Hotel LIVVO Koala Garden — Hotel in San Bartolomé de Tirajana

We changed to this hotel pre departure after reading some great comments and reviews. We were so excuited to be staying here. We arrived at the hotel and it looked amazing, Its was clean a lady checked us it to our room and expalined what is the best way to get to our room. When we arrived at our room, the room was spacious and was very clean the bathroom had a seperat shower and bath witch was nice. Our room was a lower corner room overlooking the pool and resrtrant. Unfortunetly that is were the good things end. We went to the restuarant for tea and there wasnt much choise of food especially for the children and the worst thing is that it was cold. There waas no food lables so you could only guess at unfomilier foods. The restrant staff were fantastic very frendly. The kitchen staff when you asked what the food was they didnt know and ccouldnt tell me why the food was cold. Luckely there is a microwave in the restuarant so we always used that. Now on to the entertainment services, they were terrible, everynight of our seven day stay they were late for the kids minidisco, playing two to three songs then that was it they would dissaper into there room and wiat for the show to start. the shows put on were just as terrible. the team were not engaging with the children on a night or during the day. We took our concurnes to Rosa the Guest satisfaction manager and she also unfortunetly didnt resolve any of our issues and told me i was lieing, she wouldnt work with ourselfs or a few other familys also complainng at the same time, we were all told 'it's fine what do you want me to do'. We alo brought our concernes to Lynel the entertainment team manager reguarding the entertainment and he was fantastic the entertainment team then started to engage with the children and proform good quality showes. It was brought to my attention that two of the entertainment staff were new trainees and there supovicer was not monitering or supporting them correctly. Lynel you are fantastic at what you do and have a clear pasion for your job and that showes you are an asset to that hotel. We had noumourus meeting with Grayham the Jet2 in resort rep and he was unwilling to check on our complaints and was just rude, condesending and just very unprofesional. We ultemly put in a offical complaint just like another three familys during our stay, we were offred no support to make sure thay were being filled out correctly. After that ourselfs and the other familys became the victim of abouse and ridicule form the other guests and staff members.

So to summerrise.....

The pro's to staying at this hotel......

Ampel space Clean rooms Seprate shower and bath

The Negatives to staying at this hotel......

Some rube and unprofesional staff All external gates locked or not working with the exeption of one Cold Food everyday The same food daily Pools not heated as adverticed Only have Nexflix to watch on the tv as no way to change the language as informed by the recetion staff. Entertainment team shows not as adverticed or up to a good quality standed. Only one bar the pool/sports bar. Cocktals made form a machine Poor selection of liqures The unavadability to makesomething that wasnt on the cocktail menu. Staff would talk to there co workers and not speak to you at the bar i.e. haveing a joke, pointing at other guests and laughing. No Tea and coffe facilitys after breckfast. No childrens club avadable even when adverticed. 15.The Koala mascot only came out on one evening entertainment to see the children it should be out noumores times a day to engage with the children i.e palying games or challenges.

We would not return here or recomend to any family to stay at this hotel at all, the staff need to listen to there guest feedback if they want to improve there service. I really hope that the managment team would look at there complains and guest fedback as it would show them the areas that would need to be improved on. The only reason we enjoyed the holiday was due to the company of...

Firstly, whilst on paper the hotel might tick the boxes for 4, the levels of quality and service are no where near 4. However, I will review as if it was a 4* hotel.

Room: Fairly spacious for 2 adults and a child. Beds for adults were 2 single beds on wheels pushed together, meaning they would often separate and leave a gap. Sofa bed for child in living area meaning having to sit on bedding or constantly unmake/remake bed. Fridge was tiny. Teabags/milk not always replenished when used. Not sure what the schedule for towel changing was, sometimes we went days with no changes, sometimes they were changed several days on the run, once the old towels were left and new ones put on bed. Looking under the bed you can see that the cleaning is basic at best. Cleaners would leave the door to ground floor balcony open - not great for security considering the security gates to the complex were often propped open with rocks and the cats could also have got in. The water in the room cut off twice whilst we were there.

