"On arrival at 10.30pm we were told the room we had booked wasn’t available and was given a room which was cheaper on booking.com. We paid a lot more for emblem premier suite as the rooms are twice the size to the swim up rooms. We were travelling as a family and 2 of my daughters were sharing one room (was meant to be a premier emblem balcony suite) and myself, partner and son was sharing another emblem premier suite. We explained to the receptionist Laura that this wasn’t suitable as our daughter sleep walked and wasn’t safe. After expressing our concerns and frustration at the check in desk for over 45 minutes, she promised it would be sorted the following day and the manager Carla would come to our room. When we arrived to the premier emblem suite that was still available, which we also had to find on our own with all our luggage in the dark because none of the reception staff offered to show us, we were welcomed with a plate of anti pasti food covered in ants, that my daughter had taken a bite out of before any of us realised! We took a video and showed the staff at reception it and all they could say was ‘oh ants’ it wasn’t taken away for days! Something else we had to chase up constantly at reception.
We heard nothing the following day regarding the manager coming to the room regarding our room change so yet again we had to go to reception to chase up to be told the manager isn’t available and to come back the next day to follow it up. This was an ongoing theme at the hotel, every time we were told they would get back to us, they NEVER did. We must’ve spent half of our holiday constantly chasing up requests and wasted so much time doing this, it was appalling. We finally got the room we paid for 2 days later but this was because of the constant chasing we had to do, because I feel if we hadn’t of done, we would’ve never got what we paid for. Nothing was offered to us as a gesture of good will for the inconvenience until we pushed for it, and then the best thing they could do was pay for an excursion but when we came back to them with the excursion, they said they could only pay for one buggy for the sand dunes which was 150 euros. This in our opinion did not match the inconvenience we had endured and false promises we had been made for a 2,030 euro premier emblem balcony suite we had paid, and it wasn’t even 10% they was willing to offer! We were then told to speak to the Sub Director Alberto who would deal with it much better and we would definitely get more from him. Again, lies. We went out of our way on our last morning to wake up early and to see him and speak to him on and off all day to be told he would do his best to get us what we deserved and he would get back to us in a few hours. Guess what, a few hours passed and we heard nothing. So yet again we had to go to reception and chase it up! He then told us there’s nothing he could do as booking.com were still holding the money and hadn’t released it to them yet. It was clearly all lies. We then made a complaint and got them to stamp the form to say they had acknowledged it so we could take it further once we got home. We were there for a week and we spent half our time complaining for an error they had made with not having a room available that we had booked and paid for. It was very very poor and the lack of compassion from any of them wasn’t professional at all. We met many families who also shared their complaints with us and said they had endured poor customer service from them too.
Besides that, the staff on the ground floor, cleaning and in hospitality worked their backsides off and were lovely. The food was fine until the evening. The evening food was poor, we have done all inclusive before and this is the worst we’ve been to. The breakfast was the best by far.
All in all the hotel is lovely but very disorganised, we were told by Laura at the beginning that she had booked us into the emblem restaurant for the following day and was then told by the restaurant on arrival that our names weren’t down. It was one thing after another and to be honest it all stemmed from the reception staff. There was a lady on reception who we’d asked for a late check out for our last day who clearly had an issue with us because her face said it all. She messed up and made it so that day when we’d put the request in that we couldn’t get back into our rooms! So yet again we had to come back to reception and say she had done it for the wrong day but surely she should’ve known that by seeing how long our stay was by the room number! Nothing ran smoothly whilst staying here, we’d paid a lot of money to go emblem and we left feeling like we’d not been treated like VIPs at all. My advice is don’t bother go Emblem, I read a review that said ‘if you can, go emblem’ there’s not much difference at all apart from the price.
Since getting home we have been told by booking.com that the hotel and them cant reach an agreement with our complaint even though Alberto said he would assist with them when they make contact with the hotel, again ALL LIES."
