"Honest and long mixed Review:
We stayed at the Sol Barbacan Hotel in September for 10 nights (Us and our adult sons) and spent hours researching hotel reviews so we picked the best one. The reviews for Sol Barbacan were amazing so I was quite confident that I picked wisely! We stayed in a 2 bed bungalow. This is a weirdly mixed review and just our experience. I am sure its not normally like this - but this is my honest review. I wasn't going to leave a review as its awkward but I am being hounded on email for one so here it is.....
The good stuff:
1. On arrival, the reception team were lovely, polite and helpful, especially Jady.
2. Our 2 bed bungalow was beautiful, clean and spacious and also had a roof terrace. Probably one of the nicest self catering accommodations that we have stayed in. The hotel grounds are stunning and the ground staff and cleaning ladies do not stop all day. Our cleaning lady was so adorable and smiled and greeted us when we see her. She was so sweet.
3. The small adult only pool was so relaxing and we spent what time we stayed in the hotel here as we were practically next door to it.
4. The main pool by the bar and the big pool that served bar snacks were nice and clean. Sunbeds were plentiful and mostly empty.
The not so good stuff:
1. The bar staff by the Main pool never smiled and were quite rude. One of them dramatically rolled their eyes at me when they see me waiting - this made me feel terrible like I was an inconvenience. I was the only one waiting too. They were impatient and rude most of the time. We are not big drinkers but we stopped going to the bar on day 3 as we have never felt such animosity like this before. It really upset me and we are such an easy going family. The drinks were also astronomically priced - 1 large beer and 1 whiskey and coke was 20 euros, which by the way, when the bar lady put the drinks down, she didn't say anything, or smile, but just held her hand out for the money and waved her hand around like 'hurry up'. We didn't go to the evening entertainment after these experiences either and went out of the hotel instead. The evening entertainment sounded great though.
2. We tried to book at one of their many restaurants but the waiter on the station told me it was fully booked and no space......the restaurant was completely empty. And stayed practically empty all night - maybe 15 people total. We tried again the next night and when we asked for a menu, they reached over their desk and actually flicked the menu. My partner then said no, that's enough now, we are not spending a single penny more here as they were so rude and I was upset. We didn't say anything but up and left. We didn't even feel confident in saying anything to the rep in case we were treated worse so we just avoided the hotel as much as we could. We didn't eat here for the duration of our holiday (not from want of trying) so cannot comment on the food.
3. The hotel during the day had zero atmosphere. You could hear a pin drop. I booked for a relaxing holiday but the silence was deafening. Literally not a single sound from anyone or anything. No music, no chatter, nothing. It was awkward.
4. We had a mortifying experience by the snack bar at the pool with the lady on the bar. We ordered some snacks and when we sat to eat them, she loudly and quite aggressively said we couldn't have our drinks (we brought 1 water bottle from our bungalow for around the pool) at the table. Only drinks brought from her bar. I was so embarrassed. Then watched a group of 5-6 people sit with their cans of lager which obviously were not brought from the bar and she didn't say anything to them and was laughing and joking with them.
Its a conflicting review as the hotel itself is easy a 4* star hotel for its grounds, pools and rooms as they are so beautiful. Most of the staffs attitude was terrible towards us which is why I have given it an average score. I was going for a 2* but that said poor and that didn't feel right. We were the only British family there so maybe its just the brits they don't like. Or they had had an exhausting busy summer. But for the amount our stay cost, we expected to at least feel welcome.
Overall, we would not recommend this hotel based on our experience. Don't get me wrong, we had a great holiday, just all outside this hotel. The bus stop and taxi rank right outside the hotel is super handy. We walked into Playa de Ingles some nights which was fun but an eye opener! Its like a sunny skeggy! We mainly took a cab or bus into Maspolomas for dinner each night which is 10 mins up the road and about 6-10 euros in a taxi (depending on time of day) or 1.40euro on the bus. Maspolomas is stunning. We also went next door to our hotel to Way2brothers restaurant multiple times and we can highly recommend paying them a visit! We filled our days with day trips and went to the Wild West day out (they have free bus) which was an absolute hoot of an experience and highly recommended! We jumped on the public bus (about 4 euros each) and went to Puerto de Mogan which was stunning. We went on Friday which is their market day so it was really busy but the streets and harbour are beautiful. We also booked direct for the buggy tour which was brilliant.
We enjoyed our holiday as we did our own thing in the end and we will be back to Gran Canaria but we wont stay at the Sol Barabcan again. This is just our experience and others probably have had great times - maybe we were just unlucky."
