"This hotel is our go to hotel in Salou, been coming here since 2015 and always had a great experience.
This week in particular I think has been tough on everyone including the staff - especially reception staff.
We were kept awake for 3 nights running with other guests shouting - this is not the direct fault of the hotel however I do think that this should have been dealt with by security which it wasn’t and it went on all night every night. Tried to call reception from phone in room but they don’t seem to work?
The electricity kept going off in the hotel - I did witness when it came back on (I was standing in the street outside at the time) that a good chunk of the street and some of the streetlights came back on so the reception saying that it wasn’t just in the hotel wasn’t lies (witnessed people saying this) but for the rest of the week the problems only seemed to be within the hotel - the electric never came back on in some of the rooms.
Our water also didn’t work for a full day then when it came back on it was only cold water for 2 days - annoying but wasn’t the end of the world. Water pressure in the room I was in was horrendous.
Food was as usual buffet style - not to everyone’s liking but we managed to find stuff every meal to eat, and there’s always the poolside snack bar all afternoon that had chips, nuggets, hot dogs and crisps, kept everyone going. I did however have an issue this time with the cleanliness of the plates and the unfriendly staff in the dining room - never experienced this before and I was quite shocked - only person who seemed to be friendly was the lady who has been there for years and one young man. We were a party of 7 so tried to push a table together so that we could sit together and got shouted at, stayed here a number of times before and it’s never been an issue in fact we have never had to attempt to push tables together as the restaurant staff have always gone out of their way to accommodate us) we also weren’t allowed juice one night with dinner - just told no with a bit less g side eye and attitude, explanation would have been nice, was it not working, could they not be bothered? They told us to go to the bar but the queue at that time was huge and we also hadn’t brought our plastic cups down with us at this time as we didn’t expect to need them. I did find that a lot of the food was cold and I was particularly concerned when a new batch of fried eggs came out and were stone cold?? Like they had just come out from a fridge, not really sure how this was even possible but it was the whole batch as my daughter had got some too - we didn’t eat them as I didn’t trust however they had been prepared, still not sure how it’s possible for fresh fried eggs to have a stone cold texture to them.
Reception staff were constantly dealing with people complaining (rightly so) and shouting (not fair) so I think they handled things fairly well considering that for the full week they were being verbally abused. It’s a difficult situation as people were obviously unhappy with the issues but some seemed to be outwith their control. Perhaps moving people to somewhere else with working facilities would have been a better option at this point.
Bar area - didn’t spend much time in here this year but I even found the bar staff not to be their usual cheery selves - one of my kids asked for a toastie and was given a sharp ‘no!’ She’s only young so maybe a no there’s none left or no we don’t have any available might have been more appropriate, she was a bit upset by this abruptness as was I because she was polite when asking.
Cleaners - they were always friendly but again I didn’t think they were as thorough as normal - our sheets weren’t changed at all as my bed had a black mark on it when I arrived and it was still there when I left, the leaflet we were left said that they would be changed once on our stay - our floor could have done with a brush a couple of days (happy to do this myself if brushes were available)
Overall this was not the best stay at the Villamarina and I find this really difficult to write as we always love our holidays here.
I’m not sure if the hotel just needs a complete refurb or not or if it was just bad luck how awful this particular week was, I’ve never heard any complaints while staying here but every time I passed reception someone was complaining about something!! I did really honestly feel for the reception staff as they were dealing with so much negativity all week.
I think whoever owns or is responsible for this hotel should have a good look at the issues raised this week as the staff at reception and even the manager can only do so much. If electrics, air con and plumbing are massive issues then this is something that needs looked at on a bigger scale.
I love the Villamarina so this was a particularly difficult holiday, I feel I spent almost 4k on flights and hotel for a week and came home feeling more exhausted than when I left.
We did leave the hotel more than we normally would so we didn’t benefit from the all inclusive facilities as we normally would.
I REALLY THINK THE VILLAMARINA CLUB WOULD BENEFIT ON ALL INCLUSIVE RESTRICTIONS ON ALCOHOL LIKE SOME OTHER PLACES DO - limit to 6 drinks per day or something - I would say half board but this is unfair on the kids with juice and ice cream but honestly something needs to be done about the amount of alcohol that some people consume.
My kids still had a lovely time here, they don’t know any different or care about electric or water but I myself did not enjoy this holiday, I felt unsafe during the night for 3 nights of our stay (2 particularly bad) and I would seriously consider going somewhere else if I was to return to Salou, once the season ends there is 6 months to sort all these issues and come up with a zero tolerance on guest behaviour plan because the clock needs to turn back about ten years when this behaviour was not tolerated.
This review is based on my personal experience of this hotel this year and it really pains me to write a review like this as normally we have the most amazing time! Whoever is in charge of each department needs to have a serious meeting with each other alongside the hotel manager and try and resolve these issues as it was unfriendly and unprofessional how some of the staff were acting in each department.
My final word on this review is about the Entertainment Team - if it wasn’t for these guys this week wouldn’t have been as bearable. They were always friendly, cheerful and they single handedly kept the place going! Eddie was a firm fave with my kids and even me, every time he passed he said hello with q smile - big massive shout out to this team because they know how to be friendly and treat guests with the respect (most of them) guests deserve when paying for a holiday."
