"I don’t usually review hotels, but I’ve also never had such an unsatisfactory experience at a hotel.
The property itself is nice… ish. If you don’t leave the bounds, which is impossible, you won’t notice the wild boars and the unpaved roads that are lowkey the type of road you’d be afraid to walk around on at night. That in itself is not what made the stay unsatisfactory, though it’s not great.
Also to be noted about the property itself, this NOT a beachside resort. The beach is separated by a highway, which includes having to walk down the entire resort which is on a hill which is not a fun walk. In order to get to a beach even relatively close to the resort itself without having to get a taxi to go somewhere else or walk the literal side of the highway you have to take an underground tunnel that feels illegal (even though I couldn’t find any indications that it was) and is just generally really creepy, which takes you to a horrible little beach that wouldn’t be good for anyone to hang out on. If you’re looking to go to the beach, find somewhere else.
Also, if you plan to leave the resort property at any time, don’t bother booking here. My friend and I came here with the intention of going into Malaga to sightsee most of the days of our stay, which was not easy. The (unhelpful) advice given to us by guest services was to take the bus to Fuengirola and the train to Malaga. What you actually end up doing is taking a taxi from the hotel to the train station and the train into Malaga. The train itself is not very expensive, but the taxi starts to rack up by day three…
Speaking of guest services… I’m not sure what they think their job was, but it was definitely not the guest or the services part. With the exception of one woman they seemed utterly bothered by the idea of doing their job. It was almost impossible to get in contact with guest services without having to walk over there. Luckily we were in the building right across from guest services, but still, ridiculous. They took 3-4 times calling to answer the phone, and one time I called 8 times and got no answer, come to walk over and find that the entirety of guest services is empty and the man who is on duty is ignoring the phone.
The guest services also has 2 desks but never more than one person available to talk to, which makes it hard when you want to ask a question and there’s a bunch of families trying to call taxis or whatever and there’s no one else to talk to. In an emergency (when my room was being flooded by a washing machine) the guest services guy was not only unhelpful and moved with not an ounce of urgency, but also downright condescending. Instead of calling maintenance immediately he started asking me what I did wrong to cause the flood.
And, speaking of amenities such as the washing machine, they leave a lot to be desired. The washing machine is about as cryptic as a secret code (and though I set it to the right setting it somehow changed settings while washing and ended up flooding).
The stove took about 15 minutes just to heat up, and then if you added anything that wasn’t already hot to the pan it takes another 5 minutes to get back to hot again. For context, my induction stove takes about 5 minutes to preheat a normal frying pan. Also, if you used any heat level other than 9 it was impossible to cook anything. Normally setting 9 should burn your food, but it barely cooks it.
The water pressure in the shower is also pathetic, and the heat settings are wacky. If you move the handle even a millimetre the water temp will go from lukewarm to burning hot in one second. I’m talking hot enough that you need to stick your hand under cold water after to feel better.
The microwave just also doesn’t make sense… not sure what this hotels obsession with appliances that make no sense is, but if you’re not ready to figure out every appliance from scratch this probably isn’t the place to go.
They also provide no cleaning service. I’d get it if there was no cleaning service during a 2-3 day stay when you’re going to be gone by the end of the weekend, but we stayed for SEVEN days with no cleaning. I spilled some food on the duvet cover on day one expecting it to get changed at some point to no avail. They also provide small bath gel and shampoo containers that would barely last 2 days if you didn’t bring your own soap and if you didn’t you have to buy more in the convenience store, but they only sell enough soap to last a large family 2 weeks or a single person 5 months.
The convenience store itself is interesting. First, the prices are ridiculous. No, I wasn’t expecting the prices to be great, but one day I paid 29 euros for 9 items and one day I paid 25 euros for three items. Items that are 3 euros in a local grocery store are 8 euros here. Call me crazy, but that’s an insane markup, even for a hotel. And, considering how isolated the hotel is, you’re not given much choice about other places to go buy this stuff. If you want a place to get eggs and bacon for breakfast for the week it’s nice, but it’s ridiculous. They also don’t sell laundry detergent, which is insane when the rooms have washing machines.
The portion sizes they sell are also interesting. They only sell half dozens of eggs, which for two people lasts maybe a single day, and for seven days… you can do the calculations. At the marked up price for eggs in the resort convenience store versus an outside grocery store… it adds up. At that point I might as well buy eggs at the restaurant right? If there was an interesting breakfast choice and the only place for breakfast wasn’t on the other side of the resort…
Moving onto the restaurant scene. Before I even get onto the food and stuff (which isn’t my complaint), the opening hours are very strange. What resort, in SPAIN, opens dinner at 6pm and closes at 9pm? We arrived on a late train under the assumption the restaurants would be open when we arrive (since we’re both from Madrid and used to restaurants closing at 11 or midnight) only to find out they’re both closed. We were also told that ALL food options were gone, and had to ubereats to the resort. We then were given a pamphlet for the flying pizza, a place that supposedly did pizza room service on the resort property until 11:30 pm, but had been explicitly told that NO food was open. So either it was randomly closed the weekend we arrived… or we were given false information, again.
As far as the Safari restaurant, we never went there but we also never went because the menu was boring as hell and expensive as hell. We went to Zac’s twice, and the food and service were honestly really nice, but for the price that a person could get a bowl of pasta and several sodas in the local town you can get a single cheeseburger. It’s expensive, which one expects at a hotel, but still, fair warning.
Here is the TLDR if you don’t want to read my long rant: Don’t come here if you’re two college students hoping for a scenic beach vacation.
This place is not made for two people, especially not two college students just wanting to have a winter break by the beach after the stress of final exams. It’s expensive, in the middle of nowhere, not easy to navigate, clearly catered towards large groups or families coming to stay, with confusing appliances, unhelpful staff, and less than nice accommodations. I can say with certainty that I won’t be coming back here. Seriously… never. If you take the time to read my complaints, you probably won’t want to either."
