Meliá Llana Beach Resort & Spa - All Inclusive - Adults only — Hotel in Sal

We have literally just returned from the Melia Llana and wanted to leave an open and honest review about our stay…. NB TO THE HOTEL OWNER, PLEASE PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE LEVEL CONCIERGE.||My partner and I desperately needed a break so this hotel was booked pretty last minute. We were not sure whether to pay the extra for the level and felt even more confused after reading the reviews here so we vowed to write our own in a bid to hopefully help some future travellers.||The Hotel - On pulling up the hotel definitely looked like the best one we saw on the island. We arrived at just gone 7pm Cabo time and unfortunately could not be greeted by the level reception. However we were checked in with no problems at the standard reception and were still brought a couple of glasses of Prosecco. |At first glance the hotel is beautiful, with a top level bar (look out for the wonderful JEMELINA), a few nice tourist shops, a sort of nightclub on the ground level and at least 2 pools one of which had an actual swim up bar. This was not obvious from the pictures we saw prior to arrival and was a pleasant surprise.||A pretty cool buggy then took us and our luggage to our swim up ‘Level’ room. ||THE ROOMS: The room was lovely and featured the biggest bed I think we had ever seen! The mattress felt very hard and so we immediately requested a mattress topper which was brought and fitted straight away, making the bed extremely comfortable (and roomy). The bathroom was lush with a beautiful shower, his and hers sinks and a whirlpool jet bath. There was a nice seating area just before the terrace and the terrace featured two shaded chairs and a table as well as a lovely round cabana style bed just before our ‘swim up’ pool. Internet within the room was pretty good. Being in the Level, you are also super close to the beach which is gorgeous with crystal clear waters and white sand. |Quick side note, if you have a problem with the safe in the room, enter the code TWICE to initially lock. The instructions are not correct for every room. ||THE MOSQUITOS: We could literally spot the Brit by how many mosquito bites they had! For some reason the Spanish/ Portuguese really weren’t getting bit as badly but us brits are basically a ‘bleeding’ ground for the mozzies out there. If you think you have enough jungle formula, you don’t! Bring multiple tins, plug ins, antihistamines and even a net if you can! |Part of the incredible Level service does offer daily fumigation sprays if requested. REQUEST IT! ||THE WATER: This is not the hotels fault but last week there was a hurricane close by and this affected the water. When you run the water it looks clear but when you fill up the bath tub, you may notice it is almost yellow/ brown in colour. This water infrastructure is what is used for cooking, your drinks and ice etc and so you may experience pretty bad tummies during you stay. Please bring water purification tabs or something of the like with you just in case. ||THE FOOD: In a word DELICIOUS! We hardly ate in the general buffet as with the Level you have access to multiple lovely restaurants and the level lounge which has its own menu and is open most of the day. I highly recommend Casa Nostra, Pura Vida and Culanarium.||THE LEVEL LOUNGE & POOL: We spent quite a bit of time here because due to its exclusivity, it’s quieter, the pool is almost always virtually empty and there are always available sun loungers and quirky Bali beds (that swivel to shade). |KEVIN is incredible on the cocktails here and a lovely food menu is served all day. I recommend regularly checking out the spread that’s put on in the VIP Level lounge with homemade cakes, sandwiches, fresh fish ceviche and so much more. Would also like to shout out to YURAN and ALEX, who all work tirelessly to ensure you have everything you could possible want. ||ENTERTAINMENT: We were looking for a quieter break away but the water aerobics at 12pm daily was a complete hoot and the regular dancing, drums and evening entertainment appeared to be buzzing. REUBEN of the entertainment team is awesome and works tirelessly to keep the fun going throughout your stay.||ROMANTIC PACKAGE - On one evening, I arranged a romantic package for the room to surprise my partner. We returned from dinner to find; the room and bed covered in petals, red and white balloons all over the bed, a bottle of Prosecco chilled in an ice bucket, a huge delicious heart shaped home made chocolate cake, a wrapped gift and my personalised message on a card. There are many options all of which are pretty inexpensive and if you want to do this, find LEONARDO! He is fantastic at organising the most incredible surprises.||MASSAGE - If you want the best massage on the island, hit up MARIA in the beauty salon. She’s fantastic!||THE LEVEL CONCIERGE: I’ve left the best till last…. Words cannot describe how insanely efficient, professional and compassionate VIVIENNE, SIDNEY and ELESETE truly are. This team in my opinion (and I’m extremely well travelled), make this hotel and our experience 5 stars hands down! Their manager Ms ELISA is also fabulous.|Things sometimes go wrong and we weren’t without our issues at the hotel but nothing was too much trouble for this absolutely incredible team. Honestly, without the service of the first 3 people mentioned above, I’d be leaving this hotel 3 stars at best due to some of the issues we encountered. They (VIVIENNE, SIDNEY & ELESETE) only come with the LEVEL, which is why I would not book this hotel again without this upgrade.