Meliá Dunas Beach Resort & Spa All Inclusive — Attraction in Sal

I feel bad for only giving 3 stars because on the whole, this is a lovely hotel and the staff are amazing. However, I didn’t get what I was expecting….||||I’ve waited such a long time to treat myself to a 5 star holiday in the sun and can’t help feeling disappointed that I made the wrong choice, which is sickening because I’ll probably never get the opportunity to do something like this again.||||I searched endlessly for the right location. All I wanted was to relax in the sun, have a dip in the pool and read on my balcony/terrace. Nothing exciting I know, but to me it was long awaited.||||Initially I’d settled on Mexico but June is a rainy month there, so I decided on the Melia Dunas in Cape Verde, as after extensive research it seemed to offer everything I wanted… ||Good weather||5 stars||Shorter flight time than Mexico ||Option to upgrade to The Level, guaranteeing the quiet relaxing holiday I dreamed of.||||I researched countless travel websites and the hotel’s own page, to read up on the Melia Dunas and see what was on offer. I upgraded to a Single Deluxe Level room, as from the description they appeared more luxurious and even came with the use of a turndown service (which I’d never use, but it’s nice to have the option), along with a bathrobe and slippers, which meant I could leave mine at home. It was also described as having a shower and bathtub, along with direct access to the pool, which I visualised as meaning my room would be very near to the tranquil, adults only, The Level pool. ||||On arrival I was checked in and dragged my own cases to my room, which isn’t a major issue, but the hotel website clearly states that Level guests have their cases delivered to their room. Anyway… I arrived at my room to find the card they had given me didn’t work, so I had to traipse all the way back to reception with my cases to have them work their magic on the card, before traipsing back up. However, they must have felt sorry for me because this time a member of staff pulled my cases.||||This is when I found that my room, although lovely, did not have a bathtub, robe or slippers… and it overlooked the main pool and Piano Bar, which was in full swing and very loud. Too tired to care right then I didn’t enquire with reception until the next day.||||I explained that I thought they’d given me the wrong room… which they denied. I then (embarrassingly, because there was a queue) mentioned that there wasn’t a bathtub, robe or slippers in my room, thinking it would prove I had the wrong room because they were clearly described on the various websites I’d visited. I received a confused expression from the receptionist and a snigger from someone behind, who obviously thought I was being a diva. I skulked away vowing never to attend reception again. ||||When I’d checked in I was told I could book into the restaurants on site and was told to scan the Q code on the desk to do so. I didn’t think to book anything until the 3rd day, which is when I took a good look at the welcome letter in my room to see if it had the Q code on it, saving me from having to show my face at reception again. It didn’t, but it did have a handful of tickets attached. I’d already seen them and assumed it was so I knew how many times I could book, ie. 1 ticket per restaurant. But no, on closer inspection I found that the hotel had already made the reservations for me, prior to my arrival, and the tickets had on the dates and times of each booking! I missed my first reservation because of it.||||I’m now on day 8 as I write this and I still haven’t had the benefits of being a Level guest explained to me by anyone at the hotel. What I know is what I’ve found out from other guests. I actually lost interest when I found out that most of the benefits I thought came with being a Level guest were inaccurate (having the use of restaurants in nearby hotels, access to the Bikini Beach Bar, etc), because these are reserved for guests who pay to upgrade even further, to become a VIP guest. Omg, the upgrades are never ending and at €50 a day, are not something I’m prepared to pay.||||I should add that I booked my holiday via sunshine.co.uk which I now regret. Both EasyJet and Tui have reps stationed in the hotel, which would have come in handy and been someone I could consult with. Note to self that in future I’ll book through one of them.||||Drinks - If you like a coffee, it would be a good idea to bring some sachets from home. The hotel provide tea and coffee etc in your room, but only powdered milk, which I personally find rank. I bit the bullet and asked at reception if some fresh milk could be sent to my room… I definitely detected annoyance as the receptionist loudly pronounced fresh down the phone to whoever she relayed my request to… and returned later on to find a boat load of powdered milk had been left for me. I’ve been having to buy my own fresh milk from a shop on site, which for a 5 star hotel is poor service in my opinion. ||||Oh and strangely there’s only hot drinks in the buffet restaurant in a morning. The machines are covered over for lunch and dinner times, which is a shame and plain weird.||||I’ve remained in the room overlooking the main pool and Piano Bar, which means that relaxing and reading on my balcony are out of the question. The pool area is very loud, all day long, and the bar has music blasting out until late. I have a good long walk every morning to the far side of the resort, where the Level pool is situated. It’s right beside the beach which is good, and staff from the bar there regularly take drink orders from your lounger.||||I’d like to stress that the hotel is lovely and the staff amazing, but if you’re thinking of upgrading to become a Level guest, then you could be disappointed and end up feeling that you’ve wasted your money, like I do.||||Obviously, this is only my opinion and someone else might love the Single Deluxe Level room I have, which overlooks the main pool. Just be mindful that it’s not in a quiet, relaxing location.||||Oh yeah, I never did get offered the turndown...

