Bahia Principe San Felipe

Overall, I’d describe this as a solid 3-star hotel rather than the advertised 4-star. It wasn’t a terrible stay, but it didn’t quite meet our expectations, and I personally wouldn’t return.

There are definitely some positives. The hotel is exceptionally clean, and the staff throughout the hotel are friendly, welcoming and hardworking. One feature I absolutely loved was the key card wristband instead of a traditional room key – it’s such a simple idea but incredibly convenient, especially around the pool.

It’s worth knowing before you arrive that you can book into two à la carte restaurants, as nobody really tells you about this. The service in both was excellent. The Italian restaurant served a really good pizza, and the Mediterranean restaurant had lovely starters. However, I’d avoid the gnocchi Bolognese – it was honestly one of the worst dishes we had all week.

Our room was very clean and had a good-sized balcony. We had three beds; two were comfortable, but one was incredibly uncomfortable. The hotel itself is quite dated throughout, although for the price you pay that’s perhaps to be expected.

The pool area was one of the better aspects of the hotel. We never had any trouble getting a sunbed. We put our towels out around 9am and there were still plenty available, and even later in the day there were beds to be found. There was also a nice mix of children’s pools alongside big pool.

Unfortunately, the biggest disappointment was the all-inclusive food and drinks. Breakfast was decent, and you could make a perfectly acceptable sandwich at lunch, but overall the food was repetitive, low quality and reminded me of school dinners. We chose to eat out as often as possible.

The drinks were also disappointing. There was only a limited cocktail selection included, there was no fresh juice, and the juices available were very poor. You also can’t take drinks from the bar into the restaurant, and there’s no table service, so unless you want beer or sangria with your meal, your options are very limited.

Although the hotel is extremely clean – you can actually smell the floors being cleaned – we found the glasses at breakfast often tasted of cleaning products, which made using them quite unpleasant.

One thing to be aware of is noise. This isn’t the hotel’s fault, but if you have a pool-facing balcony you may struggle to sleep as guests and children were often outside making noise well past midnight.

The location is excellent. You’re right on the seafront, within easy walking distance of plenty of restaurants and shops, and there’s also a shopping centre directly behind the hotel which is perfect for escaping the heat for a while. If you’re lucky enough to get a sea-view balcony, I imagine the views would be lovely.

A useful tip: there are water coolers in the corridors, so bring a bottle of water and refill it throughout your stay. The hotel only provides a jug of water in the room rather than bottled water.

During our stay there were a couple of power cuts, the lifts were unreliable and frequently stopped working, which wasn’t ideal if you were staying on one of the higher floors. The spa was also closed throughout our visit.

Overall, this hotel has some genuine strengths – it’s clean, well located, the staff are excellent and the pool area is good. However, the dated facilities, disappointing all-inclusive offering and a few maintenance issues mean it simply doesn’t feel like a 4-star hotel. I’d happily rate it as a solid 3 out of 5, but unfortunately it’s not somewhere I would choose to stay again.

Let's start with the good parts of the hotel I'm currently staying here now for a week the hotel is very clean all the cleaning staff work really hard and are all very friendly we stayed in the older block of rooms the smell of damp was terrible the rooms are very basic and nothing I've seen before in a 4 star hotel but they are cleaned to a good standard everyday. Entertainment team are lovely and so hard working they try there best everyday to keep the kids entertained with games in the pool the pool area is good always clean and no fighting for sunbeds . The snack bar is very bad with just chips and stale sandwiches and salad everyday ,there is a better choice if you pay but you have to do this even if your all inclusive? The main restaurant is very busy the food standard is very low for a 4 star hotel my kids struggled most nights to find anything they liked so we did eat out 4 nights out of the 7 there's nothing like pizza for kids and only nuggets one evening so if you have fussy eaters this place will definitely disappoint you the drinks are ok but cocktails made from a machine and extremely sweet so couldn't have many my partner said the beer was good so he was happy . The hotel is next to lots of shops and bars it's a lovely walk with plenty to see and do but we have spent far more money than we usually would of if we stay in a all inclusive. I will definitely come bk to this area but unfortunately the hotel is just not good enough in my opinion for what we paid