Falkensteiner Family Hotel Diadora — Hotel in Grad Zadar

We spent a week at the Falkensteiner Hotel Diadora with our three children, and while there are definitely some highlights, the level of service we experienced was far below what you would expect from a five-star hotel.||First, the good:|For children, this place is truly a paradise. There’s a wide range of activities for all ages: multiple indoor and outdoor pools, a full-day kids’ club (closed only from 1–2 p.m.), various playgrounds, a cinema, climbing walls, and themed activities like cooking and science classes. The hotel is thoughtfully designed with kids in mind—everything from small toilets and low sinks to bibs at the restaurant and fun features like climbing walls in the rooms. Our kids had an amazing time and were never bored.|The hotel itself is modern, clean, and well-maintained. The rooms offer most of the amenities you would expect. The beds were too hard for our taste, the duvet too small for the bed, and the pillows quite flat—but bathrobes, even in kids’ sizes, were a lovely touch. The gym is another standout: huge, well-equipped, and far above average for a hotel facility.|We had full board, which includes only the buffet restaurant. While we would have preferred to dine à la carte on occasion, the buffet was extensive and of good quality. Freshly baked bread every day, the freshest pizza, a large salad bar, grilled options, soups, fruit, pasta, wok and risotto stations (though the risotto was undercooked a few nights)—there was something for everyone. It would have been nice to see more plant-based options, especially as our children have a milk allergy. Unfortunately, everything from yogurt to cheese was cow's milk-based, which made things challenging for them.||Now for the serious downside: the service.|We addressed our concerns with the front office manager, Marina, who was professional, responsive, and genuinely tried to solve the issues we raised. We sincerely thank her—she did her best and deserves credit. That said, she’s working against some systemic problems.|Across the board, service was far below five-star standards. Many staff members seemed poorly trained or simply unable to prioritize guest needs. English skills were often limited, which made communication difficult and led to frustrating misunderstandings.|Examples:|• We were a party of five but repeatedly received only four towels, despite multiple requests. Eventually, we were brought five extra towels in one go, which helped—but it shouldn’t take multiple tries.|• The kids’ room had no nightlight, and when we called reception to ask for a USB light, we were given… a lightbulb.|• Our minibar was empty. Initially, we were told minibars aren’t stocked, but after speaking with the manager, we found out they are—if you prepay. We did, but then weren’t provided with enough glasses. When I requested a beer glass at reception, I was handed a small wine glass “because it’s faster.” I reiterated that we needed a proper glass for a 33cl beer. The staff member said one would be delivered. Eventually, a different person showed up—with another wine glass. The proper glass never arrived.|• When we ordered lunch bags for a day trip and clearly mentioned our kids’ milk allergies, the staff agreed to adjust the food. However, the bags were full of milk products. Shockingly, the chef apparently wasn’t aware that cheese and yogurt contain milk.|• Our daughter made food in the kids’ cooking activity, but her creation was mistakenly given to another child. Staff promised she could redo it at 3 p.m., but when we showed up, we were told: “We don’t know who said that.” This, despite speaking to multiple staff members just two hours earlier.|There are also some odd systems, like needing to exchange cards for pool towels. And early in the week, most sunbeds were “reserved” with towels in the morning, but after reporting this, we noticed staff began removing unattended towels, which helped.||Again, Marina did all she could to resolve things—she arranged for five towels daily, found a USB light, got the minibar sorted, and fixed the lunch bags. Without her help, our stay would have been a lot more frustrating. She was a true professional. However, she has her work cut out for her. There is a lot of potential at this hotel, but serious improvements are needed in training and staff attitude to meet the standards it claims.|We’re sharing this review in hopes that things improve and that future guests won’t face the same...

