"We stayed at the Dorado Beach hotel for 14 nights, from 18th September - 2nd October. Overall, we would rate this 2.5/5⭐️. It is not a hotel that we would return to, and you can find much better hotels if you pay an extra few hundred pounds. It is not the worst hotel in the world, but it’s certainly not the best. We don’t usually do 3 ⭐️ hotels so this may be why it wasn’t great for us but I am judging it fairly as a 3 ⭐️ hotel. We stayed at a 4 ⭐️ hotel in Gran Canaria last year and comparing the two hotels in the same country, this hotel feels like a 2 ⭐️ in comparison.
🏨CHECK IN & CHECK OUT;
Check in - We were delayed coming in to Gran Canaria so didn’t get to the hotel until around 12pm, which by time, the bars and restaurant were closed. The lady on reception did let us know we could go down to the restaurant and there would be some food left out for arrivals (none of it was vegetarian, or labelled)
Check out - You have to check out of your room and hand the key cards back to reception by 11AM. You can use the showers/toilets down in the spa to get ready, there is one male and one female, these are not just showers for guests checking out - they are toilets for the hotel guests to use at any time so you could end up waiting a while. You don’t get an allocated time to book, luckily there was no queue when we went but you could end up queuing. They do give you a towel to use.
🛏️ROOMS;
All rooms are sea view rooms, although some more than others. Some appear to have a very limited side sea view, rooms on floor 2 can probably only see a bit of the sea and more of the pool. Luckily we were on floor 6 so had a great view. Which is nice because normally you have to pay for a sea view. Rooms are a good size, split into; bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette & living room, then your balcony. We did find it odd that the bedroom section was at the back on the roadside so you could hear all the traffic noises and people waking past your room. The rooms feel quite dated, especially the bathroom, which has quite a lot of mould in areas. The TV is not in the bedroom, it’s in the living area, which is fine except the sofa is the most uncomfortable thing ever. The kitchenette has a kettle, coffee maker, fridge freezer, hob and I assume things to cook with, but these are kept in a locked cupboard that you have to ask reception to unlock? They also don’t stock any tea/coffee/milk/bottled water in the rooms.
🧹HOUSEKEEPING;
The housekeeping was not very good. Our floor was constantly filthy, and felt like they didn’t sweep or mop it once, if we put socks on and walked around in there, they turned black. Beds were made daily & bins emptied. The shower tray always seemed filthy and had bits floating around in it after they had cleaned. Not a housekeeping issue, but the hotel only changed towels 3 days a week (never had this anywhere else) you can pay an extra €15 per person to have daily towel changes, not sure if that’s per week or per day or what, as it wasn’t very clear.
🥘FOOD;
The food was bog standard 3* food. It was cold or lukewarm most of the time. As a vegetarian, all I ate for the 2 weeks was pasta and chips, my partner, who doesn’t eat meat when he’s abroad lived on chips and boiled vegetables. I think children or picky eaters will really struggle to eat here. A lot of things aren’t labelled properly. I found that a lot of options that could have been vegetarian were then topped with meat. I.e a margarita pizza then had shrimps put on top, a salad then had octopus tentacles put on top, rice had bits of pork chopped up in it. Pretty much everything had meat or fish. Any food that was actually ok and had some taste to it was because it had loads of salt or pepper put into it. It’s the same stuff every day. During 14 nights we only had our plates cleared from our table around 4-5 times?
🍹DRINKS;
Drinks are mostly self service, which seems to be the way it’s going across Europe these days. Out of 3 of the fizzy drink machines, 2 of them were always flat so we had to go out to the shop several times to buy cans of pop. The only machine that wasn’t flat was the one in the main restaurant which opened 1pm-3pm so you could only get a fizzy drink during those 2 hours a day? We heard other guests complain about this also. They also had beer and wine on tap. They have jugs of cocktails to pour yourself, these are left on the side and they are warm. They do have menus showing different cocktails they actually make for you but these all had prices on, it was only the last night that we found out they were included! Nothing is very clear.
