Gran Meliá Palacio de Isora

“Overall it’s average for a 5* hotel. I would avoid unless you want to fight for a sun bed every day. Management does nothing about it, they are aware. Room it’s spacious and pretty but not the cleanest/newest. Overall it’s ok but not worth the money unless you want to play the sunbed game every morning/ pay 15-20 euros on a cocktail if you are patient enough to wait 30+ minutes until a waiter takes your order. So the service it’s not matching a 5* hotel only the prices are.”

“After reading mixed reviews on this hotel, we thought we'd try it for ourselves but unfortunately, we didn't feel it offered the same level of five star experiences that you would find at other five star hotels we have stayed at. We have to be fair and say that the hotel itself was very nice, the rooms were clean - even if a little refurbishment was required. Most of the staff were friendly. On checking in, we were not shown to our room as the person who would normally do that was "too busy at the moment". We were given the options of waiting or making our own way to our room with our luggage. Since it was late, we decided to find our own way. Dirty room service dishes were left outside of multiple rooms for a few days at a time. A fair few of the staff who were smokers, smoke outside of the hotel underneath the signs that say "no smoking". Cigarette butts are littered all over. The buffet restaurant is too small for the size of the restaurant. We usually had to queue to get in and if you want to sit indoors, you have to queue again to wait for a free table. The selection of food in the buffet restaurant was limited and of average quality but most importantly, the chef who was cooking the meat in the evening was cross-contaminating. He would use the same tongs or sometimes even his hands to move or turn the beef and chicken. I asked for a well done steak and he picked it up and put it on my plate with the same tongs that he had just used to position the raw chicken - needless to say I didn't eat it and we never returned for dinner again throughout our stay. We were half-board so had to pay for drinks which is fair enough but they should be embarrassed by the fact that they charge €34 for one Whisky and Coke and one Vodka and Coke - we never did that again either. There isn't much around the hotel, there are two small black gravel beaches a short walk away and the local town of Alcala is very run-down. This was our first and last time at a Meliá hotel.”

“We’ve just returned from our fourth visit to Gran Melia, and as usual, it was an amazing stay. The staff are consistently wonderful, the food is excellent, and the surroundings are truly special—these are the reasons we keep coming back. However, there were a couple of noticeable downsides this time. The most disappointing was the clear reduction in children’s entertainment. In previous visits, things like the superhero shows, dinosaur experiences (both at breakfast and in the evenings), silent discos, and cinema nights really set the hotel apart. It’s a real shame to see these missing, as they added so much to the overall experience for families. Another issue that seems to be creeping in is the reserving of sunbeds. On many occasions, especially around the family pool, loungers were “claimed” with towels but left unused for hours. This made it difficult to find a spot and is something that really needs to be better managed, as it wasn’t an issue in the past. That said, there were always sunbeds available at the saltwater pool, although this can be a little cold for younger children. Overall, we still had a fantastic stay and would return again, but it’s disappointing to see a few areas where standards appear to have slipped slightly.”