Meliá Sevilla — Hotel in Seville

LLet’s start with the good:

The proximity to the city centre is fantastic. A 20 minute walk and you’re in the door of your favourite restaurant. Maybe longer if you’re walking in the shaded areas only (highly recommended).

The pool is amazing. Overlooking the plaza is a beautiful site & I can never get over how good it looks. The pool, especially in July & August is vital to survival.

The hotel & rooms are exceptionally clean. The cleaning staff do an amazing job. They will still offer to provide fresh towels too. They’re always polite & always say good morning.

The air conditioning within the room is probably the most vital part of the stay. To go back to a cool 17 degree room after being in the sun for hours is great.

Sadly the bad parts:

‘The level’ upgrade is only good if you use it every day. Having the room on a higher floor overlooking the pool is definitely worth some money but the level bar area in my opinion isn’t worth it. Typically the sandwiches are the leftover rolls/bread from breakfast (which I have no issue with) but it’s the lack of difference & variety. I got very bored of the same sort of lunch 3 days in. So much so that we decided to just buy lunch at the pool bar. Not being able to access the food or drink in the pool area is a bit of a pain too. I’d also suggest opening the area until 12 in the evening as most guests don’t come back to the hotel from the city past 11 & always want a few bottles of water.

The breakfast service has got worse over the past 4 times we’ve been here. After a week, it can get very samey. There’s a lot of variety in a way, but also not (personally I couldn’t eat broccoli for breakfast or any vegetables of that ilk, whereas some people could). The level breakfast service doesn’t have hot food (bacon, sausages etc) available either. If we were to come back, we’d only pay for a couple of days I think.

On 3 separate occasions, our key to our room stopped working. Being on the 10th floor, it’s rather annoying (more so considering only 2 lifts were in service) to go up and down. 2 of those 3 occasions, we were given different keys & those still didn’t work… resulting in another trip downstairs. The second time we had to wait half an hour for a maintenance person to fix the door for us. We expected to wait for a maintenance person in a busy hotel but we had a dinner reservation which we nearly missed because of it.

This was the only year we had an issue with the sun beds. For the first 8 days, we saw towels being put out way before the 11 o’clock opening time. We were confused as this wasn’t the case the years before. To ensure we didn’t miss out on a bed, we decided to start putting towels out too. Only right. We only put towels out once other people had, never wanted to be the first ones. On the 9th day however, we put out towels out & we realised we had a passive aggressive note on our sun bed, highlighting the pool opening times & “not allowed to reserve sunbeds” part.

Now, this wouldn’t have been an issue on the second day but the 9th day is a bit of a joke really. Either enforce rules or don’t. I went to reception to ask why this had been put onto our beds & no explanation was given, just that this was a rule. I asked for an explanation of why today was any different. I wasn’t given an answer. I went back up to the pool area to find that out towels had been moved by other guests & an argument followed. An argument that wouldn’t have been needed if the hotel had enforced rules in the first place.

Trust me, I understand the rules. But if the rules aren’t being followed by anyone else for the first 8 days of our holiday, why should we miss out on a sunbed?

But overall, it was a good experience at Melia and if it wasn’t for the towel incident & the inconvenience of the key cards, it may of been a better stay. I cannot state this enough however… the pool is too good to go elsewhere...

