Abora Catarina by Lopesan Hotels — Hotel in San Bartolomé de Tirajana

We recently stayed 8 nights at the Abora Catarina and although it’s not all bad we wouldn’t return.| Firstly it was a very busy hotel which means using the restaurant was hectic at times, people pushing and shoving which made it quite stressful, food was plentiful, could be repetitive but we always found something we liked. The best night for food was the Italian night. The staff in the restaurant do work hard and are polite. |The snack bar is a good idea and we liked been able to help ourselves, however we personally didn’t think much of the food here but it was handy for my daughter and the fact you can help yourself to drinks was a bonus. ||The lobby bar we used once and found the staff to be extremely rude.| The pool bar was ok however I would say it’s not clear what is available on AI when not upgraded to premium so we mainly stuck to cocktails which are out of a machine and don’t taste of alcohol or seem to have any effect.||We stayed on the third floor in room 311 which was clean upon arrival however we did have a problem with electrics when we first arrived and a bulb in the bathroom appeared to burn and trip everything, staff promptly sorted this out for us however the bulb was never changed. The bathroom mainly had lots of imperfections such as chipped paint, damp on the ceiling, the shower gage was also broken. The two single beds that were together moved all through the night which was a bit annoying. Housekeeping were very friendly and did an excellent job of cleaning when we requested. ||The hallway areas when going to our room needed some attention, damp areas, chipped paint and a general musky smell? ||The hotel states that it does not allow people to reserve sunbeds, however when we were arriving to breakfast (8.30am) people had already placed towels down around the main pool, this didn’t bother us massively as it didn’t appear to get much sun in that area and we preferred the kids pool with having a child. The main pool is warm, kids pools and the pool closest to the stage are cold however you do get used to it. The floors in all areas are very slippy once wet especially in flip flops. |The kids pool opens at 10am and people do queue however we always found sunbeds no matter what time we arrived. We only used the main pool once, however we used the pool closest to the stage a few times and I personally felt as though it was quite grubby compared to the other pools. ||The entertainment was repetitive, my little girl enjoyed the kids disco however the whole area for evening entertainment seems to be quite squashed, the stage isn’t huge and I just didn’t like how it was rows of chairs and then tables behind, felt very enclosed. We didn’t watch the entertainment after the mini disco but by the appearance of the props I wouldn’t say we missed anything. ||One of the main issues I found was that there were either groups of men and one particular single man who constantly would watch children, I could be taking this the wrong way but I got a very bad feeling about these particular men and didn’t feel safe letting my daughter having a little wander even when I could still see her as they always seemed to be around and with the busyness of the hotel I didn’t feel 100% safe. The hotel is family friendly but does have a mixture of different groups staying there which personally wasn’t for us it made it feel very busy and at times unsafe, due to groups of men either watching children or been drunk and disorderly around children and families. ||Overall the hotel was ok, we enjoyed and made the most of our time here however we did spend a lot of it exploring Gran Canaria rather then in the hotel as the whole vibe wasn’t really what we had expected. Lots of areas run down like the park, arcade and hallways. Majority of staff were friendly and always appeared to be busy cleaning or making improvements. |We wouldn’t stay here again or recommend I feel like there is much better on offer especially for the price we paid and I wouldn’t say the hotel was 4* at present it’s very rundown in areas. I would definitely shop around before committing to this hotel as we personally...

Room 307. Let’s start from the beginning.

The hotel reception staff - they have been good and helpful since the day we arrived.

The room - the AirCon is little more than a…. well, hole in the wall which doesn’t cool anything down! I did complain about this to staff, however they said they would send someone to look at it and I never heard anything again, and nothing changed. We had it set to its lowest a full power and the room temp didn’t go below 17, and over the 10 days of our holiday it has increased to 19! The actual beds are nice, firm and not too soft etc which you sometimes find. The carnival style tent for the boys is a nice touch in the room. The TV is all in Spanish, which yeah I kinda expected, but there are no “apps” so you can’t watch Netflix or Prime etc. There isn’t a lot of storage space for clothes etc, but we did get a few extra hangars when we asked at reception. The bathroom. It’s a sweat box. I don’t know if it’s just our room? But dear lord. There appears to be no extractor fans etc in there so it just gets HOT. The conditioner bottle also fell off the wall and hit my 4yr olds foot, this was reported to reception several days ago but they didn’t seem that bothered, and it’s still laying broken on the shower floor!! The rooms are cleaned daily and the towels are changed if you leave them on the floor. Happy with the cleanliness of the rooms and how the cleaners work!