We went during the second week in February. Most of this review was written on day four. I was quite happy then and would have given 3 or 4 out of five. However something went badly wrong in the last two days, so read all of the review to find out why it actually gets one out of five!|ISLAND|Barren, sunny, warm and windy.|SANTA MARIA|Beach area ok. Town not worth bothering about.|HOTEL|It is the first drop off from the airport; under 20 minutes drive. For the first half of our week there were very few guests; really quiet. We were the only couple at the welcome meeting. |Everyone is very friendly. We enjoyed doing Pilates every morning (although it wasn't always in the same place!)|The whole place is clean, but is in need of proper maintenance and refurbishment. On our last day, however, they started renovating the Sal pool.|On day 5, day 6 and on our departure day, the water distribution system failed from 10am to 5pm which meant no tap water, no flushing of toilets and no tea/coffee at the bars. Apparently this has become a problem more recently. The serious issue was that no hand sanitiser was provided when hand washing was not available. Tui kept saying that they were talking to the hotel management, but nothing happened. Reception immediately saw the issue, but nothing changed.|On our last full day the restaurant had all 3 coffee and all 3 drinks machines out of action. The staff blamed the water but they broke before the water failed and stayed off when it was restored. More likely an electrical issue? But no-one really cared enough to sort it out straightaway. Tui certainly did nothing about it.|ROOM|Spacious and clean. A missing air con control was provided in minutes, but a bath plug replacement took 24 hours and four reminders to reception. The broken phone wasn't replaced, but that wasn't a real issue. (We didn't need to use the air con as the temperature was 19 to 24 throughout our week.) The bed was comfortable. The cleaner came on days 1, 3 and 5.|SERVICE|Generally all the catering and cleaning staff are keen to please, even if there are problems with language!|FOOD|There is a snack bar (Fogo) and the buffet cafeteria (the "restaurant"). Fogo is the same limited food every day, had limited seating and closed at 5pm. The restaurant opens at 6pm with a wide range of rather unimaginative food. There is no dress code. The choice at dinner changes a little each day so if you choose differently every day it is fine. We particularly liked the roast duck. The fish was rather disappointing as it tended to be overcooked and a bit dry. That's the only food item they produce on the island so it was particularly disappointing that it wasn't more appetising! They also have difficulty keeping food hot as they seem to cook so much in advance. Lunch is similar to dinner but with a bit less of a range. By asking specifically for it, my wife managed to get an ice cream at lunchtime! But there is no ice cream available at any bars during the day or evening, even during kids shows. Breakfast was almost the same every day; my favourite freshly cooked soft omelettes made an appearance on day 5 of our week. When they work, the coffee machines dispense ground coffee from beans for espresso and "Galao" (macchiato), but otherwise use instant coffee for Americano and white coffee. The fruit juices are sweet and reconstituted, although the iced hibiscus tea at breakfast was good. The ubiquitous Strela beer is refreshing. The wines are drinkable if you are not too fussy! The sparkling wine is surprisingly good!|BARS|Most cocktails are very sweet. We asked for mojitos without the sugar syrup. There is the Sol bar (shared with the Melia Dunas) for drinks till late.|POOLS|There is generally loud music at the Fogo and Lookea pools. The Sal pool is quieter unless there is a rehearsal in the amphitheatre - why do they have to practise at full volume? Even the Tui rep asked them to turn down the volume during their welcome meeting! On our last day they closed and drained this pool.|BEACH|The sandy beach is a 15 min walk away. It is great, plenty of sunbeds and a bar (part of the inclusive package) but no snacks. I enjoyed snorkelling by Bikini Beach where there are lifeguards on duty. Ignore the signposts to the beach by the tennis court; go through the Melia Dunas reception and save a detour! The ladies' toilet at the beach bar has 3 cubicles; one flooded; one with no lock. One soap dispenser empty. Like this all week.|BUGS|We had a room on the second floor of block 10 (1060). If you don't mind the walk and stairs, it seems that you get fewer mosquitos on this level so it might be worth asking not to have a ground floor room. Rooms 1095 or 1096 would be my preference. We used a plug-in mossie repellant in the room overnight and DEET cream when we went outside in the evening and my wife had only a couple of bites all week while I had none|BRING|Mossie repellant; sun cream; whatever kit you need for your favourite water sport (water shoes, Snorkel etc.)|ENTERTAINMENT|Pretty poor overall. |Magic show was good sleight of hand act.|Capo Verde show impressive for its energy|"Decades" was terrible because the volume was ridiculously high; I could hear perfectly well once I plugged my ears with my fingers - and I'm probably about to be eligible for hearing aids!|OVERALL|We had a good relaxing break UNTIL the water and coffee machine issues.|I don't think we'd visit Sal again, but if we do, we'll pay more and go to a different hotel. Very disappointed by Tui's lack of effectiveness in rectifying issues. I know that they kept telling us that the water cuts were an island wide issue, but none of the others we talked to on the journey home had experienced...

