"I wanted to leave a review of 2.5 but could only choose 3. Here's why.
My parents have been lifelong customers of the Meliá brand and always came home raving about how great it was consistently. So we had high expectations.
We arrived early (approx 11.30). Check in was slick, professional, courteous and informative. Plus, our room was ready. Great!
Room was well appointed albeit it was tight on storage space. Our complementary drink on arrival was a 500ml bottle of water outside of the mini fridge. All drinks inside the fridge could be purchased for €2.50. Is this a tactic? Underwhelming in any event.
I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of our stay, just some of our observations.
My wife has a shellfish allergy which we highlighted when booking. On our first night in the restaurant the host knew this straight away. He personally walked us to the chef in charge who in turn walked my wife through the entire buffet, including desserts. How fabulous and reassuring. Must also add that the variety of local and international food on offer for both breakfast was very comprehensive.
The service for breakfast was chaotic and permanently understaffed. Over the course of the week they ran out of glasses for orange juice, ran out of plates for bread at the toast station, ran out of butter for said toast, ran out of bowls for cereal and ran out of natural yoghurt twice. The queues for toast were bad enough but try and get an omelette? Not a chance. One person on the omlette station cooking for (on an educated guess) between 800 to 1000 for breakfast! It was not the chefs fault, poor girl only has 2 hands. Meliá, this is an easy fix. The procedure for staff topping up orange juice also needs reviewed. The top of the dispensers sit about 5 feet. Watching staff struggle to top them up from an ice bucket filled with juice is just wrong! Apart from the spillages from being at such an awkward height, what has that ice bucket been used for before? Why not have pre filled dispensers sitting to one side just to swap in?
Dinner service was less chaotic and not as busy as breakfast. Food was fine for buffet. The restaurant could definitely benefit from background music. When I'm on holiday I'm definitely all for being comfortable but I do like to make a bit of an effort to dress for dinner as does my wife. Cut off jeans and tee shirts, doesn't really do it for me but here it appears to be the norm. Yes they have a dress code but it doesn't seem to be anyone's job to enforce it. A polite notice asking for a shirt with a collar and tailored shorts surely can't offend anyone. Might also be an idea to have the dinner menu at the entrance to the restaurant as you do for lunch. Better still why not post the week's menus in the lift, beats watching the floor numbers going up and down. Also, why expect me to eat my dessert with a teaspoon. Not a one off. Every night. Is it to discourage people going back for seconds? Anyway teaspoons are for stirring tea!
Staff by and large very helpful, very smiley, although obviously under constant pressure. Special thanks to the guys on the roof terrace who took the time to let me engage in my broken spoken Spanish and in the restaurant Sandra needs a special mention. Clone her and for goodness sake keep her. She seems to know and remember everyone! She also delivered the complimentary bottle of prosecco to our room recognising my wife's birthday.
Lastly. Although the hotel caters for a more mature demographic there was absolutely no daytime activities, no quiz, table tennis, aqua aerobics etc"