The food - Main Resturant - as expected breakfast lunch and dinner are all buffet style and are really quite nice! The only thing is if you arrive later towards the last hour or so, the nicer things are gone and not replaced. The ice cream buffet is the same, if you leave it til later the toppings such as white and Milk choc shavings, the crispy straws etc are all gone and not replaced so there are just empty bowls sitting around. This also applies to the cakes, leave it too long and things like the cheese cakes and apple pies just don’t get replaced! There is a great variety of food though, and the fresh bread sections are pretty amazing. The toasters are SLOW however! The fancy middle buffet is nice with cheese and canapés! The fresh fruit has a wide selection and is popular. I didn’t try the soups as they had two a day and none of the flavours interested me. They had pizza everyday and it looked ok (other than they like tuna and crab on pizza here???) I just enjoyed the other meals rather than eating the pizza. The drinks in the restaurant are good, with beer and wine on tap for those that drink it. Soft drinks and fruit juice machines. The hot drinks are only available for breakfast though.

The staff in the restaurant, including the chefs etc were all really nice and pleasant and helpful! We realised that at night they didn’t always tend to put out jugs of milk but if you asked them they would get it for you (this was for our 11 months old bottles). The staff are interacted with our two boys and they were really nice.

The Pools - so…. The kids pool was the main draw for us, because of our 4yr old, the place is nice with slides etc and water fountains around but you can tell that it all needs a little work. There are drinks machine by the kids pool, but the nearest actual bar is all the way back at the main pool.

The lifeguards - not great. There is a female one here who lives on here phone and doesn’t seem to come off it. Another male one who was too busy blowing his whistle at someone to notice a guest had jumped in to save a drowning child!

There is another pool with a kids white slide which is closed - permanently. The whirlpool style pool - doesn’t work. The main adult pool seems ok and popular.

Entertainment - can’t really fault them at all. The people who do it are pretty great! The shows are good, they are great with kids (and the kids clubs). Great bunch of people!

The bar - staff were nice other than a grumpy lady at the at the main hotel bar.

FYI all inclusive plus - gets you bottled water! And an extra menu of cocktails.

I had to cut this short as I ran out...

We booked here for 4 adults for 2 weeks in September. We had 2 double rooms both with private pools.

Rooms : Rooms are very spacious with a sofa , 2 large single beds , fridge , coffee machine etc. The beds were extremely comfy and big. We only got 6 clothes hangers for the 2 of us which for 2 weeks isn’t much and also 2 of them were snapped so unable to use. Our other room we booked also had issues with the aircon which we asked reception about and was told that it was normal to stay at 19 degrees when the other room was 16 degrees , went and complained again due to it getting so hot and eventually they changed the filter in the system. The floor also gets like an ice rink when the tiniest bit wet which isn’t told anywhere so is extremely dangerous. The cleaners are so lovely and so helpful whenever anything is needed. However the bedding wasn’t changed , just remade so all stained (see pictures below).

Private pool : The patio every morning got extremely wet whether they were washed or it was from the balcony above so whatever we had left to dry on the clothing rack overnight unless removed early morning was always wet again the next morning. The pools were disgusting and extremely dirty (please refer to pictures) . Every morning a lovely man spent hours cleaning each pool , however on multiple occasions under an hour later a man came along to cut the grass so all mud , grass and leaves etc where then sprayed into the pool. Also the last week of our holiday we had the worst neighbours. A group of 3 girls all shouting , screaming , blasting music until 2 am , jumping in the pool at midnight , glaring at us through out the day and also on multiple occasions we caught them trying to look round the corner of their room into ours which wasn’t a very nice end to our holiday. Also in our room we had a note on the door to say no one to be in the pool after 8pm however a lot of people were in past that time.

Bathroom : The robes provided are extremely old and have holes in them. The toilet brush on arrival was covered in someone else’s bodily fluids which wasn’t very nice. The shower is either ice cold or burning hot , no in between which isn’t very pleasant. The towels provided are tiny especially when my partner is 6,3 .

Other pools : The kids pool is a lot quieter than the main pool however ice cold. The main pool is nice but not very deep , especially again for someone who is 6,3. The edge of all pools are also extremely slippery to the point one of us fell over and multiple times slipped.

Buffet : Breakfast buffet was your basic English breakfast from sausages to bacon to beans. However it was the same every morning and it could do with some different options as after 2 weeks of eating the same breakfast we were extremely bored of eating the same food. We didn’t try the lunch buffet however the snack bar outside for lunch options was awful. Cold burgers and hot dogs , watery pots of pasta , pure sugar slush isn’t what we call a good lunch. The dinner buffet was ok , different menu each night which was a nice change and always something for everyone. However the Mexican night was awful , everything was cold and had no flavour at all. The desserts are ok but half of them don’t have labels so no clue what you’re eating and not many dairy free options either. We also sat down the far end of the buffet one evening , and all we could smell was a bin smell coming from a side room where all we could see was dirty plates stacked up which wasn’t pleasant either.

Other issues : Our first night staying here our room had a power cut which then took 3 hours to fix , so we were woken at 3 am by all the lights coming on.We also got locked out of our room on 3 different occasions. The first time we were told the batteries had died. The second time it took the guy over 20 minutes to replace the batteries , and less than 10 hours later the key stopped working. However the reception staff...