|I have however dropped 1 star due to a particular event that I really hope the hotel owner reads and takes on board. |Based on where our room was located and how safe we felt at the hotel, we would frequently leave through the back door and therefore often did not carry our room key. |On one day, we went to the level pool/ lounge through our back door and terrace. Due to having the romantic room package the night before, we did not want the room cleaned and so left the do not disturb sign on the door. |On returning to our room, we found the terrace door to be locked. We walked around to the front door where cleaners were sorting other rooms. They all swore that nobody had been in our room but this was impossible as somebody had to lock the terrace door from the inside. The cleaners do not speak English and we do not speak Portuguese but I tried to ask them to open our door. Getting no luck we had to work out how to get internet so that we could what’s app call the Level concierge. ELESETE bless her tried very hard to convince them over the phone to open our door but they refused until their own manager contacted them. By now we were burning in our bikinis. We had no appropriate clothes on to walk through the hotel. It is ridiculous that the VIP Level concierge did not have the authority to overrule the cleaning team. This MUST be addressed. |Nobody knows your VIP guests better than the level concierge and they are being undermined by a cleaning team which feels ridiculous They 100% should be at the top level of authority for staff in your hotel, particularly with your Level guests. In the end, ELESETE had to leave her post and come and open our door herself because the cleaning management were not answering the phone. On checking, it was found that somebody had entered our room mistakingly and locked us out. We were burnt and badly bitten in the time we were outside.|Ensure the level VIP team has the authority they so rightly deserve.||We will definitely be back because of the Level staff!...

I will try to sum up my experience with Melia Llana as best I can but there’s a lot to say. I’d first like to say that we read a lot of reviews first and due to those reviews upgraded to “The Level”. We thought that would get us the best experience possible from the hotel. However, due to some pre-visit email correspondence it was confirmed to us that we had not in fact upgraded to what we had expected. To be very clear “The Level” is basically a room & concierge upgrade with an exclusive pool & snack bar and exclusive breakfast area - this is still a worthwhile upgrade (more on the details later). However, there is also a bolt-on option for non-level AND level guest’s called VIP. The VIP gives you the access to the same exclusive pool & snack bar area plus several other restaurants in the vicinity at other Melia resorts (all within walking distance) it does not give you the nicer room and is also an additional €50 per person per night (very expensive for what you actually get). Honestly, the whole upgrade thing for an “all-inclusive” is utter nonsense and nobody seems to really understand it with many different coloured wrist bands, some bars requiring you to sign things (clearly for internal finance transfer procedures) and other external bars not really giving much credence to it at all, possibly due to misunderstanding or possibly due to them caring vey little because they get the money back from Melia regardless? So, Melia – please take note the system is broken and doesn’t work!|On our initial arrival we queued at the main reception desk not realising as Level guests we could’ve gone straight to a personalised check-in room (there really needs to be a sign). But, we ended up in the right place and was dealt with by a lovely staff member, greeted with a glass of prosecco and explained about the Level upgrade we had (some of it went in…it’s way to complicated). A porter who was equally lovely (and looked remarkably like Jay-Z) took our bags, and us, to our room. Our room was perfect, it faced the pool area and was on the first floor. It was right at the bottom of the resort so far enough away from the loud evening entertainment which went on pretty late. I’d have hated to be close to that as it would definitely have disturbed my sleep. The bed, whilst being massive, was really far too firm but a quick WhatsApp message to our Level concierge and a mattress topper was fitted for us within a few minutes. We slept really well during our stay and the really loved our room.|The exclusive Level pool was great – we had no problem finding a pair of sunbeds at any time of the day that were in the general location of our choosing and the bar there served premium drinks and great snacks throughout the day. The staff at this area were brilliant and we really got to know them over our short stay. We didn’t go to the other pools as we had such a perfect exclusive area. But the other pools had the usual all inclusive “please come and play water volleyball” etc. However, the resort could’ve done with some other daytime entertainment options such as a table tennis table or other games.||The gym was very small and far too hot. It actually got quite crowded in the mornings. It needs more free weights as one dumbbell rack wasn’t enough and some heavier weights as well. But to be honest I didn’t use the gym as much as I would at home because it was so hot in there. It didn’t appear to have aircon – literally the only part of the hotel that didn’t and probably the part that needs it most!||On to the main area of disappointment – The Food! The buffet wasn’t amazing, it was OK. Just OK. The food was varied enough but not brilliant and I did get some Delhi belly after eating there on one night. We took advantage of the other restaurants that we got for free with the level upgrade and whilst better they still weren’t a particularly high standard. The Casa Nostra Italian was probably the best and we ate there twice. The BBQ was terrible, really, really slow service and the food was not freshly barbequed. The Culinarium over in the Tui Blue part of the Hotel was equally slow service but the food was reasonable.|Sadly, we had a medical emergency on our last night’s stay in the resort and ended up at Sal hospital! The hotel were initially really good and got us an ambulance but they definitely could have done a little more with help travel between the hospital and the hotel and making international calls to our emergency medical insurance line. ||Overall the resort was good but overly complicated upgrade options and poor food...

