Ohtels Cabogata — Hotel in Almeria

We visited this hotel for a week, arriving on 8th July 2025.||||Let me start off by saying Danny, the hotel manager, David and Maria who were his bar managers were all fantastic and really couldn't do enough to make you feel welcome and comfortable - it's a shame we didn't meet them until later in the stay. Unfortunately they really struggled to carry the downfall of the rest of the staff who, once they knew you were English, basically put you at the back of the queue or refused to talk to you even in attempted Spanish and provided below par service compared to the other local guests.||||Restaurant / Bars - 3/10||Breakfast was cold. There's no easy way to say that the "hot" items on the buffet were freezing cold which is definitely a food safety issue. There were trays of scrambled eggs, beans, mushrooms, bacon and sausages that even at 08:00 when it opened, were freezing cold.||I will say the freshly made omelettes by the chef were lovely and I ended up having these every day. The pastry and cold meats selections were fairly nice.||||Dinner wasn't too bad overall. There was a decent selection of hot and cold food with plenty of choice for adults and children alike and the food was always kept just about warm, at no point was the buffet food hot (again we tried this at 20:00 when the buffet opened).||I'd avoid the grill chef completely in the evenings. After ordering a piece of pork from the grill I watched the chef stop picking up the raw meat with the tongues, and then use the same tongues to give me the cooked meat, and straight back to loading up the raw chops onto the grill. Needless to say this went straight in the bin and is another massive food safety issue.||||The biggest food safety issue was the raw food at the pool bar. My 5 year old daughter was served a raw in the middle chicken burger which made her incredibly ill (see the attached photos). This is at the same time as the English people next to me at the bar being served beef burgers that had been sat on the grill for hours, whilst when the locals were requesting food, the burgers were being cooked from scratch. As you can imagine, these were freezing cold and disgusting after being sat hovering over the grill.||Again, the same with fries. There were cooked, put into bowls and left on the side for hours and when ordered by the English, thrown back into the fryer for a minute to be reheated. The locals were treated to freshly cooked fries straight from the freezer.||||The coffee/in hotel bar is advertised as having hot food available from 16:00 to midnight, but on two occasions, we found that only crisps and ice cream were available — no hot food as described.||||Hotel Room - 6/10||We decided to upgrade to a junior suite before the trip which was a fantastic idea as it gave us 2 x double beds in the main bedroom, then a living area with a single pull out bed under the sofa which was surprisingly comfortable. Our daughter slept like a log on the pull out bed and it gave her a bit of space to herself. Also there were TVs in both rooms was a nice to have.||The room was always clean and overall well presented including the bathroom. We had fresh towels as requested and the bathroom had 2 sinks, a bath and also a separate shower which was very useful when trying to get 3 people ready at the same time!||There were downsides - as per other reviews I've seen here, the air conditioning didn't work for the first 2 days we were there which was a nightmare, especially as we hit the July heatwave with temps up to 34 degrees. It was sporadic for the rest of the holiday. The fridge in our room just didn't work and only kept waters slightly below room temperature - we gave up with this after a couple of days.||With the junior suite we also had a double width balcony with a table and chairs and 2 sun loungers overlooking the pool - this was a nice feature.||I will say that we were told on check in that we were "upgraded" to a sea view. Just be aware that this also covers the pool where music starts blaring full blast at 10:30am and finishes at around 00:30am the following morning, so if you're a light sleeper then you're well out of luck. Next time I'd refuse this and take the view of the beautiful golf course on the other side of the hotel.