Sandos Griego Hotel

Had a great time at the Sandos Griego , this being our 3rd time. Food was good but not too warm , this is fairly normal in hotel buffet restaurants so no big deal , plenty choice of food, something for everyone. The hotel's Beach Bar and free bus to it was great too, staff there were excellent. We had a Superior Pool view room, recently modernised, no real complaints except the toilet seat was slack , just needed tightened with an Allen Key.......cleaners should really notice that and pass it to Maintenaince. The grilled meats Gioconda restaurant was excellent, allways a nice welcome from Carl. My only points to note were are that Reception never asked us at check-in if we would like to book the Gioconda , we only knew about it as we'd been to the hotel last Sept and also in May and was asked at check-in both times ......so we had to go to reception next day to book it, they should be asking at check-in. We were All inclusive for 8 nights......i believe we should also have got the chance to book it twice even though we wouldn't have done so. Also reception staff should be giving out the Beach Bar key-code at Check-in too, instead of having to go and ask for it. This hotel is well worth the money, if it was a beach-front hotel then it would be much more expensive than what it costs, we will almost certainly return for a 4th time next year.

Overall, a terrible experience. Staying here felt more like staying in a retirement home than a holiday hotel, judging by the clientele. Unfortunately, the negatives far outweighed the few positives during our stay.

I’ll start with the positives, because credit where credit’s due. For an all-inclusive hotel, getting a decent lager on tap rather than a watered-down local version was a pleasant surprise. They had Amstel and a lemon radler, both of which tasted great. The spirits also seemed to be of a decent standard and didn’t appear to be watered down.

The location of the hotel is another positive. It’s very convenient for getting to the beach, local restaurants and pubs. There are also a few convenience shops right outside, which was ideal for us for stocking up on beer and crisps before getting the bus to the golf courses.

The negatives, however, were numerous.

The staff generally appeared disinterested and weren’t particularly welcoming. The rooms are very dated, and I stayed in a triple room where one of the beds was basically positioned in a hallway with no air conditioning. It was constantly roasting, meaning the person sleeping there struggled to get any decent sleep. Unfortunately, when we raised this with reception, we were simply told that all the rooms are preset to 23°C and there was nothing they could do about it.

The bathroom was also very basic. The tiles on the floor were cracked and would actually lift when you stepped on them. That said, there was both a bath and a shower, and both were usable.

The food was probably the biggest disappointment after the lifts. It was essentially an instant pass every meal — warm if you were lucky, tasteless, and with everything crammed together. There are two rows of food positioned right beside the tables, leaving very little room to walk past when people are getting food. There are also only two self-service drink stations, so you can end up standing in a queue just to get a drink.

There are live cooking stations, which are a good idea and at least guarantee you can get something hot, but unfortunately even the freshly cooked food lacked much flavour.

The lift situation, though, was easily the worst part of the hotel.

There are only two lifts, each of which holds around five people. They travel from the bottom floor to the top and stop to pick people up along the way. We were staying on the fifth floor, and most times the lift arrived it was already full of people going either up or down, meaning we ended up taking the stairs most of the time.

As golfers carrying golf bags, however, taking the stairs wasn’t always practical. On some occasions we were waiting up to 15 minutes for a lift. It’s simply poorly designed for the number of people staying at the hotel, and there really should be more lifts.

Overall, if you’re looking for somewhere cheap and budget-friendly to put your head down, spend most of your time out exploring and make the most of some free drinks, then this hotel might do the job.

However, if you’re planning a holiday where you’ll be spending a lot of your time at the hotel, I’d avoid this one. There are a few positives, particularly the location and drinks, but for us the negatives massively outweighed them.