"DO NOT WASTE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY HERE
We stayed at Barceló Ponent Beach from 30 June to 4 July in a Superior Sea View room, which we paid extra for, and unfortunately it was one of the most disappointing hotel experiences we've had.
As soon as we entered the room we were hit with a strong smell of bleach mixed with mould. It quickly became apparent why. The room was in a very poor state of repair and did not appear to have been properly cleaned before our arrival. The bed had visible stains, the sofa had a large yellow stain running down the middle, there was dried yellow residue sprayed across the walls and furniture, there was hair in both the shower and sink, the toilet wouldn't flush, and after walking barefoot in the room for only a few minutes, the soles of my feet were black with dirt. The wooden skirting boards were rotting, the shower door was falling apart, the air vent and air conditioning unit were full of dust, and there was an obvious leak in the bathroom ceiling. We have photographs of all of these issues.
We requested that the room be cleaned, but it took several hours before anyone attended, by which time it was around 8pm and we had been unable to properly settle into our holiday. The maid entered without knocking, was unfriendly throughout, and left without saying a word. A maintenance worker inspected the leak in the bathroom ceiling, described it as "very bad", returned with a ladder, then simply said it was "fine for now", which did little to reassure us.
The biggest issue came when we were left without running water for two days. When the water did briefly return, it had an unpleasant mouldy smell, and for the remainder of our stay the room regularly smelt of sewage. We understand problems can occur, but this, combined with the condition of the room, made our stay extremely unpleasant.
Although we were offered another room and later another hotel, we had spoken to several other guests who had experienced the same issues after moving rooms. By the time an alternative hotel was offered, there were only two days of our holiday remaining and we did not want to lose even more holiday time packing and relocating. Throughout our stay there were regular queues at reception of guests complaining about similar problems, so our experience did not appear to be isolated.
This hotel is in a fantastic location, and the view from our room was absolutely stunning, which makes the experience even more disappointing, but the condition of our room, the lack of cleanliness, the water issues and the poor customer service meant it fell well below the standard we expected from a Barceló hotel and certainly below what we paid for. Sadly, I would not return or recommend it. Genuinely do not get all the good reviews on here, happy to hear some people had a positive experience but I find it hard to believe considering the amount of people I spoke to with similar experiences."