||||Pool / Entertainment Area - 4/10||I'll start by saying the pool area was kept clean and could see this area being washed down and looked after every morning before the pool opens at 10:00am. The water was clear and warm and there's a nice bubble pool in the middle of the main pool. It's probably slightly small considering the capacity of the hotel. It seemed fairly easy to get a sunbed when the pool opened and there seemed to be enough for everyone.||The kids pool was great for keeping the little one entertained, but there definitely weren't enough sunbeds at this pool and people were resorting to sitting on the grassy areas instead. For a couple of days, some of the slides were broken but were resolved fairly quickly in general.||||Staff - 3/10||I'm giving this a 3 out of 10 because the 3 people I mentioned at the start - Danny, David and Maria were really good throughout our stay and were happy to chat in a mix of English and broken Spanish (don't worry - I'm not the kind of person who goes abroad and expects everyone to speak English - I do know some basic broken Spanish which is enough to hold a basic conversation and be polite).||||The rest of the staff (that we interacted with), I don't have a single compliment to give to:||- The bar staff were generally rude and ignored you / served you last once they knew you were English. They'd actively avoid serving you until all of the locals had been served. I'd also refer back to the food situation at the pool bar as these were the same staff that served up raw chicken burgers and beef burgers to the English at the pool bars and cooked everything fresh for locals.||- Found very similar with the staff in the restaurant. Drinks are table service and we were regularly ignored at dinner service whilst everyone around us were being served. We weren't the only English family that found we were being ignored in these areas.||- The animation team who were running the activities around the pool during the day ignored the English kids, wouldn't run the activities in English alongside Spanish so the English kids could join in, even though they were asked to do so by multiple people - it was the same at the kids club and the same with the kid's entertainment in the evenings. They would walk straight by them around the pool when taking names for activities etc. We had to explain to a very upset 5 year old that her and the friend she had made were being excluded from the activities because they can't speak the language.||- The worst of all was the lifeguard, Alvero who was the most discriminatory and arrogant person I met the entire time we were there. Apart from his rude attitude, he would regularly walk around telling English children off for silly things like having their pool shoes in the pool, or being too close to the side of the pool with a drink whereas the local children did the same and even took drinks into the pool. ||He also decided that English people couldn't smoke within the boundaries of the pool whereas the locals could happily smoke at their poolside sunbeds or even just stand in front of him smoking next to the pool while he turned a blind eye.||The thing that infuriated me about him though was the fact he sat watching me blow up a Lilo for around 30 minutes and sniggering, then decided once it was done to come and tell me "no floats allowed in the pool" and then when I asked him why he'd sat and laughed watching me blow it up, he laughed and suddenly forgot how to speak English, walking off laughing.||||Overall - 5/10||We didn't dislike the holiday but things are very different to how they are advertised. I've tried to be very fair here and point out the good bits about the hotel as well as the bad.||The entire vibe of the holiday was that we felt unwelcomed and unwanted - everything was too much trouble (for most staff) unless you were a local and we were definitely at the bottom of the priority list. ||If you're going to save up thousands of pounds of your money to spend a week at a hotel, I wouldn't recommend this one as it was fairly disappointing overall.||Keep in mind that this hotel is classed as 4-star, but as per the certificate in the reception of the hotel, this was last reviewed in 2020!||We weren't the only English family there, and we weren't the only family to make complaints either which proves that this wasn't unusual behaviour.||This unfortunately isn't somewhere we'd want...

