Bahia Principe Fantasia Tenerife — Attraction in San Miguel de Abona

We have stayed at Bahia hotels for years. Mexico, Dominican Republic, 2 others in Tenerife.We will never return to this hotel! Extremely disappointed and traumatised. Two days they missed our mini bar, told reception and the maid was rude and made out we had it already. Phone in our room didn’t work, had to get fixed. Our room keys didn’t work, so had to go back to reception to sort this. Eggy smell in all the corridors. Air con was rubbish throughout. Heard many guests complaining about lifts, had to wait 10 mins. On check out day, came back to the room and door was wide open from maids, before check out time. Couldn’t get into all 3 à la carts as they closed 1 per night. We checked the app every day. We managed to get a booking for 8pm at the steak one. Way too late for a 1year old baby and diabetic mother. We sat for 40 minutes before our food order was taken. Had to leave early with no desert, to be able to see the show. Very disappointed with the entertainment. We arrived late Friday, there were no shows until the Tuesday. 2 shows we had to book. From the advertisements in the hotel, I take it if you want extra shows you pay 20 euro for adult & 10 for child. There were no extra shows available for our duration anyway. So for a weeks stay we saw 3 shows! You are paying for a5 star all inclusive, shouldn’t be paying extra for shows. Greedy! none of the other Bahias do this. All the others put on the disco 8pm, so you can leave the pool at a nice time, get ready and fed, then disco at 8 followed by a show every night at 9pm. This hotel runs a mini disco at 7pm, it’s a rush to get there, with 5 of us getting ready. Then there’s nothing on until 9.30pm show? Some evenings there was no entertainment. So you get dressed up for the buffet, a drink then bed. Rubbish mini disco, too much talking. Location terrible, being at the castle right next to the big pools with loads of toddlers/children running around. Accident waiting to happen. Along with no seating 50min disco you sit on sun loungers. One of the shows was here too with sun lounger for seating. For a 5 star you’d think there would be bars around the pools where you can order all kinds of drinks, not just help yourself to beer & soft drinks. In other Bahias they have staff that come take your drink orders by the pool. The traumatic thing was seeing the 4 year old die poolside. Lifeguards weren’t even doing the CPR, the guests were. Staff not in much of a rush, a little gentle jog. First medical responders on scene took 20mins.This resort has a doctor, but they are only on site for an hour a day! You could have got all staff to tell all guests to leave the scene out of respect. Could have put up something or cornered it off. The amount of guests that saw it all and children too. Myself and daughter are haunted by it all. Hearing the parent’s screams will stay with us for life. The hotel didn’t support guests, tried to sweep it all away and pretend nothing happened. Within the hour the mini disco was on at the castle. Sickening and so disrespectful. No mention of anything to guests. All media reports of the incident didn’t name the hotel either. So guessing you asked to remain anonymous. Along with tributes starting to gather at the fountain for this boy & family and your Director made you remove it all. The next day all sun loungers were put back in place & families sat where it happened. Everything back to normal straight away. No condolences. I took videos of the lifeguard the next day, barely glancing at the pool, 1 lifeguard manning 3 large pools on his own and at times wouldn’t have view of all areas. Laughing with the towel man. This particular lifeguard was at the scene the day before, so even more shocked with his conduct. You would think you would have extra staff manning the pools in light of this tragic incident! If you advertise 7 pools, then you should have a lifeguard on all 7. Not 1 staff for 3 pools! Decor, room size, pools & food are the luxury part. The way it’s run needs improvement. Back home & haven’t slept properly since...

I’ll give a quick summary first and then there’s more detail if anyone is interested.

Summary: This place comes across a lot better on social media and on their website than what you get in reality. It’s a very large complex with so many people that care to individual guests is overlooked. They make it very difficult to contact them ahead of your holiday, there’s no direct number, emails go unanswered etc. I’d compare it to trying together through to Sky or an electricity company. Amenities are good for young kids but not toddlers. No playground. Food is decent for what you’re paying. Absolutely not 5 star. Avoid booking their transport which is extortionate and unreliable. Location not wonderful. I don’t regret going but would definitely not go back.

Communication: It is extremely difficult to contact the hotel ahead of the trip. There is no direct phone number, you get redirected to a call centre which is a robot asking you to press 1,2 etc etc. You frequently press a number and get cut off. It's very inefficient and frustrating. I sent a few emails with enquires ahead of the trip and they went unanswered also.

Transport and distance to airport: I booked and paid for transport to and from the airport with a car seat. The taxi arrived with no car seat however the taxi driver managed to borrow one, although they had no idea how to fit it. I spoke to the hotel and to the Coming2 rep (who organised the transport) when I got there as I wanted to ensure there’d be no mix up on the return trip to the airport. They took a photo of the booking on my phone, confirmed they’d organised a car seat, but guess what happened on the day of leaving…. transport arrived with no car seat. The driver spoke no English, the reps at the hotel were useless and said I hadn’t booked one. I was advised to email for a refund. I had to hold my baby on my lap for the journey which is completely unsafe. When I emailed when home to complain and ask for a refund, they were very dismissive and just said I hadn’t ordered a car seat. I asked them to check my recorded call when I booked it, I asked them to check the email that’d been sent when I’d arrived there. Those requests were ignored. It was €105 for the transport, and I was told it was a 30 min trip each way. It was 10 mins and this can be confirmed on google maps. Complete rip off.

