Hotel de Mar Gran Meliá - The Leading Hotels of the World - Adults only — Hotel in Calvià

What a shame?? ||Strap in, grab a drink because this may be a long read but will hopefully arm you if you are planning a visit to this once genuinely great hotel.||We returned to the Grand Melia de Mare after a long break hoping to relive a previously amazing holiday. What a shame that a once amazing hotel has sucummed to offering sub standard service wrapped in the illusion of new so called up-scale offerings.||Our issues began immediately after check in when our so called premium top floor room overlooked the car park. To be fair, it wasn't a "car park front" view but it was sufficiently close to devalue all other views and offer the risk of being woken early by arrivals / departures / deliveries.||Having complained and highlighting the less than premium car park view, I was advised there were no more rooms in this class (funny how often that happens in apparently half full hotels??) but amazingly there was a junior suite in the centre of the hotel available for another €55 per night. Indeed, this room didnt have a full or partial car park view and it's sea view was excellent but it was actually smaller!! Having been travelling for nearly 12 hours and exhausted we relented, paid the extra and moved rooms.||What became quickly apparent is this new room came with an added extra amenity - a smell of drains! Lovely. Being now totally exhausted we accepted the smell, turned up the AC and ceiling fan and hoped for the best.||We are still here for another couple of days and sadly the general experience hasnt reached pervious levels. Breakfast is average at best for a hotel at this level and ordered food (not buffet) is slow to arrive and not really better than the buffet. The hotel restaurants have upscalled their menus and their prices to match. Quality is fine but certainly does not offer value. The pool area has little or no service due to being understaffed. If you are immediately adjacent to the BonBon bar area you may have someone come to your sunbed to take orders but not anywhere else. There is no water available so all drinks must be purchased. On and on the topic of water, the bottles in your room are only refreshed at turn down so don't get thirsty between breakfast and turn down if you've hppend to need a drink through the night.||It's all these little things (OK the room issue isn't little) that add up to a sub par overall experience.||Worth noting that the hotel and Illetes area is still very poorly served by cabs so a run into Palma between 5:30 and 8pm can still be preface by a very long wait. Not the hotels fault but worth noting. ||Some things are still amazing. The pool location and views are spectacular. Indeed, the overall hotel views are stunning. The hotel and room are clean.....oh,and there is the best ice cream on the island just across the road. ||But overall,...

Is this really 'hospitality'?

When does five-star service become one star service? When things go wrong and they’re not dealt with properly.

36 hours after arrival I contracted severe gastroenteritis. Racing pulse, my stomach doubled in size, 4am emergency ambulance, intravenous drip, hospital, then severe discomfort for 36 hours.

Other guests suffered gastroenteritis at exactly the same time. The management offered warm words but wouldn't accept any responsibility "unless you can prove we are responsible".

They said there was a virus across the island. But we checked: the local doctor’s surgery, pharmacy and hotels all disagreed.

Whether the hotel had legal responsibility wasn’t the point. Our holiday had been trashed. They are in the hospitality business and could have done to salvage something for us so our trip wouldn’t have been a total write off, but they did almost nothing. The three things they did do were bizarre.

They offered to upgrade us to a higher quality sunbed (!) On my return from hospital, they sent a cream cake and a bottle of sparkling wine to our room for my birthday. (Whilst I was still bad suffering stomach cramps!). They allowed us to check out two hours late on our leaving day, apparently a great concession!

When we met manager to discuss the problems she said that they would be delighted to book us a special dinner for our final night “you will love it, it’s a very romantic barbecue by the pool“. This lifted our spirits and made us feel the hotel were making some positive gesture towards us. Some hours later that we realised that she intended we should pay for this! So whilst we were trying to get them to offer some form of redress for the problems which we firmly believe they caused, they tried to upsell us!

We didn't want compensation, just something to make us feel we were being looked after. Maybe a morning in the spa? Or a discount or upgrade on a future visit?

Some other issues:

The buffet breakfast is displayed on shelves that do not have sneeze panels – glass panels at chest height to ensure that if someone sneezes they don’t splatter the food. They’re mandatory in the UK and many countries. Not Spain?

The breakfast was two star. A big let down. Nothing special at all. Porridge covered in skin sums it up.

Our ‘deluxe sea view room’ had almost no sea view. When we complained the receptionist said “yes, many people complain about those rooms”.

Five star grounds, five star prices, one star hospitality. We won’t return.

Melia is a great group. This hotel...

I know that its difficult for hotels during the Corona crisis, however it is not acceptable that literally everything takes so much time, check in was the first disaster, it took over an hour to get checked in, after that we went to the rooms, the rooms were pretty good, however there's not even a toilet brush in the toilet, the showers overflow very easily which makes the whole floor wet which is a slipping accident waiting to happen. In the evening we wanted to drink something before our dinner, we ordered our drink and it took at least 30 minutes from the time we ordered to the time we actually got the drinks. It wasn't busy at all and the waiters were always looking at their iPads while walking around. After that we had our dinner, I specifically ordered some sauces for the starters, 20 minutes after the starters came and quite a few nice reminders the sauce still didn't come. I then proceeded to go the bar, and reminded them again harshly to bring me the sauces which then happened. During starters while we were eating they already brought a caesar salad, which we then declined, which was brought to the kitchen, when we were actually ready for mains we got our food, the caesar salad wasn't warmed up so it was brought back to the kitchen for the 2nd time and when it came back it wasn't great anymore. I had a burger, it was nothing special, especially for the money, just some cheap beef, nothing Angus like it said in the menu. The cheddar on top of the meat tasted pretty old and it wasn't even melted at all. The mayonnaise for the fries probably sat in the sun for too long because the oil and the eggs have already separated. The first breakfast was fine, however everything took a long time again. I tried ordering orange juice, looked the waiter in the eye he looked back at me, however he then walked back into the building without even taking my order. This has only been my second day, for the price of the hotel I am not happy AT ALL. Everything takes way too long. Second day, my card has been declined, can't get back to my room. Last day at breakfast, more than half an hour till we got asked what we'd like and over thirty minutes to get our food, the cappuccino and coffee and everything else drink wise was simply forgotten. Please manage your staff properly. The pool and everything else was nice, the Service was more like a 1 star hotel even though I've been to some 1 or 2 star hotels which had better service. The only time where the food was actually good was on Saturday the first, because we ate...