Overall the hotel was okay, but it was boring at night. Every evening after 11 pm there was nothing to do – no disco at the hotel if you wanted to dance. They had one pool table which was usually busy. Our nights would consist of sitting in the lobby, having a drink and talking. The lobby bar was designated as non-smoking but everyone smoked.
Room Number:
1224
Room Block:
12
Arrival:
The hotel was very organized when the travellers arrived. They allotted one bus per hotel, so you didn’t have to drive from hotel to hotel dropping off people. The bell boy was there, he asked for your name and already had your room number, wrist bands and key cards. They wrote your room number on the luggage pieces so the hotel could deliver your luggage to your room once the bus arrived at the hotel. No check-in was required once we arrived at the hotel. We put our wrist bands on in the bus. Once at the hotel, we were able to go to the bar, to our room, walk around the property etc. Our luggage was brought to our room within 45 minutes of our arrival. The hotel was very organized and deserves 5 stars for the smooth arrival.
Rooms:
The rooms were spacious and clean. We didn’t have many problems in the room. Our TV burnt out one day and we called guest services. They came that same day and fixed it. Our safe malfunctioned the one day and wouldn’t open. We called guest services for that and finally after an hour someone arrived to fix the safe. The pillow cases were too short for the pillows and the pillows themselves were very dirty. We asked the maid to wash the pillows and she did so we had clean pillows for the 2 weeks we were there.
Restaurants and Bars:
There were 5 a la cartes and 1 buffet and a number of bars. We stayed away from the busy area of the beach and we never had a line up at the beach bar. The lobby bar got quite busy in the evenings because there was nothing else to do at the hotel. The buffet served very good food with plenty of variety – fish, beef, pork, chicken to be cooked as desired and then they have plenty of pre-made dishes. The salad bar was very good as well. For all meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner was plenty of good food at the buffet. Some of the servers were a bit slow – didn’t want to give you cutlery, etc at your table so we avoided them and sat with regular servers who saved a table for us. The a la cartes were OK, nothing special. The Playa Costa Verde had wonderful a la cartes, much better than these. The service was slow and when a Cuban family came to get served, our service literally disappeared. The food was the same food from the buffet only you had to wait longer for it. The Steakhouse meat – three skewers of meat – was too overcooked and impossible to chew. The seafood one was good – the lobster bisque and the butterfly lobster was good. At lunch, the seafood restaurant got a lot of flies in the food area – the hotel needs to keep the food covered.
Beach/Pools/Grounds: We only stayed at the beach, it was spacious and clean. You had to get up early to reserve your beach chairs and hut otherwise you baked in the sun. The ocean was rough and difficult to swim in, not a place for small children. We only had 3 days were the water was calm in the morning so you could swim. You would walk about 15 feet into the water and it would be about 5 feet in depth. Into the second week, the nautical staff got lazy and took out the catamarans on their own and stayed out for hours. They were always saying the water was too rough and refused to let out the peddle boats and kayaks. The hotel beside us would have the green flag for swimming while we had the yellow. That yellow flag was never changed during our 2 weeks there. The family pool was large and cleaned every morning. The pool bar in the family pool was never busy. The grounds were cleaned and raked. The gardeners had little knowledge in how to trim the plants back – they cut them back too much cutting off all of their flowers. After 12 noon, the gardeners disappeared – we never saw them.
Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel: There was nightly entertainment every night whether there was a fashion show, bands playing or a nightly show. We never watched their night shows – they are usually the same from hotel to hotel. The bands were nice to listen to. People of any age would get up and dance which was nice to see. The hotel advertises that they have a disco but they don’t. They used to have one about 6 months ago but now they changed their disco into a fun pub. They have a pool table and bar in the “fun club” but it is not busy at all. It was disappointing when we found out on the night we arrived that there was no disco. We talked to four travel agents in Mississauga and they all told us that there was a disco. There is a disco, bowling alley, bar and restaurant between the two Melia hotels. The bar is part of a wooden ship and light house. We walked to that disco the one night. They wanted 10 convertible pesos just for cover and then you had to pay for your drinks on top of that. We walked over at 11:30 at night and no one was inside. The hotel advertised a disco in a town called El Pueblo which was a 15 minute bus drive. We heard from some people that it was 10 pesos to get in but you received 9 pesos worth of drinks – you have to pay for all drinks at this disco. One lady mentioned that all the stalls in the women’s washroom had no doors, no soap and no toilet paper. She said it was very dirty and would not recommend going. Once the night show finished at around 11 pm, there was nothing to do at the hotel. People would just sit, drink and smoke or go to their room and watch tv. Many people wanted to go and dance but there was no place on this resort that you could do that after the show. It seemed like the hotel was trying to make money on the side with getting people to pay cover and pay for drinks at these private clubs. For daily entertainment they had competitions in the pool, archery, beach volleyball, dancing lessons etc. I tried archery one day, it was fun for my first time. I am an avid beach volleyball player. Their court isn’t on the beach, you have to walk through some shrubs to get to it. It is full of those little prickly thistles that stick to your feet. I found the court quite small and uneven. Playa Costa Verde (the hotel we were at last year) had a beautiful court on the beach, with the proper blue tape to mark the court boundaries.
Other Comments:
I wish the hotel would correctly advertise the kinds of facilities that they have. We checked their website and believed that it was a true representation of what they had.