¡Madre mía! ¿Como puedo describirlo..? A ver..

Having an absolutely GREAT time here. Hotel absolutely fine - lovely, clean, large room with lovely view. Two large double beds, which are VERY comfortable, with clean and good quality bed linen. The cleaning staff is lovely, helpful and very accommodating. We have a ground floor balcony/terrace at rear of hotel. Several nice pools (one indoors, but have never used that one - in the spa bit? 🤔). The Animation Team is really good, funny, and the entertainment, which we occasionally saw' is brilliant, with VERY talented people. The Team is not 'in your face,' and respects it if you don't want to join in.

Staff generally pleasant, and some are particularly lovely, helpful, jovial and friendly. I happened to meet the manager at the pool bar one day, and he was really friendly and chatty. Most of the staff speak a bit of English - certainly enough to be understood. I speak Spanish very well (which staff aporeciate) and when I couldn't understand some of their more detailed answers, they re-phrased or managed to use the odd English word, which I could understand.

I must add, some staff can be rude, dismissive and disrespectful at times. It's not so much what they say, it's more HOW they say it. Maybe I don't fully understand Spanish 'customs, character and temperament' - I do ask myself 'is it me?' - possibly..? But to ask genuine, necessary questions and to be met with impatience isn't nice. I get that working with people is hard work, and that tourists can he demanding and annoying, but I mainly go out of my way to be pleasant. Oh well, that's life.. 😐😖

Please also note communication issues in terms of different staff giving us differing messages/explanations/information at times. It seems some staff are new and that's understandable. I would very much like to compliment Robert on being able to speak at least 2 languages 😉, also the brilliant young dark-haired girl whom I practised a bit of Arabic with 🙂. Also there is a really friendly chap - friendly and very efficient - usually had a stubbly beard and often working in both bar areas. The three of you stood out in terms of your friendly, smiling service and how hard you work.

We are accommodation only, but are having breakfast, €12 each, I think, before we head home on Saturday morning. The dining area looks nice, and I hope the food is good. I have only given 4 stars, as I don't know how the food is at this stage. It would be 5 stars, otherwise!

The drinks prices are very reasonable, and the pool bar 'fast food' snacks are decent enough.

Love the location - a short walk to a number of good heladarías, restaurants, bars etc. The beach is also very close, and is very relaxing, and appears mainly very quiet, and the beach bogs 😉 (toilets) are really clean, and there is spacious changing room with a chair inside.

Holidaymakers are nearly all Spanish, and plenty older folk. I would add that if you happen to be gay, some of the local tourists can look at you twice, and you can hear them speculating about your sexual orientation, but they are not abusive. I'm at an age where I couldn't give a toss now, anyway.. 🤭

It is rare that I decide to come back to a hotel/resort, unless it has made such a great impression, but I definitely will, as were both very pleased with the entire experience. I would HIGHLY recommend this place,...

Myself and my family went here for a weeks half board holiday, we read all the reviews before we went and were thinking that maybe we had made a mistake because a lot of the reviews were negative about both the staff and food, we had nothing to be concerned about. We arrived late in the evening on the first day, about 2150 Spanish time, we got checked in quickly and told that the restaurant was open till 2230, we quickly dumped our bags and went down to get some food, when we went down there was still plenty of choice, even at that late hour, they were still serving the grill and the buffet was still being replenished regularly, the food itself was good, always plenty to choose from and generally very tasty. The staff were always friendly and helpful and really great with our two children, 7 & 10, our children, who generally don’t like many people, loved all the staff and the staff always seemed to have plenty of time for them, it was lovely.

The hotel itself was always very clean and tidy, our room was cleaned daily and not once did we need for anything, the pool looks little on the pictures but when you’re there it’s a great size and depth, it’s also a salt water pool, this sounds like a small thing but to not have that chlorine smell and feel on you all week is really nice ! Overall it’s a lovely hotel.

As mentioned above we were only half board, giving us breakfast and evening meal, but we were offered the option swap one of our meal for lunch any day we liked, all week if the fancy took us, but we stuck with the breakfast and evening meal option. There are theme nights on at least 3 of the 7 nights we were there, which was brilliant, and every night it was different food, not just the same food served night after night as some places can be. Breakfast was always the same but breakfast is breakfast, there was always fresh cooked omelettes and pancakes on offer, cooked while you wait, which my wife and eldest took up every morning, a selection of cereal, fruits, breads, all sorts, as well as fresh juices and coffee. In the evening before dinner, we would head to the bar for a drink, always cheap and the staff always friendly. Meal times are late by English standards, breakfast is 0800 - 1100am and evening was 2000 - 2230, but we never found this to be an issue once.

The hotel is very Spanish and a vast majority of its clientele is from the surrounding area, this was great, all the people were friendly, made a few friends while I was there, and even though that is the case, 90% of the staff have brilliant English.

Overall, the hotel and staff were amazing, despite what some reviews might say, and we are all going to be going back at some point in the future and...