Gran Melia Palacio de Isora

Great hotel but the situation with their restaurants was very disappointing. Regardless of there being some five or six restaurants my wife and I were unable to book an evening meal before 21:30 hours despite trying to book two days in advance.

We came to this hotel 2 years ago and really enjoyed the holiday so decided to book it again and come back for a nice family break. We enjoyed the hotel that much we have stayed in this chain in other countries. We were really disappointed this time and will not return to this hotel. The holiday cost in the region of £8k for 3 people for one week. Our room 2039 was dirty, broken and in desperate need of repairs. I’m sure it’s an overflow section. We got zero sun in our room or balcony, it’s like living in the cellar. The room was dirty and grotty, curtains filthy, bathroom filthy, furniture falling to bits. We had to wash our clothes and take them to the pool to dry them due to the no sun on balcony issue. The safe was broken, my wife’s new hat had gone missing from the room, the wardrobe handles falls off every time you open wardrobe, the bed is really uncomfortable, sockets are broken next to bed, the room smelt of sewage, the bath panel falling off, the lights turned on twice in the early hours of the morning for no reason, we had no cleaner for 2 days so I had to complain. Our room was situated next to the cleaners cupboard so from 6am you were woken to cleaners conversations in the cupboard and then the constant karts rolling outside our room to that cupboard. We could hear everything from the people above, flushing their toilet, talking, walking etc. I could go on all day about our terrible room. I complained twice to reception who advised me they will have someone call me. I carried my phone for two days but no one ever called. The pool is freezing, no music or atmosphere around the pool, people claiming all the beds at 6am (they did start stopping this towards end of holiday) huge queues for all the restaurants, we queued up for 20 minutes at the Mexican restaurant to be told to come back in 30mins. They said they wouldn’t accept room numbers. We came back 30mins later and the queue was double the size and told to try another restaurant. All the staff kept saying is the hotels fully booked. That’s no excuse. You should have amenities and staff that can cope with a hotel that’s fully booked. The buffet queue is that big that they put dancers and bubble blowers on hoping you’ll watch that and not notice your queuing for 20mins for breakfast. No one has a clue what’s going on. Last night we queued for our dinner for 10mins to be then out in another queue to the side, they were sitting people that came after us. So I walked to the rear decking seating area to be stopped by a worker and told to go back and rejoin the queue. I explained and she just kept saying no even though there was 4 empty tables. You just queue everywhere and staff are clueless. I used the tongs to grab some food in the Buffett and there was a long black hair wrapped around the tongs which made me nearly vomit. This is not a 5 star, this is a 3 star. Oh and if you go to the hotel beach take some money because the hotel doesn’t let you use all inclusive for some reason. Really disappointed. The only positive is the general bar staff and some of the restaurant staff were very accommodating and the weather was warm (except on our balcony) The rest crap. Don’t waste your money, we’re actually looking forward to going home.

Our favourite hotel in the Canary Islands (out of 10+ we've been to) and the only one we'll be actively looking at visiting next year. The location was very well maintained, beautiful and easy to get around. The amount of activities for kids of all ages was wonderful. Particular shout-out to Luciana and the "mini club" for creating an environment our kids actively wanted to visit each day (normally they need a little more encouragement).

When we first arrived we thought "wow" and the room was lovely. Then, we discovered furniture was needing fixed, the lighting needed a stage manager to understand it, and why did turning off one TV turn on the other? Why does the toilet door not have a handle on the inside to help you close it when in use? Why IS there a toilet telephone you hurt your arm on every time you take a piss? I am not Churchill, I do not work in the toilet. The Pangea food market is a mix of poor and excellent, the a la carte arrangements unnecessarily complicated and the pools are freezing. My husband swam 4 lengths of the infinity pool just now and I've had to treat him for hypothermia. This is no way 5 star I was told to expect, Butlins can do better.

Lovely hotel, lovely room (standard deluxe), lovely staff, lovely food……in summary, LOVELY!!!! Don’t quite understand some of the recent critique - as an example “we can’t find anything we like in the main restaurant 😢”. Well we could:- Breakfast - Yoghurt, fruit, nuts & seeds followed by toasted olive bread, avocado, smoked trout & perfect poached eggs. Evening meal - salad ( only about 30 options to choose from) followed by fish - sea bass, scallops with black pudding accompanied by stir fried veg/noodles. Extensive cheese board to finish. Both the Italian and Asian restaurants were also excellent and (strangely) easy to book on the app. We’ve had a 5 star experience, we’ve been here before and will doubtless be here again 👍