Rooms: When we arrived the room was 27 degrees C. It was 10pm, we were tired with a baby who needed to sleep. There were no instructions on how to change the thermostat. I phoned reception and they said they’d send maintenance. One hour passes and still no one, I phoned again, waited another 30 mins and still no one came. I had to go down to reception and stand there until someone came up. It was dealt with then however the rooms should be set to an acceptable temperature for new guests! At night, up until 10pm there is really loud repetitive theme music blaring. Definitely takes away from enjoyment of sitting on the balcony at that time.

Location: Not the best, beach not accessible, very small, and has no sand. Few local small shops but nothing else.

Cleanliness: not perfect but not enough to complain about. Few hairs were found in the room, shower mat wasn’t left one day, soap wasn’t left another day. But okay in general.

Food: I’ll give credit where it’s due. For an all inclusive the food was better than I expected. A lot was cooked fresh. There was good variety for all ages. Each day had some reliables but also had different dishes also.

Quality: This hotel rates itself 5 star. It is 100% not what most people would regard as 5 star. I would compare it to a 3 star in Ireland/UK. There are so many rooms on long corridors, very impersonal. Design of where the lifts are is very poor and you’ve to do long looped walks up and down different floors if you’ve got a pram.

Staff: 90% of the staff were nice & helpful.

I still enjoyed my holiday, but the lack of acknowledgement regarding the car seat and refusing to accept blame or give me even a partial refund, left...

Looking for service? Stay away

If you have some expectations on how a five star hotel should be, I am afraid you’ll be greatly disappointed by the Bahia Principe Fantasia on Tenerife.

The service staff working in the main restaurant (buffet) seems tired even before the evening has started, without any form of training and too busy pulling away unfinished plates of food to even stop and ask you for a drink, after sitting down in 20 minutes and asking twice to get some refreshments for our kids and ourselves we finally (almost) get there. Every day.

The food hall it enormous and with lack of noise damping and several hundred people sitting and dining you get a headache after sitting there for 30 minutes. Seems like an easy fix and when we ask the butler how come they don’t fix this issue, he pushes the issue further up the line in hotel management/economy and blames Covid for not getting there yet.

With an all inclusive they offer free snacks and drinks throughout the day. Even being here with my family I can usually indulge myself in a Gin tonic or a Negroni in the sun. The nice (but also really stressful) bartender a the lower part of the resort was happy to serve, as she had all the ingredients (though neither of the drinks we listed on her menu on the counter). She probably figured it would be sensible to offer the client something that they actually preferred rather than serving up a sweet daiquiri of some sort. Well done miss bartender, my favorite person on the hotel so far.

Asking for the exact same drink on the identical bar further up gave a completely different result. “Hotel policy” only drink on this paper (around 10 drinks with a lot more hassle than an easy GT or a Negroni). I explained that I had gotten these served for the last 2 days and she unwillingly poured one for me, making me feel really special.

The perhaps most annoying thing happened today. I love taking a swim in the morning and have been taking my usual 1000m between 7-8AM, being respectful of my surroundings and saying my good mornings to the cleaning staff and early birds (who are perhaps the most genunie and welcoming of all the people running this hotel).

This morning suddenly a pool guy is standing wanting my attention. I stop and he tells me the pool doesn’t open until 9AM, and I ask “why?”. I get no real answers other than “hotel policy” and the lack of having a life guard on duty (which is never located at this pool anyway), some chemicals in the water from the night before and not giving into the fact that I’m a grown man that can actually take responsibility for my own actions in life.

So, instead of thinking about his guest the “pool guy” sits around and looks at me while I continue my swim. Not to look out for me, but because he’s called for a manager currently in charge. I’ve now managed to get 800m into the morning ritual and the manager asks for my attention and I comply. Him giving me the same “hotel policy” lecture where I naturally get out of the pool with an unfinished swim session. Be advised there are 7 or so pools on this resort and this one is closest to the sea. No one is bothered with noise during my swim and I have full understanding that the hotel doesn’t want to have kids jumping in pools too early in the morning and without supervision. This is about taking a more holistic approach and making good judgment calls. Not the case.

This hotel fails in all aspects of delivering anything that can resemble a five star hotel. I would place my money somewhere else and hopefully someone that cares about this place in terms of it’s business reads this and decides to take their customers seriously and for starters orders everyone with customer facing tasks on a “hospitality”-camp if that’s even possible. Seems like this issue is rooted further up into the system. Maybe there is a fear based culture here, but that would only be...