Hotel Alicante Gran Sol Affiliated by Meliá — Hotel in Alicante

For those who do not like reading long reviews, I can summarise this hotel by saying it is the WORST I have every stayed in - very overpriced and best avoided!||The building itself is very old and needs a total overhaul. The lifts are a MAJOR problem! There are only two small lifts for 26 floors. The wait time can be extremely long and in fact on one occasion I waited so long I ended up walking up ELEVEN flight of stairs to get to my room. The lifts appear to be dangerous (constantly requiring the attention of maintenance staff) and the wind whistles through them as they clunk and groan their way up and down. On several occasions they failed to stop ‘level’ with the ground, resulting in a drop of approximately 4 inches to get out of the lift. Therefore it was dangerous especially for the elderly, children or anyone with a physical disability. The hotel staff were apologetic regarding the lift fiasco and tried their best. However, the problem appeared to be an on-going issue. ||The rooms are a decent size but have lots of wasted space, small wardrobes and chipped paint work and scuff marks on many of the walls. The room I stayed in would have benefitted from a deep clean – for example there was an inch of dust on the picture above the bed and the shaving mirror was also coated in thick dust. The room included a fridge, kettle and tea/coffee/UHT milk. ||The walls in the rooms are paper thin. It was very difficult to get any sleep due to noise from other rooms and constant banging of doors. ||The bathroom was especially unpleasant. Not only was it so small that it was potentially dangerous (again totally unsuitable for children/elderly) but it also had mould patches, cracked tiles chipped paint work and chips out of the toilet seat. The bath featured two shower attachments over it but they were ‘fixed’ meaning anyone over 170cm in height would hit their head when trying to wash. A glass shower screen failed to stop water hitting the bathroom floor. The toilet is extremely close to the wash basin – certainly too close for comfort! The bathroom included shampoo, body wash and hand wash, all of which appeared to be the same product. There was no other complimentary toiletries (e.g. shower cap, bars of soap, etc.). Towels were okay, but there was no face cloth. The bathroom included a hair dryer. ||The air conditioner was cool enough but very noisy. It also appeared to have one temperate (18 degrees felt the same as 23 degrees!). The bedding was totally unsatisfactory with one fitted sheet and one flat sheet. Inside the wardrobe was a duvet, without a cover, which was stained and dirty looking. The bed itself was VERY uncomfortable, hard and springs could be felt everywhere!||I had a room with a sea view but the balcony was tiny (approximately 60 cm deep) with most of the space taken up by the air conditioning unit. The balcony was too small to sit on – no chair would fit – and also had cracked tiles. ||The hotel is centrally located and the beach approximately 3 minutes’ walk away. Sadly many of the surrounding streets were covered in graffiti and the smell from bins overpowering and disgusting. There was a good market with a range of products. ||The only decent thing about the entire hotel was the breakfast which offered a good selection of hot and cold food. It is best to get to the breakfast room before 9am. The top level (restaurant and bar) offers good views but is very small. ||In summary, I would definitely not recommend this hotel and cannot believe that so many people have been happy with it...

The hotel has great location right outside the port. It is a 5 minute walk along the promenade to the beach which is ideal.

Upon my arrival at the hotel, I was greeted by friendly and welcoming reception staff who made my check-in easy. The hotel has 2 small lifts and these were one down-side of my stay as they often took a long time to arrive and often were already full of people. There are stairs but using them would not be practical for anyone staying on higher floors.

My bedroom was spacious but the double bed was formed of two single beds next to each other. This was slightly annoying as it meant the beds could move apart, disturbing me and my partners sleep, but thankfully I did not experience this a lot. The room had the basic amenities, such as towels, a safe to securely store high value items, shower gel, shampoo, hand wash, hairdryer and a bidet. The water pressure was good and water did heat up when showering. There was a mini-bar offering water, soft drinks, beer and snacks, however, items were not complimentary, and you would incur a charge if taken. The prices of the items are shown on a card which means you will know how much you will pay if you take something. The charge was disappointing as I normally encounter complimentary mini-bars in hotels.

Room service was good. My bedding was changed and towels were replaced when needed.

Breakfast was offered between 7:30am-11:00am on floor 2. I would recommend going for breakfast before 9am or after 10:30am, due to these being busy times. The breakfast area was quite small and I had to wait about 10 minutes to be seated the first time I went for breakfast, due to arriving at a busy time. Despite this, I was pleased with the breakfast menu, which offered a variety of expected items, along with pastries, hot drinks, and juices.

The highlight of my stay was definitely the amazing views offered from the hotel of the port, the sea and Castillo de Santa Bárbara nearby! Unfortunately I did not visit the restaurant on the 26th floor which also offers amazing views, maybe next time.

Overall, I was pleased with my stay at the hotel. Despite some small downsides, the majority of my stay was positive and I would definitely...

Me and my friend went on holiday and it’s obvious that this hotel would have a stunning view. We planned for a special night out for some lovely drinks and we tried to make a booking for around sunset. This took us to a complicated system of emails to get such booking so we planned to go and try get a table. We went early and planned the day around this event because we thought the view and the atmosphere would be well worth the time. This ended in such great disappointment when we were greeted with an extremely disgusting attitude. I speak little to no spanish and my friend speaks spanish but finds it hard to understand certain phrases when spoken fast as she’s not been in spanish environments in a while and just getting into the swing of it all again. The lady running the bar said there was no space but the bar left in the shop and then left very abruptly cutting our conversation to an end. We sat at the bar as told to and watched at least 6 empty tables be cleared and cleaned at the other side of the bar. In attempt to ask to move there we were ignored. We were placed into an awkward environment where the bar felt cluttered and unorganised but also where i feel we faced resentment. The same bartender went about making her drinks… (MOSTLY WITHOUT A MEASURE apart from when it came to our own drinks) with a ridiculous attitude, when she wasn’t giving us conscience glares she was as miserable as could be and created a dampening atmosphere on our experience. If i could feel confident in asking to speak to a manager and being treated with respect i would have but all i wanted to do was leave. We are both very upset about such experiences and will not be back. We have planned a new roof top experience with the hopes that the staff have the decency of greeting us with respect/understanding we deserve but also hope that the employees can truly enjoy their job or have the capability to push past their attitude problems to do their job in a light hearted manner. Good drinks, bad service, bad vibes, good view (shame we weren’t allowed to sit to see it) over all 2/10 would...