Le Méridien Ra Beach Hotel & Spa — Hotel in el Vendrell

I put a 10 for the quality of our stay because we enjoyed it, but I would never recommend the hotel to others for a future stay because of the way they choose to do business. We booked our stay 9 months ago- back when it was a Starwood Cat 5 property. At the beginning of April we received an email from the hotel that said "due to a mistake in our reservations system" (which turned out to not be the truth) they could no longer accommodate the last two nights of our stay, and that we had three choices - change dates, check-out early and move to a similar hotel in Barcelona, or just cancel. I thought the hotel had just been "Bonvoyed" - like what has happened to so many other people like myself due to the Marriott merger. But when we checked in the otherwise fantastic clerk told us (mistakenly, I would imagine) that we were walked from our room because a large corporation (named Neospace, or something like that) had paid the hotel $200,000 euros to have exclusive rights to the entire hotel for the same week we had booked 9 months ago. I also understood there were eight other guest rooms who had also been walked for the week. When I told the clerk that that didn't seem like a good way to treat people, his answer was "we are running a business and we have to maximize revenue".

So - instead of telling the large corporation that they could have access to the entire hotel minus eight rooms that had already been booked because it would have been the RIGHT thing to do, they sold out on their guests. I can't imagine that a Le Meridien in the U.S. would ever have been allowed to do this. My advice to others would be to never book this hotel until a week in advance, and even then to never pay for non-refundable travel reservations to arrive on a certain date because you won't know if your reservation will be honored because "they are running a business".

I should also share the short version of how the last two months of correspondence with the hotel have been handled. We initially told Milda - the sales director -that we would accept the offer to be moved to the Le Meridien in Barcelona for the last three nights, which she tried very hard to accommodate, but then she ran into a snag because Le Meriden Ra had changed categories from 5-6, so the number of points I used 9 months ago was different than what was now being charged for Le Meridien Barcelona. Then Starwood became Marriott, and the Le Meridien Barcelona doesn't accomodate two adults and one child in a room the way that Le Meridien Ra does. So it turned into a big mess, and Milda gave up, telling me I had to work out the rest of the problem by myself with Bonvoy. We all know that's a hopeless recipe for disaster with no Bonvoy representatives able, willing, or holding any empowerment to find solutions since the merger happened. In short, I was Bonvoyed. I was missing 56,000 Marriott points since I had to find a way to book a different hotel at a higher category on my own, with no help at the time from Le Meridien Ra and much less help from Bonvoy, and I was still stuck in a more expensive room in Barcelona that I couldn't stay in because our son was staying in the room with us.

Although our non-refundable, non-Marriott hotel in Madrid was nice enough to change dates for us when I showed them the emails I had been exchanging with Milda, we were still out over 400 euros for changing the train tickets back to Madrid in order to change Le Meriden Ra dates. I'm exhausted at this point, and I didn't even bother with trying to get that part of the disaster recovered.

In short, Milda did fix the problem in the end when she got permission from the GM for the hotel to refund us the difference in points, plus Bonvoy gave us some extra points as a courtesy for what we went through. But none of this would have happened if Le Meridien Ra did not choose to operate their business to "maximize revenue" rather than to treat guests as human beings and honor reservations as planned for guests that are traveling from...

I'm a pretty seasoned international traveler--not as experienced as some, but I've been to 20+ countries on five continents. Starwood Lifetime Gold. The Le Meridien Ra Beach ranks with the Park Tower in Buenos Aires as the best I've ever had the pleasure to enjoy.

My family and I stayed here for two blissful nights at the beginning of a two-week vacay in Spain and Italy. Wish we could have stayed there longer; though so far, Barcelona is amazing too. The location in El Vendrell was pretty easy to access via train from BCN; we took a taxi from the El Vendrell station. El Vendrell and Calafell are lovely little beach towns--maybe some won't like the somewhat omnipresent graffiti, but I found it interesting.

Upon our arrival, we were pleasantly surprised by the grounds--there are several sculptures on the immaculately maintained grounds, which immediately made me feel as though this was going to be special. Reception is in an airy, modern lobby, and we were greeted with glasses of cava--very nice! The friendly staff was warm and welcoming and seemed genuinely happy to see us; almost as though we were regular and frequent visitors, though we had never been there before.