🏊POOLS;
There is only one pool area which is a good enough size for the size of the hotel. There are shallower ends and they have 2 jacuzzis in the pool also. They have a small kids pool as well. We saw the pool getting cleaned on a regular basis but the floor still seemed dirty - lots of sand in the bottom, old plasters, and I did see a cigarette butt at the bottom of the pool. There are plenty of sun loungers, but in September/October you don’t get the sun around the pool until around 11-12 as the sun comes up behind the hotel. The sun loungers are covered in these fake leather pads which get upto about 50°c so make sure you put a towel down or you will scorch your skin on them. People getting up to reserve beds starts a little before 7am, with one guest even sleeping downstairs on a couch by the door ready for it to open???
Guests do leave their towels on the beds all day then turn up as late as 4pm, unfortunately the hotel don’t do anything to stop this.
💃🏼ENTERTAINMENT;
Entertainment is pretty bad. They have 2 areas - one on the reception level where they have singers, and then one downstairs in the main bar. Some entertainment is better than others. We saw a Michael Jackson tribute that we liked, a soul night, and a rockabilly night. Ones to avoid would be the jungle night (horrific), any of the dancing ones and the magician night. When you are in the main bar area it’s very difficult to see the entertainment, if you do want to watch it then you need to be on one of the first few rows. Quite a few nights, guests walked out of the evening entertainment.
Aside from evening entertainment, they do try and put on other things; Mondays, they do a fashion show around the pool where women come in and walk around and you can buy the clothes after, once a week they have external sellers come in and set up a market around the pool where you can buy aloe Vera products, jewellery, have a caricature drawn etc.
They have aqua aerobics daily and other activities, not once were we bothered by the animation team to join in which was nice, so I assume if you want to do it you just join in yourself.
🧑🏽🍳STAFF;
We had very little interaction with any staff whilst we were here. We had a few conversations with reception when asking for a taxi or to book a trip. My partner said the gym staff were helpful. Aside from that, we can’t really comment.
🏝️LOCATION;
The hotel is situated right on the sea in Arguineguín. One great point about the hotel is the view and being able to watch the beautiful sunset every night, although this can be said for any hotel on the coast. Arguineguín is not a tourist location - it is a fishing village where locals live and work. There isn’t much to do around here. We definitely prefer it in Maspalomas. This hotel is around a 30 minute walk to Anfi Beach which we would definitely recommend (just don’t get sucked in to touring the Anfi Del Mar hotel and having a timeshare sold to you)
🏞️EXCURSIONS/THINGS TO DO;
There are lot of excursions you can do, you can book through your holiday rep when they visit the hotel (although reception seem to be unaware of what days they visit). You can also book excursions through reception as they leave a list of excursions in your room. We did 2 trips; Las Palmas & Poema Del Mar aquarium, and then a mountain tour, driving all around the island and visiting the towns Firgas and Teror. Both trips were good but we don’t feel that you get enough time on them. You can also book lots of water sports etc through reception.
🌅OTHER BITS;
* We didn’t notice until our last day, but there is a lovely little spot through reception where you can sit and look out at the sea or enjoy the sunset. They have tables and sun loungers, it’s a really nice spot.
* The hotel has a top floor is you want to get away from people around the pool, there’s a small jacuzzi up there, big enough to fit 2 people and plenty of beds. It’s a great viewing spot.
* The hotel is great if you want a taxi, just tell reception and they will have a taxi there within a couple of minutes.
🤗TOP TIPS;
* Spend the day at Anfi Beach - it’s a nice 30 minute walk along the sea front and the beach and whole area is beautiful! Anfi Del Mar hotel staff will ask you if you want to tour the hotel, at the end they try to sell you a 10 year time share or a holiday - neither of which are worth it and it will waste 3-4 hours of your day despite them saying it’s a 90 minute tour.
* Rent a car instead of excursions - if you go on an excursion visiting multiple places, you may only get 20 minutes in one town/area which isn’t long enough to explore.
* If you want the sun earlier, grab a sunbed on the side of the pool opposite the pool bar as this is where the sun hits first.
* If you don’t want to sit in shade all day, make sure you move any umbrellas away from your bed or you may be sat under your neighbours umbrella all day."