I felt this place was the perfect example of ‘great brand vs local service’ - Falkensteiner hotels are all over Europe and tend to be quite high end, while also catering for kids. The Diadora resort had some elements that were distinctly ‘Falky’ but it was also at times let down by local delivery and service, the latter of which especially was lacking. Even small things like asking to be taken somewhere in a buggy during a thunderstorm elicited pushback and attitude. ||But, starting with pros, the location is gorgeous and it overlooks mountains and the sea, and has its own little pebbly beach. It’s incredibly kid friendly too and the facilities for them are amazing, from an indoor soft play area, climbing wall and cinema, to the kids club that children can dip in and out of (or do short activities like making smoothies or taking part in science clubs) which makes a nice alternative to putting them in all day. There is a games room too and a bowling alley (which you pay extra for). Also, the adult gym was very decent with some great equipment in it.||The bedrooms are spacious with nice details, like a rope hammock for children to climb/lounge in, comfy beds and there is a good amount of storage. If you’re lucky you’ll get a sea view room because the ones that face into the resort seem like they’d get loud as you have the pools and nightly entertainment to contend with.||The pools are all very nice, and there’s a big slide, but there is no poolside service.||Food wise, the buffet is varied, and breakfast has a lot of choice. There’s a dessert room for kids in the evening, although it would’ve been nice to have more restaurant choices as part of the half board option. You are tied to one eatery. They also have a Friday prosecco night, which is a nice touch. ||The Iadera spa, which you can use as a Diadora guest, was great, although not very kid friendly and there is a nude zone called the ‘Black Spa’. In fact even in the smaller spa in Diadora people got naked which we found strange as kids would be nearby (but they’re not allowed in the spa at least).||Things that let the place down included no real soundproofing in rooms so you could hear people running up and down the corridors, WiFi is very sketchy, the reception area always felt busy, with few staff members around (they also rarely answer the phone!) and key cards would sometimes stop working randomly. The lifeguard made a rare appearance in the pool area too, you’d like it to be more regular.||Speaking of staff, some of them were great, but others simply weren’t friendly at all - verging on being rude, even in the kid club (don’t get me wrong some were great, but were let down by their colleagues). It was hugely off putting as it was a bit of a gamble who you got. Emailing them before the stay was also a bit strange too, as they never seemed to answer questions directly, for example I asked about a rental car and was told we “had to park” in their allotted space for €13 a day or our car would be towed! They add a service charge at the end of the stay top of €10 a day, which you have the option of not paying, but it’s all rather awkward.||Small niggles added up, for example drinks measures were very measly, or you would order lunch at the bar and then wait an eternity for it. The television in the room was obsolete too unless you spoke Russian, German or Croat, with few if any English options, and there were no streaming services you could link to. ||Overall I felt this location had a few issues which it could quite easily fix, like putting more people on the front desk, prioritising guests’ requests, being more generous with drinks, making a few more English tv channels available and definitely training some staff to be a little...

Of all the Falkensteiner properties we have stayed at, this was certainly the least impressive. While we had a good time, Diadora was far off the standard set by the other properties that we have so enjoyed.

I’ll start with the positive: the food is good there are a lot of good kids activities - if you can get in. The gym is excellent - though there were no towels on two of the three days I was there so the machines can be very sweaty. The spa was excellent, or so my wife tells me.

Now for the bad: Little help at check-in - utter chaos. You’re nickel and dimed for everything - no free coffee outside of meal hours, no free water (they expect you to buy bottles, despite supposed efforts to be more sustainable). They charge for popcorn during movie night. You name it, it costs extra. You’re charged €20 for not returning a towel. The property is dated in many areas. The waterslide - a priority for our kids - is not good at all, especially compared to the great slides at the other Falkensteiner properties. This feedback is consistent across many reviews. The outdoor pools do not have a shallow area for younger kids (all 1.4M deep). If your child is less than 1.5M and isn’t a strong swimmer, it’s a risk. The view from our room was a loading dock. For €600 per night. The beds are bad for a 5-star hotel (this is my first time ever commenting on a hotel bed). There’s a large construction site running through the middle of the property with no effort to obscure it. I don’t mean the cranes, I mean adding some basic privacy fences so it’s not in plain sight. There is one bike that fits kids who are 6-7 years old. It was reserved as of 13:00. I showed up at 11:00 and asked if I could use it with my daughter for an hour around the property. The answer was “no, it is already reserved”. Objectively bad customer service.

Ultimately, Falkensteiner Diadora isn’t a bad place. It’s just not as nice as what we’ve come to expect from Falkensteiner and it fails to get the little things right, especially for a supposedly 5-star resort. While we always left the other properties feeling that we received more than was promised, Diadora was quite the opposite.

Final comments: we loved Falkensteiner Montanfon and Lido. We gave both of them 5-stars and raved about them to our friends. We also voiced our displeasure to the hotel manager at Diadora who told us she’d follow-up with us after speaking with Falkensteiner leadership, but we never heard back from her and nothing was done to address our concerns. Part of being loyal to a hotel chain is the expectation of consistency across properties. We described Montafon and Lido - and by extension Falkensteiner - as “a Four Seasons for families”. After Diadora, we no longer feel that description is appropriate.

To Falkensteiner management: we’ve gone from huge promoters to detractors of your brand. We’ve never once complained and we’ve given your other properties top marks. We...