The hotel is built around a completely refurbished old building with several new additions. When I say completely, I mean completely--there's a display in the lobby opposite some great artwork that shows the history of the property--I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, and I spent a lot of time checking it out.

Our room was in a very modern addition to the original building, and it overlooked a decorative pool and the sea. Lovely, minimalist decor, tremendously comfortable bed, and nice bathroom.

The spa is amazing--and you don't have to pay for spa treatments to enjoy the pre-sauna, sauna, oxygen room, saltwater pool with lots of different features (jacuzzi station, powerful neck and shoulder water jets, microbubbles, etc). We whiled away nearly an entire afternoon becoming super relaxed. My wife and son went for a fancy massage treatment--though expensive, they raved about it.

Dinner at the restaurant was quite good. Tables in shade overlooking the promenade, beach, and sea.

The breakfast buffet was very enjoyable--worth paying the discounted price at booking, at least for a short stay. Lots of Catalan food, as well as croissants and the like. Teas from Dammann Freres--my wife is a tea aficionada, and their teas are great.

The beach itself is lovely, and the hotel has a beach bar with food--nice to have a beer by the water. The hotel also had a masseuse from the spa offering free 10-minute seaside massages. I'm a big dude (6-5, 270), and the masseuse had me lie on a beach chair, as her massage chair didn't quite fit. She was quite skilled--though not gentle--at one point, I realized she was kneeling on my back! Felt great after.

One petty complaint--they didn't put us on the SPG floor. Room was so nice, I didn't think about complaining--at other properties, I would have asked to be moved.

Special shout out to Moses (Moises?), who is the beach manager--he was especially friendly and kind.

Stay here if you can! While I tend to want to visit new places on holiday, I would absolutely love to return.

Note--I don't think that the traveler photos nor the hotel official photos do the...

In January 2025 we have made a reservation of your hotel for stay in August 13-19 (Accomodation + Breakfast) and the flight. That reservation was made through website lastminute.com. During the reservation we have paid 100% of the total amount (prepayment). The total amount paid for that package was EUR 3,645.06. This reservation was made for 3 adults - ACCOMODATION + BREAKFAST. (See the booking details attached).

When we arrived in hotel on the 13.08.2025 during check-in your colleague at the reception took my credit card and reserved 50 EUR as per usually in every hotel they do for minibar or eventual damages that could potentially occur during the stay. Hotel receptionist did not tell us anything about any other potential costs. Also he told us the breakfast is not included and we need to pay for that if we want to use the service. It was not true as we purchased accommodation+breakfast. We were advised by Hotel to call to lastminute.com to clarify this, and finally after lastminute got in touch with you this was accepted by you and you apologized for this commotion, called me and informed breakfast is included for all the 3 pax. When checking out from hotel in the morning of 19.08.2025 we were presented an invoice with all our item list we used (lunch at the beach, dinner at hotel etc..) which is fine and correct. The invoice contained as well an Accommodation supplement of 85 EUR x 6 for each day of the stay . So the total of 510 EUR that we cannot recognise either accept. We debated that with the receptionist of the hotel and his manager, they said it is the rule of the hotel and if we want to debate it we need to call to Agora. As we bought the package from Agora. FYI: AGODA is a technology provider of the website of lastminute.com and further we have nothing to do with Agoda, which I refused to do as the invoice was coming from hotel LeMeridien where we have stayed and not from any third party. As the taxi was waiting for us we proceeded to the airport and the Supervisor of the reception gave his word that he will clarify and get in touch with us by email (my email address was provided to him at that moment) before the final settlement. Meanwhile in the taxi i have checked my credit card account where I saw a reservation is made for a total amount of EUR 1,155.22 but i was convinced I can trust hotel Le Meridien and its employees respecting their given word. After we arrived in the Netherlands 2 days passed no one called or emailed back to us. Meanwhile my money were definitely debited from my credit card account. I have contacted the hotel on 21.08.2025 and spoken to a reception supervisor she promised me to investigate and to send a reaction until the end of the day. No reaction came. I have contacted the hotel again on the 25.08.2025 and spoken 18 minutes to another lady and she told me the hotel spoken to Agoda and they have a resolution but she cannot share it with me anything as this is confidential. This is unacceptable to me and my family.

You have debited 510 Eur and this needs to be returned! Until then i assume this is a stolen money from my account and i do not accept to be debited. You have taken advantage and I am...