Food: The food in the main restaurant was plentiful and varied, supplemented by a BBQ and a separate smaller bookable restaurant. However, if you did not get there as soon as it opened the food would quickly become dry/over cooked/stale as it was piled high early on and not replenished often. The general feel of the place was that of an unsupervised school canteen - it took me back to the horror days of the all inclusive holidays in the early 90s. There was no supervision, with kids frequently picking food up with hands, putting it back, messing with it, etc. The few staff that were there did work really hard to try and keep the place clean and tidy and were friendly. The bookable restaurant, Joeys, was much better quality, though with a much smaller food selection.

Pool areas: Pools have a weird time limit of 10am to 6pm, though this does not seem to be enforced. The lifeguard is not there all the time (concerning if you have young or elderly family members) and when they are there they are not attentive (stark contrast to the lifeguards in the USA). Pool areas have drinks stations near them - unfortunately ours stank of cat urine. There was also cat poop trod into the astro turf around the drink station near us which took a few days to get cleaned up. Pool towels operated on a ticket basis, where you could only get them changed twice a week. Sun loungers were often all 'reserved' early on, which was apparently against policy, but you're not going to go around dumping people's stuff on the floor. There were not enough to go around several times.

Cats: There are cats all around Gran Canaria. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I like cats and have two of my own. However, this means there are a number of areas where the cats go to the toilet - including just outside the apartment doors and the stench is really bad. You would hear cats fighting outside during the night. The cats seemed to be encouraged too, as about 30m outside our apartment were a couple of cat 'houses' with food, water and toys for the cats.

Reception: The receptionists attitude varied from indifference to animosity as if we were wasting their time being there. We never got extra pillows we asked for, and we found out about several facilities from other guests, rather than been given a run down of everything when we arrived.

Check out facilities: There is a shower room you can book before leaving if your departure time is after the check out time. The room itself is a spare apartment with a broken shower, the sink ripped out and no electrics working or air conditioning.

Entertainment: Entertainment seems to be mainly focussed on younger children, not a lot for adults or teenagers. This is an issue as the hotel does not have a lot of other entertainment in the surrounding area, apart from Holiday World (small fun fair, arcade...

Just come back from there the hotel at best is a 3 star food Isn't the best either the grounds as quite a few cats and one had got in the room and taken a pee also cockroaches bin room we arrived late at night so had to wait for room to be cleaned after the cats the bare minimum is cleaned the hotel rooms are very dated the hotel itself needs updating the beds are really uncomfortable the sun loungers are uncomfortable and are dirty no tables are cleaned around the pool area at the end of the day pool toilet was always a mess no toilet roll no hand wash even after asking for it to be refilled no one came there is a spar shop across the road but quite expensive in there quite a track to get to a chemist aqualand is good again a bit dated but a good day out food drinks are expensive there thou so be prepared would recommend getting your phone put in a waterproof case it's 6 Euros well spent it's 5 Euros for a lounger and parasol there 40 euros for all pics that are taken so you may aswell get your pics taken as often as you can thru out the day ,,the beach was ok few food shops but if you need the toilet be prepared to pay 1 euro to use it aqualand and the beach are easy to get to ie the hotel offer free buses to them the reception staff at hotel are not helpful at all if you make a complaint it's like well tuff like it or lump it there was 7 of us all together 4 adults a 10 yr old ,3 yr old and a 1 yr old we arrived as the bar was about to close there was no place for food for the children they put apples and dry bread with bits of ham on on the desk just in the open with flies on and stale and she expected us to be grateful how this was meant to feed our babies I don't know there was no where to get water she said there is a glass bottle in your room in your very hot rooms as the air con wasn't working we said no we want some fresh water as you have filled the small glass bottle up we don't know what you have put in it but she just said that is all we have we couldn't make the babies bottles it was a very stressful time we tried to make it ok for the children but we were glad to be leaving when the time came the only thing good about the place is the entertainment team very good with the children Kevin , Claudia to name a few were really lovely but I would definitely not recommend this place it needs to be put under new management a complete over all new look a complete refebishment do not get taken in by pictures on the site these must of been taken when it 1st opened...