"We are currently 3 days into our 5 day stay at Puente Romano Marbella and overall are feeling quite conflicted. There are definitely some excellent aspects to the resort, but for the price point and reputation, there were also too many issues to ignore.
The positives first - the grounds are beautiful. The resort is well landscaped with flowers and greenery throughout, and everything is kept very clean. Breakfast at the Sea Grill is excellent (although my husband remarked that some of the the hot breakfast was cold), and the variety of restaurants across the resort is one of its strongest points. The reception team were also lovely and very helpful when it came to arranging restaurant reservations, and the golf buggy drivers were consistently friendly too.
Our room itself was nice and I think we have had a renovated suite, although unfortunately the bathroom smells strongly of stale cigarettes, which was unpleasant.
That said, the service across the resort was nowhere near the standard expected of a luxury 5-star hotel charging four-figure nightly sums for rooms.
The main pool service was particularly poor. Lifeguards were openly reserving sunbeds for guests who had been gone for over two hours, and if you tried to ask about availability they would just walk away and ignore you. We visited in mid-May - still technically out of season - and it was almost impossible to get a sunbed.
Service at every pool was incredibly slow. Ordering even a simple drink regularly took around 45 minutes, and multiple other guests mentioned having the same experience. The drinks themselves felt more like something from a cheap all-inclusive resort than a luxury hotel - often warm, missing ice, and poorly made. One piña colada arrived tasting almost entirely of lime juice because they had added huge amounts of lime, and when we queried it the staff argued that this was how it was supposed to be made. Management did call to apologise, which was appreciated, but unfortunately we didn’t notice any real improvement afterwards.
Another major frustration was the constant extra charges. Despite the already extremely high room rates, you have to pay over €100 extra per room if you want decent high-speed WiFi (which was still patchy throughout our stay and even non-existent at the Le Petit Maison pool). If you want to use the beach pool, hotel guests still have to pay €100 per person for a sunbed (there are 6 of us so paying €600 just to sit by a pool is INSANE, however we ended up having to do it as there were no spaces at the free ones). Meanwhile, non-hotel guests seemed to freely walk in and use many of the facilities anyway, making the pools overcrowded. It felt bizarre to be paying such high room rates while then being charged extra simply to sit by a pool within the resort complex.
The spa situation was even more surprising. Hotel guests still have to pay approximately €150 per person just to use the spa facilities. I have genuinely never experienced this at comparable luxury hotels such as Four Seasons or Ritz Paris. It felt especially unreasonable given that there is very little to do at the resort when the weather is bad.
Only one pool was heated (Rachel’s Eco Love), which felt ridiculous for May as the others were freezing cold. The food at Rachel’s Eco Love also took around an hour for basic burgers, and did not taste very good.
There were also several operational issues that simply shouldn’t happen at this level:
We found two huge cockroaches in our room within 30 minutes of each other on the first day we arrived. To be fair, staff did send someone quickly with spray, but rooms should have been checked before guests check in as they are a known pest to the area.
Room service regularly took around an hour for breakfast or lunch, and they messed up one of the orders which meant I was waiting an additional 20 minutes on top of the hour waiting. The room service coffee was also really bad and tasted like a nespresso coffee pod.
We requested extra mugs for tea which never arrived.
The TV in the bedroom did not work upon arrival and required maintenance to come fix it. This should have been checked prior to check in.
Complimentary water was strangely always served warm and never placed in the fridge.
I also booked what I specifically requested as a one-to-one Pilates session, only to be placed into a group class instead. The instructor was good, but there was barely any air conditioning in the studio. The pricing also made no sense - the group class was €42 per person, while I had been quoted €80 per person for a private reformer session, meaning that for two people the “public” class actually worked out more expensive than doing a private session.
Overall, Puente Romano is undeniably beautiful and has fantastic restaurants and grounds, but the actual hotel experience and service levels fell well below expectations for a resort at this price point. It often felt more like a crowded beach club complex than a true luxury hotel experience. My advice would be to stay at a better hotel and just use the restaurant facilities as many of the restaurants have their own pools."