Worst resort I’ve ever stayed at. Having paid for the presidential suite and their upgrade to “the level” I expected to receive a good standard of service but what I actually received was below the standard of some of the worst hotels I’ve ever stayed in.

Check in We were told there would be a priority line for The level guests to use but this was not the case. We stood in line for almost half an hour before being told to leave our luggage outside with the attendant. There was no attendant there and we felt uneasy leaving our luggage with our valuables in, outside of the hotel. When we asked again about this we were told rudely to leave them once again. Upon receiving our room key they said someone would help with our luggage and show us to our room. After half an hour of waiting and rude retorts from the staff we decided to find the room ourself.

The room It was spacious but not cleaned fully. The phone did not work which led to a myriad of problems because every time we tried to complain/ask for something the hotels response was “please dial 0 from your phone to speak to reception”. They were informed the phone did not work and not once did they send someone to fix it. The room we had was on the left hand side of the hotel about 200 meters away from the beach. If you want the “sea view” this room promises be prepared to bring binoculars and hang out of the balcony. The room also receives no direct sunlight. This particular room is located directly above Spices Buffet so it constantly stinks of food all day long. It’s also in very close proximity to the bars and communal pools so good luck trying to relax or sleep with music playing until extremely late. We asked to be moved but were told we couldn’t, we said we would accept a different room or pay the difference to change to a villa as we were there to try and relax but the manager we spoke to rather rudely explained if we had wanted a different room, we should have booked one. If the website wasn’t so misleading with photos and descriptions we wouldn’t have booked this room in the first place.

Service Having received an email the day before check in letting us know that Melia was looking forward to welcoming us and they would do everything to ensure we had a great stay I was surprisingly optimistic. There was one staff member during our stay who provided great service and she was working at Atlantis for the breakfast. Everyone else we dealt with from check in, to housekeeping, reception and guest relations just didn’t seem to care. Even with the do not disturb sign on our room door, we had housekeeping barge into our room several times during our stay without knocking or apologizing. We were constantly told to dial 0 from our room phone which didn’t work so every time a problem arose we had to walk to reception and wait anywhere from 5-20 mins in a line to ask for something. Not once during our stay did anyone come to fix the phone. Staffs usual response was “we’d look into it” and never got back to us or did anything occur. I informed the hotel of my severe allergy to nuts before arriving, I’m not sure why as staff couldn’t confirm at the restaurants whether items were nut free or not. They do have a good allergies and intolerances fact sheet however it’s inconsistent between restaurants and poorly printed making it difficult to see. Asking staff to confirm was pointless as they didn’t seem to understand why I needed to know if a dish was nut free or not. The two food items placed in the mini bar were a snickers and Kit Kat peanut butter. Why ask me if I have allergies if you’re just going to ignore it?

After complaining to a manager I was given a refund for my stay and then 3 weeks later they’ve taken the money once again from my account. Call them and the first person hung up on me, the second told me it’s not their problem and to speak with the bank. I will most definitely be raising a dispute and never staying at a Meliá...