Royal Hideaway Sancti Petri — Attraction in Chiclana de la Frontera

We stayed here for 11 nights 8-19 September, in a standard room. We chose this hotel having popped in for lunch on a previous visit to the area one year prior. We had high hopes for our stay and whilst some were met, others were dashed.||Firstly, the room was lovely, Room 430 overlooking the garden area. These rooms are much larger than many other rooms we have stayed in and the bathrooms are huge ! However, there was quite a bit of mould in the shower cubicle, which is a no-no for me. We very much appreciated the evening turn-down/room facility service whereby you could ask for clean towels, water, toiletries etc. and your curtains were drawn, bed prepared and a general tidy up was undertaken. A nice touch. We were also given cakes on arrival, a gift of a pillow mist spray & car air freshener and one day when we returned to our room from our day out, we were surprised by a knock at the door with 2 freshly prepared smoothies :)||The food selection was where the hotel fell short of its' 5-star rating for us. Breakfast was chaotic, we often waited ages for coffee to be bought to the table and the queues for the toaster and freshly cooked eggs were sometimes very long. On a couple of occasions I asked for a banana but was told that they were for the smoothies only, even though I saw some young children with them. ||The evening food service was themed each night. We didn't eat in the buffet every day, we tried both of the other restaurants - Lumiere and Atunante, both were excellent. However, we were told when we checked-in that if we made our reservations at the Reception Desk for these restaurants then a 20 euro deduction per person would be applied to our bill but this didn't happen. We questioned this both times but conveniently the waiter/waitresses couldn't understand us ! English is not widely spoken in this area of Spain, something to bear in mind if your Spanish is isn't great. The dinner service was initially 8-11pm but changed in our second week to 7.30-10.30pm.||The beach is beautiful but it is a mission to get down there and back up again. You either have 100 steps to negotiate or a steep slope, there is no other way to access the beach from this hotel. ||We were very disappointed at the lack of bars that were open. The piano bar next to the buffet restaurant was closed, as was the bar on the Reception level. Your only option for a pre/post dinner drink was the Sunset bar in the far corner of the hotel grounds. From speaking to some other guests it would seem that these bars closed at the end of August when occupancy declined due to kids going back to school. With the exception of a singer in the Sunset bar on our last evening we had not seen any entertainment in the hotel. There is an Irish bar 'Dublin Bay' which has a small bowling alley, televisions showing football and snooker tables but this doesn't open until 8pm. We went in there a few times and each time there was only a handful of people in there so literally no atmosphere.||The grounds are beautiful and so well kept. There are lots of pools, one is adults only and there is also a children's pool with a slide. It seems as though the Kids' club only operates during high season as we didn't see any activity in or around the Barcy Club area, albeit there were very few children in the hotel anyway. One thing that surprised us was that the pools didn't open until 11am. Each pool was closed off by glass balustrades and the gates remained locked until 11am. You could collect towels free of charge and change them at Reception or the Children's pool as many times as you like, which was a nice touch.||In summary, this is a lovely hotel but probably not 5 star as the mainstream food...

What a 5 star disappointment!

Upon arrival, you're greeting by a woefully small and understaffed reception desk. The check in receptionist, Fran, was awful. There was no engagement whatsoever. He simply went through the motions, uninterested. Perhaps a language barrier (unacceptable in an international resort), perhaps homophobia towards myself and my husband, most likely both. When we asked if we could upgrade, we were told we could... but later found he'd charged upwards of almost €100 more than had we simply booked it online!

The hotel is huge but, instead of asking one of the bellboys around (who were all lovely) to help us, we were passed a map and left to find the room ourselves.

When we got there, after a 15 minute wait while it was prepared, we discovered (despite him knowing we were a couple) that the beds had been arranged as two singles. We called down, and within minutes a housekeeper (who was lovely) was there to change it.

Meanwhile my husband went downstairs to query the upgrade rate. Unfortunately, he was dealt with by Fran. He was told that we could book it at the lower rate, but first would have to cancel our existing booking with no refund as a penalty. As If!

The resort advertises many bars and restaurants (the reason we booked) but these open sporadically on various days of the week. Despite the fact we stayed on a Saturday, most were closed.

The restaurant we did find had excellent food and very pleasant service. Over lunch we spoke to a pleasant young man and he said he would pass our disappointments to a manager.

