Meliá Sierra Nevada — Hotel in Monachil

How do you actually review The Level at Meliá - with difficulty. Grab a coffee and read on.

Check in was in a private room, with bubbly Good start.

The room

Positioned infront of the lift, was noisy and some child kept knocking on doors then running away...

But inside, great bed and pillows. Decent mini bar (no charge...!) Big TV. Balcony, but wobbly hand rail, would be nice if there was a chair out there.

Bathroom, good, clean. Bath with stand in shower (would prefer just a shower to be honest). And water temperature fluctuated from hot to cold. Toilet paper, standard hotel sandpaper. The glasses were not overly clean - could see previous person mouth marks - but it's the same in 99% of hotels. Clean them before using them!

Air con was just set to hot, sadly too hot. We slept with the balcony door open to get some fresh cool air in.

Breakfast As part of The Level, you choose between the private breakfast room or the main. We did one morning in each. Private room was just fine, fresh cook hot food to order, Jamon off the leg freshly cut. The main room, you have so much more choices, it's CRAZY! So if you want quiet and not too much, but enough, go for the private room. But if you want fresh pancakes, lots of types.of juices, hot food, cold food, smoked salmon, go for the main place. It's just as good.

Dinner Refined to perfection. In the main hall, you have the standard buffet style, which elements change daily. Along with a fresh grill station which stuff is cooked to order and changes daily. We had entrecot one day, and not some tiny skinny steak - no, I'd expect to pay 25 - 50 for that easily at any restaurant and I wouldn't complain.

Food summary Go half board. The variety, types, and quality are exceptional. Really really great. For that extra payment to the hotel it actually works out cheaper than eating in town!! In Sierra Nevada, food choices are slim and prices high. Eat at the hotel. My only issue, as someone at The Level, I have a free mini bar, and a private lounge with drinks all day. But at dinner, I have to pay for any drink.

The Level The lounge, very nice, comfortable, food and drinks all day. Big TVs. Board games. Great place to chill AND WORTH THE EXTRA COST!! However, it was too warm. Everyone is with jumpers but heating was high. The music as well, would be nice if guests could turn this off, especially if watching a movie.

The drinks. Yes there's wine, beer, soft drinks all day, how yourself. But what caught our eye was the 2 hours of open bar cocktails. Turns out it's not cocktails. It's a few bottles of spirits put into the lounge, then help yourself. No piña colada or mojito in sight. We were told we could get cocktails at the bar, but at a cost. We were very disappointed (false advertising..) but we survived on gin and tonic....

Entertainment Put on nightly I believe in the main guest lounge. Was a threesum doing covers. Didn't attend but it's family friendly.

The Spa Yes place is alright. Just alright, been to better, been to worse. It was very crowded, perhaps staff should stop so many, or have a booking system. Also the water was a little too cold.

The Staff The staff probably already know all the above, they want to know how they did. Well, all fantastic, couldn't do better. It's clear several are new and they are learning. But if you had a question they would find the answer for you. Service was excellent.

Final comment As someone new to the level, I didn't know what I could/couldn't do. Staff also, being new, were unsure. It would be nice to have a "newcomers guide" saying all the little tricks and advice. Along with a "frequent guest" guide which was info for those people who come often. Overall, The Level did have some flaws, but everywhere does.

But I hate the whole place. I wish I never went.

I can no longer stay anywhere else. Because wherever I go next will not live up to the standard set by The Melia and...

We booked this hotel in error as we were trying to book the same hotel our friends were in, which turned out to be a different Melia hotel only 100 metres down the road, both hotels are four star. I only mention this incase your expecting to holiday with friends in the same hotel and find your not together. Massive positives about this hotel 1/. WIFI IS PERFECT 2/. Its warm and cozy 3/. Its very close to Ski lifts, bars, cafes & restaurants 4/. The car park is underneath and accessed via the hotel lift 5/. The staff are super friendly and helpful. 6/. There is an excellent bar and Restaurant ( left of the Foyer) 7/. Breakfast is perfect and a great start to a skiing day. 8/. Excellent SPA 9/. Dinner in the restaurant is excellent 10/. Rooms are clean / practical and the walk in shower is great to spend half an hour in after a hard day skiing

We really liked this hotel and I have to say I was slightly apprehensive as I had read some bad reviews on the internet but we had no negative aspects to report on our 23rd to 27th December visit. We arrived around 10:30 Am expecting to be told that our room would be ready at 3pm but they immediately gave us our room which was a pleasant surprise, also very handy was having the carpark immediately under the hotel so you are able to take the lift into the hotel foyer, it cost us 95 Euro for the carpark. The rooms were very nice and warm, when it was too hot we just turned down the heating and once we went out and left the windows open. The rooms were spotless and were perfect for our needs . The walk in shower was perfect after a day of Skiing, I have included some photos of our room. The price for the four nights was 1,159 Euro. The food in the hotel was perfect, the breakfast was one of the best I have had in any hotel the fresh fruit selection was fantastic and the selection of fresh fruit juices was vast in particular the Orange juice was delicious I'm so used to being passed off with diluted orange this was the real stuff. We had Dinner in the hotel for a very reasonable price of 78 Euro for two on December 25th, I have to say the food was amazing I had 2 plates of delicious Turkey with a very tasty sauce, this meal was 10 out of 10 as was the service. Unfortunately we only had time to use the SPA once and lying in the pool with an unrestricted view of the mountains was special the steam room is my favourite and this one was very good with a...

The worst breakfast we have ever been served! We paid for a top ‘Level’ class room which was nice and there is a very nice private ‘Level’ class lounge with small snacks and a small selection of drinks. All good to this point. We went to the ‘Level’ class breakfast room at a reasonable 9.30am. This area is open until 11am. And you can see from the photos what we found. We then had an order taken from a waitress for eggs bacon etc. At this point we asked for some milk so we could get our cereal first. We would have had fruit if any had been there! No milk arrived for some time then a very large plate of bacon (maybe 30 rashers), a very large plate of scrambled eggs, a very large plate of mushrooms and a very large plate of beans arrived at the same time. We could have fed a table of 12 easily. We then said but, we have not had any milk and would like our cereal first. The plates were taken away and milk arrived. We eat our cereal and waited for about 15 minutes for the waitress to reappear. We explained to the waitress that we just wanted one rasher of bacon, a small amount of egg etc. Then the same plates of food reappeared this time stone cold! It was like something from Faulty towers. The waitress blamed us, in her words you should have asked for the milk first! No apology nothing. We then asked for a warm breakfast with just the normal amount of food on the plate. After another 30 minutes this appeared with the eggs still raw mainly uncooked. After one hour in this ‘Level’ breakfast room we got up went down a floor to the main dining room where breakfast was as you would expect. The next morning, we went to the general self-service breakfast area. We complained and after several managers speaking with us we were offed a free private Jacuzzi. This turned out to be a disappointment. Water was too cold and we found glass at the edge of the water. Our view, don’t pay extra for the Level experience you are...