SBH Costa Calma Palace Thalasso & Spa

Firstly I did email the hotel’s head office with this feedback but have no response - I felt I should write to you directly concerning elements of our recent stay at the above hotel and before I post other online reviews to see your response. My wife and I had stayed previously at this hotel in 2018 and found there to be certain areas where we feel that standards had fallen below what should be expected. We were not happy with our first bedroom after paying for a sea view and asked to be moved, we were just told the hotel is full. After asking again the following day and persisting and showing photographs of our view to Iris we were informed that we could move to a different room the following day. One of your reception team”Walter” certainly needs training in customer service. In relation to the buffet and dining room experience. The hotel was at 100% capacity as we were frequently told but large sections of the seating area were cordoned off. We actually requested to be moved 3 times during our stay. Generally we do find it somewhat outdated that when ordering drinks in the restaurant or any bar that a handwritten ticket is produced, a copy given to me, the customer while you retain a copy which has then to be manually keyed into a till point for it to register against our room number. Surely there is a better and more efficient method in these times of internet capability, tablets and point of sale devices. It seems overly complicated in this day and age to watch restaurant staff keying in such orders. The buffet system needs to be looked at. The cooking stations are too close together, the whole buffet area is not utilised effectively in terms of space as there are areas which are not used but large queues build up at various points. This is especially worrying at the dessert area. All the desserts are situated in a long line starting at fruit and ending with ice cream. If you only want to have something from the middle of this line for example you have to join the queue at the fresh fruit counter. Guests are not happy if you just want say ice cream and we were rudely told to go back and join the long queue. Also there is a dessert cooking station in the middle and this would be better placed away from the other desserts to help ease the backlog. As I said there is plenty of unused space in the buffet area which could be used for this. The queues for the cooked fish and eggs at breakfast were unacceptable. Items were not replenished and there was a total lack of supervision in the buffet area to check on items running out. The vegetable selection was very limited and repeated most evenings. It was just too busy for us and definitely down graded since our previous visit. We did not expect to be queuing up together into the dining room and joining a mad rush at 8am to get a table in the outside terrace! The hotel is in need of repairs and renovation. You can see from the attached photographs of our balcony and bedroom furniture that if

I was very impressed with this hotel when I first arrived. The location was perfect, the beach is a very short walk away and it is gorgeous. The architecture of the hotel is impressive, it is VERY quiet which was what I wanted, including the pool area which never livens up, even during the day! If you want somewhere peaceful, this place is great. Costa Calma is not a lively resort by any means, but provided a fab location for me as every tour provider I booked a trip with was able to pick me up from this hotel. Breakfast was good, very relaxed atmosphere. Mainly because it wa so quiet all the time. But that was a good thing! Evening meal got a bit boring after a few days as the menu didn't change much, but it was edible. Only downside is that despite me paying for half board, evening drinks were extra...over three euros for a tiny bottle of Coke or Fanta. Safe cost 27 euros extra, wifi cost extra, even tea and coffee in the room cost extra. Beach towels...yes, extra. Good job I brought my own. A four star hotel should be providing things for free. It is about keeping guests happy, not trying to make extra money out of us. The room was fine although you could tell it was a few years old. Some cosmetic repairs wouldn't go amiss. Air con was next to useless sadly. Overall though, I was happy with my choice. Until day four, when things went downhill. So...upon arrival at the hotel I was given a card with my name and room number on. I was told to take it to the restaurant in the evening. So I did. However, the head waiter told me on my first night that this didn't matter and I could sit anywhere (like you do at breakfast). I had previously been led to believe tables were reserved, and assumed this is what the card was for, but this didn't appear the case. Fine, no dramas. For four nights I just sat anywhere, and nobody said anything. Day four, and by this time I was fuming at the small expensive drinks in the restaurant. I was hot and dehydrated, and needed to take some medication before dinner. So on my way down I bought a small 90c bottle of water from the hotel shop. I went in the restaurant, sat down and took my tablets with this water, with the intention of still buying yet another over priced Coke. Another problem with this was the fact that most nights I would finish my first plate of food before anyone even took my drink order! Anyway...a waitress, whose name sadly I did not get, came to my table and saw my water. I immediately asked for a Coke Zero, as usual. However, she ignored this and started to "tell me off" in Spanish, gesturing with her hands and raising her voice, clearly trying to tell me my water was not allowed in the restaurant. I explained as best I could that I spoke "Ingles"......several times, but she carried on, looking cross and talking to me with a stern, angry look. Honestly, it left me feeling like a naughty child. I was upset after this, and quite angry. But the next evening I went down again as normal