Simply terrible. I regretted staying there for many reasons which I set out below, and which are consistent with the other one star reviews I read with interest after my stay: The service is awful. Staff are unfriendly, unhelpful and rude. The hotel would not assist us with booking a taxi for our 4:30am departure when we asked them the night before because "there is a taxi rank outside" (which is deserted at 4:30am. Another reviewer flagged this also). The bathrooms are very cramped and have a sliding door. In our first room, the door did not shut and the toilet wouldn't flush. The bedrooms are basic with no amenities. No kettle, no coffee-maker, no iron. We called specifically and requested an iron which was delivered. There are no USB ports for charging your phone, as is now standard and would be expected in a 4-star hotel. One of the small number of power sockets did not work in our second room. In one of the rooms we staying in there was a timer which turned off the lights and air-conditioning every 5 minutes (another reviewer had the same problem). I called reception and they sent two men up who had belts with screwdrivers on them but no English speaking ability. We then conversed via Google Translate. They left a few minutes later and the lights again switched themselves off. I called reception about it again and also outlined how poor the stay had been and mysteriously the issue vanished shortly afterwards. The lady I spoke to then was at least apologetic, unlike the three front of house male staff members we spoke to at other times (including David and Olay), who were unhelpful and rude. You get a small complimentary water bottle every day, rather than a couple of larger bottles. The room is simply not of a 4-star hotel standard. The three rooms we saw had two single queen beds pushed together. If you are travelling with a friend its a bit too intimate and if you have booked a double room, then don't expect that it will have been changed to a double (by zipping the mattresses together and remaking the bed as a double). You will have to call reception and request this be done, as we did for our original room (booked as a double room) and the room we were moved to (the toilet worked and you could close the bathroom door in that one, so it was a bit better). It is clear from reviews that the lifts had some historical issues and from a visual inspection, the lifts have recently been replaced or upgraded (but not well, the decor around the lifts and the lift buttons is pretty shabby so its obvious). On the three floors I visited above the first floor, there is only one button to call a lift to go up and down and an up arrow is displayed whatever happens when the lift arrives. I found this confusing and I observed many fellow guests who were also confused. You then have a 50/50 chance of the lift going up or down. Avoid the one on the far right as you face the lifts. It makes an alarming squeaking noise and you may experience significant anxiety while using it. The location isn't great. Plaza de Espana is nearby, but its about a 15 minutes walk into town. That could be a problem in the hot season. The pool is short and has steps which take up quite a bit of space and means its not a pool you would be doing lengths in if it is busy. It is fine for a quick dip. On their first night, one of our group ate room service and felt ill the next day, and I didn't eat at the hotel for that reason. The hotel indicated a price of about EUR 20 for breakfast. Sevilla has amazing and cheap food, so that is something to think about. Another reviewer speculated that the large volume of 5 star reviews for this hotel were the result of a PR firm. I cannot comment on that, but I can say that my experience was consistent with the other one star reviews. I anticipate a blame-shifting Chat GPT response from the...

We are recently back from a 7 day city break in a Level suite at the Melia Sevilla. Overall we had a great time, and Sevilla is a lovely place to visit, but whilst the Melia is a good hotel in most ways, it comes with a few compromises. Pre arrival communication with the level team the was great and our request for a quiet room was met perfectly. The 9th floor suite was large and comfortable and had a great view of the Plaza de Espana, but it did need some maintenance in a few areas, and looked a little tired around the edges, like the whole hotel really. Cleaning was sometimes hit and miss with a mysteriously moving waste bin in the bathroom, toilet roll not replenished one day, and a used baby wipe on the balcony when we arrived, which stayed there for 3 days before I cleared it away. It’s worth noting that the rooms on the 9th floor are the only ones with proper balconies. So you pay well for a bit of outside space and a decent view, as many of the other rooms just have picture windows looking out on the air conditioning units or adjacent properties (some of which are pretty run down). The communal facilities are good overall but the hotel is currently undergoing major refurbishment works including new lifts and some parts of the hotel with no walls and windows, or lift controls. This should be mentioned on the hotel website as it does looks very poor, and impacts on customers at times – like when only 2 of 4 lifts are working. The level lounge was very nice generally with great staff, a relaxed breakfast offer and the availablity of drinks and snacks most of the day, handy when it’s 37 centigrade outside. We did note inconsistencies on food labelling depending on who was working, which was challenging for my vegetarian wife. The hotel does attract some large groups which can be disturbing to the peace and quiet at times with drunken Brits shouting, singing and throwing food around in the level lounge after all day drinking on a couple of occasions, and other nationalities rowdy round the pool. It was disappointing that the staff (who in other ways were 100% excellent throughout the hotel) did nothing to control them but I appreciate they are in a difficult position on this. The hotel is in a good location being 15-20 minutes walk from the main city centre attractions and close to the tram and buses if you want them, and although the immediate area looks a little run down there are plenty of good eateries, bars and a large supermarket within 5 minutes walk. We mainly explored the city on foot but also used the tram, buses and the Cabify App to get around when the heat got too much. All are cheap and easy to use even for us! The benefit of having a pool in the hotel can’t be overstated, and although getting sunbeds could prove tough later in the day – we ventured out into the city early and then returned for a siesta and subsequent swim – there were always plenty of deckchairs. As noted above it can also get a bit boisterous at times though. At the end of our stay a bird flu outbreak closed various green spaces around the city so if you are going soon (Sept 2025) it’s useful to know that you may miss out on some great attractions as a result. The Melia is clearly undergoing a transformation at the moment and you therefore need to choose your room and options with care, but it remains a nice place to base yourself for a...