After lunch we retired to some sun loungers (undressed and to be made up yourself, not 5 star) and used their app to order our drinks. After 45 minutes my husband called the front desk to advise we were still waiting, they advised they would call the bar. After 1hr 30m we left, gave up, and used the mini bar in our room.

During this time, the on duty "manager" called. They agreed that the upgrade fiasco (and Fran's attitude) were not acceptable, and offered to book us a table with complimentary bottle of wine in the restaurant that evening by means of an apology.

Later that evening, we get to the restaurant, which is a buffet costing €80 for two. While the choice was varied, the space was crammed with screaming children, and people on half board holidays eating everything, including the tables. We had no reservation made, and no wine.

Our lovely waitress informed us there was an a la carte restaurant (one) open across from the buffet. We opted to dine here instead.

Service was good but one waiter couldn't speak English, and this was causing a problem not just to ourselves but to multiple tables. Again, this is an international 5 star resort.

After dinner, we wandered back inside to their piano bar. The one staff member they had behind the bar was charming, but impossibly overworked and service was slow. The area was filled with rowdy families and their feral children climbing, crawling, and running everywhere. It was awful.

Added to this, the pianist was either tone deaf or drunk. He played all the right notes, but in all the wrong order. He was so bad, in fact, he made the piano sound like it needed tuning.

We fled down to the "Sunset Bar," hidden from the main hotel, but this closed at 11.

Defeated, we went to bed.

A sheet awaited me. A sheet.

Breakfast was awful, manic, and like a 2 star hotel.

At check out we were not asked how our stay was, how we slept, nothing.

The bill was thrown at my husband.

We emailed Barcello, they never responded.

Management is needed on the floor, and staff training/replacement on reception is a...

The property is beautiful and very well maintained. Very pretty garden. The pools which are open are clean. The cleaning ladies of the hotel are amazing and super helpful!!!

I won’t ever understand the good reviews here: I really feel that we stayed in a parallel dimension for 7 days because we’ve had: sewer smell from the pipes (I had to buy a cleaner in the supermarket as nobody reacted) and car smoke smell from the hallway!!!!! (Unbearable) as we are by a door which I guess leads to a parking space or a machinery room, loud noise at midnight from water running until 2 AM. We called prior to our booking to ask if they had a business center or a place to work and they said yes, upon arrival they said there was something and when we needed it suddenly there was none. After we wrote a review mentioning this and canceled the meetings we had, they offered one… (give me a break!) At the pool lots of very kind guests but many of them unfortunately smoking. The tables had one time rests of coffee, another time milk or something. We were 4 times in that big pool.

We had the worst luck with the room and the non-existent customer service (one receptionist came to us after reading a bad review we wrote but nothing improved). Customer service is not to talk to the guest when something is not working and ignore it; it means to fix it. The “customer help-line” (dialing number 7) brings nothing, and at the reception they picked up twice and solved nothing. I think the extension 7 might not even exist. I can supposedly send an Email to sanctipetri at hideaway… I was told after asking for a customer service Email.

We even had bad luck with the drinks at the pool (they did not manage to make a milk shake and a cappuccino and I wonder how that is even possible). Two bed bugs in the crib (the crib was broken when we arrived and it was a mess to get it changed: it took 3 days!!). Slipped in the terrace as it was soaking wet upon arrival and it’s not fully anti-slipping. The balcony had bird/cat poop (in the exact same spots, the exact same dirt, never removed) from day 1 to day 7. Food was a matter of luck and in general not good in the buffet. Service in the restaurant is like playing roulette: you can have luck, but most likely you won’t. A male manager there is very kind. Try to skip the fresh cheese as birds eat it and stand on it all the time and after covid you might not want to risk a zoonosis. I would never ever give this hotel more than 3 stars: the details of a 4 or 5 star hotels are all missing. We were expecting 4 or 4 plus but it is really not there. A pretty building is by far not enough.

I can write a book here with all issues we had in 7 days but it’s not worth it. If you are an older couple with low expectations about food and low standards in the room, you might enjoy it. I wish you luck. We have stayed in two other hotels at the same beach and it was always a perfect experience with spotless rooms and great food and service. A total mismatch to what we had to deal with here. I would never recommend this place, unfortunately… we love this beach and will keep coming but it won’t be this hotel. It’s a shame. Macarena, at the restaurant, in suuuuper kind...