Hotel Izán Cavanna — Hotel in Cartagena

I have just stayed at the Hotel Izan in La Manga. It will also be the last time. I had thought that I had booked a nice hotel room in a 4-star hotel that would look like the pictures from booking.com - but no. And I have no idea how the stars were awarded. ||Upon arrival at the hotel room you are greeted by brown tiles, a noisy air conditioning, funny smell and brown furniture from the 70s. The bed is as hard as a rock. There is really nothing nice about it. |Upon arrival at the hotel we ask for parking for the guests, as there were plenty of free spaces. We simply get the message “Unfortunately everything is taken, so you have to find one yourself” in an incredibly sour way. This took us over an hour. |When we finally got into the hotel, we wanted to go to the pool. Here we have to pay €10 as a deposit per towel and €2 for use. In addition, they also demand money for sun loungers. When we accept the terms and conditions we are told that everything is sold out - despite the fact that there are many free beds around us. At this point we feel really badly treated by the place. It seemed like the Spanish people were treated better than us. All in all the staff didn’t seem friendly towards us. |We jump in the pool, but quickly get back up because the pool is so dirty and filled with sand from the beach. |The internet at the hotel is really poor and unstable.|Never going back again 😞we’ve been visiting Spain every year since 2017 and this experience is...

Avoid at all cost. Shame it takes up such a good spot. Godawful food with minimal variation, dirty dishes. Personnel gets annoyed when you point out any of the issues instead of, I don´t know, fixing any of it? For example: if there are few plates left, all dirty (crumbs, odd coloured stains etc.) and I ask the staff to please bring clean ones and they just stare as if I insulted their daughter and proceed to do exactly nothing? If I was at a camping site I´d probably would not bother, but 4 star hotel?! Another lovely feature of the Izán Cavanna 4 star hotel: Pool closes at 20:00 (they tell you off if you jump in later) - they say because of the chemicals but...like pour them in later then? The hotel bar at the beach with direct view over the sunset should close also at 20:00 (again, wtf) but staff randomly decides to close earlier or not to open at all?! Not to mention the waiting lines for getting in the restaurant because they have to check your stupid paper card and cross it off their check list? No wristbands with colours, no. Wait 15 m in line to get your paper checked (1 paper per room, we had to ask super nicely to get 2) then wait some more for table to be free, then clean your chair, then try find clean cutlery, try and then wait some more for ... lukewarm pasta with tomato sauce on it. Or fish with the same sauce. Or maybe a leftover sausage from the breakfast. All lukewarm at best. How is this a 4 star baffles me.

Never....

This is supposed to be a four star hotel? The rooms feel like a time machine straight to the 1970s, but not in a charming retro way.

The Wi-Fi is purely symbolic, as if the hotel wants to remind you what life was like before the internet. The bathroom may have been cleaned, but the grout was filthy and visibly worn — nothing you’d expect from a place claiming four stars.

The buffet? Long lines, school cafeteria vibes, tasteless food, and drinks not even included. Despite having half board, we refused to eat there again. The dinner experience was loud, cramped, and deeply unpleasant.

The “family room” was three narrow 90 cm beds placed far apart like strangers at a sleepover. Cozy. The beds themselves were basically rock-hard camp beds — we woke up sore, stiff, and in pain every single morning.

The pool area was chaotic and loud, and if you wanted a sunbed, you had to pay for it.

Even the elevators had long queues, and you rarely got a spot when one finally arrived. We’ve probably never walked so many flights of stairs with luggage in our lives.

We’ve stayed at over 80 hotels in the past seven years, and this one truly takes the prize — for all the wrong reasons.

The only good thing? The hotel is located between two seas. So when you decide to flee, you can run in either direction and hit water before you...