We visited Melia Llana 13/05/25 until 20/05/25 as first timers to the hotel and Cape Verde. We haven’t stayed all inclusive for about 25 years so all in all it was a bit of a step into the unknown.||We flew with TUI from Bristol and I’d have to say the flight there and back was a bit of an ordeal. Six hours there and just over five back was at least two hours too long rammed in. These carriers/holiday companies really need to closely look at their offerings from regional airports if they want to persuade more to visit. We would have loved the options to upgrade the flight and have inflight films/entertainment.||The airport at Sal is small and easy to navigate, the transfer by coach was fast and easy. Reception was relaxed and friendly. We did expect a breeze on arrival and were not disappointed. It’s a constant stiff breeze everywhere but mostly warm and takes the edge off when the sun gets too strong.||We had booked a standard swim up room and this was more than adequate with a restocked minibar, toiletries and daily cleaning. The outside space was clean but probably needed just a little refreshing in terms of the area between the room and the small pool and the sun bed cushions. The bed was huge and comfortable but the room was either hot with no air-con on or cold with it on at any temperature but we managed fine. ||Our neighbours were initially a friendly Dutch couple but they were upwind of us and smoked heavily all day and we had a few days of sharing their habit. We appreciate that people have the right to smoke but us non smokers appear to have no rights to fresh air. It is one of the downsides that plenty of guests smoke or vape in most of the open spaces and again that’s something that we respect but don’t necessarily enjoy sharing.||The main buffet restaurant was good to start with a nice selection and good wine/drinks service. Breakfast was also good for tea/coffee and a full English or continental style. Towards the end of our week though it did seem to lose a little quality and choice and on a couple of evenings we looked and didn’t eat. The service however remained good.||After a few days we decided to upgrade to the Level which cost us €40 pppn. I’d have to say that it was a good choice. We moved to a Level swim up room (much better with a jacuzzi bath, shower and a double circular sun bed). The exclusive Level lounge and pool near the beach takes the experience from 4* to much nearer 5* and the table service breakfast in the Italian restaurant was also better although service at times is a little slow.||We ate dinner free of extra charge at the Italian twice, very nice, and the Culinarium in the adjoining hotel once, not a nice experience and never to be repeated.||Evening entertainment was varied and usually of a high standard The local dancers are very skilled and entertaining.||We both had a complimentary massage at the beauty parlour and whilst neither of us are massage devotees it was a very pleasant experience that we would repeat if we return.||Overall we had a great time and met some lovely people both guest and staff. We would return if we can overcome the thought of the flights At this time of year the hotel was full of staff and service was first class. I would hope this continues at the season unfolds.||I can’t write this without naming a few staff who we feel went above the general high standard of the hotel. At The Level Sidney is everywhere and so helpful. At The Level lounge we were served impeccably every day by Nicole, Catarina, Consul, Yuron, Mayra and Donielson. (I apologise if I’ve misspelled any names or missed anyone). Thanks to you all.||On the downside we’ve mentioned the smoking and perhaps non smoking rooms with non smoking patio areas would be an idea. And the cats!! We are not cat haters but we are not cat lovers or even likers and they are everywhere. When you bathe you may have to try to move the from the sun beds ( I say try as they don’t appreciate being moved and some guests don’t like you not loving them), when you open your patio door they may try to enter, when you eat they are around (not the indoor restaurant). The hotel has an award for looking after the local feral animals so I suspect this will not change.||Finally I’d say go and you will enjoy and thanks...