Gran Melia Palacio de Isora

It’s a nice hotel with beautiful gardens and swimming pools. Rooms are big and very clean. Unfortunately food is quite disappointing: food at the buffet is never really warm, for lunch there’s only one restaurant open and even though we have an all-in we still need to pay extra for most dishes.

Recently stayed here for a week. The hotel is stunning as you would expect. The pool is one of the best I've seen for hotels and rooms were spacious with plenty of amenities. It really has been built to an incredible standard with the Plaza offering breath taking views of the ocean and perfect for the sunset. They massively, massively let themselves down when it comes to service though unfortunately. Covid aside, you really do expect much more from a supposed 5 star hotel. I'm sure this isn't the case, but did seem to be a bias towards Spanish guests in terms of the service received. Bookings are required for all restaurants, only issue is they don't communicate what restaurants are actually open and when! We noticed the Asia restaurant was open on our first night and had been one we were looking forward to visiting, then it was closed for the remainder of our stay? Not communicated? The food in the restaurants is not 5 star quality, i'm sorry but it really isn't. BBQ one night in the Oasis pool grill with cold, bland meat. Buffet in Pangea was ok but average, certainly NOT worth €40 each! Oasis Pool Grill had us waiting over an hour and a half for our food on THREE occasions, with main courses then being brought out 15 minutes apart leaving one to go cold (which we had actually paid a supplement for!) which we actually complained to reception about, being told someone in guest relations would contact us which never happened. Waited half an hour for our drinks in here on a number of occasions also. Queues frequently for all the bars. Would often be directed to order from your table, and would then be waiting 10 minutes for a member of staff to take your order, followed by another 20 minutes for your drinks to arrive. With all the bars shutting at 11pm (another thing I don't understand, there's nothing else to do then?) you'd frequently only have time for a couple of drinks in the evening before being forced to either go to bed or venture out of the hotel which has little around it. Our towels were removed from the poolside as it's policy for any placed before 10pm. Absolutely fair enough and we hadn't realised when we did it. However this seemed be sporadically enforced and not for all guests? Spa was lovely, especially great with it being a Clarins Spa. A bit pricey but you pay for what you get here. Had planned to use the gym but it was shut on random days and a booking was required which is to be expected due to Covid. Improvements are really needed in a post Covid world to how they adapt their service if they are to remain a 5 star quality hotel.

We (2 adults, 3 kids) had a family suite, which basically was two connected rooms. Quite spacious, with 2 bathrooms. Two spacious balconies with view on the family pool. The rooms were generally clean (also by COVID 19 standards). The resort has several pools. The highlight is definitely the infinity pool, allegedly the largest hotel pool in Europe. The (salt )water was clean and quite warm with a stunning view on the ocean. The family pool is smaller, but probably still bigger than some pools in other hotels. There is also a huge SPA. Due to COVID; not all restaurants were open, so we had the choice between the buffet, an Italian and a Grill restaurant. Breakfast was buffet, too but with certain COVID measures (free gloves etc.) and pre-prepared dishes. Every stand had a staff member available to help with the serving if needed. Lots of salads, seafood and sweets - quite a nice choice - but after a while it becomes a bit boring. The hotel was not 100% full, except on weekends, when locals came for a short trip, and the staff was top notch: Friendly , very well organized, all wearing their masks etc. I really have to make a compliment- they were really on top of things (contrary to what i have seen in here where people seem to give a ** on providing a decent service. If you want to find something bad, you will probably do so - but you have to look quite hard. We had a super nice vacation in an extremely nice and well maintained hotel with friendly staff. Highly recommended!