomodation in Benidorm. Which is a real shame, and means we wont be returning."
