Gran Melia Palacio de Isora

Recently spent 4 days at the Gran Melia in Tenerife with my family. We tried out a few of the restaurants, with the Italian being our favourite. However, even the buffet was amazing with a few fresh cooking stations for requests. The pancake chef at breakfast (Oscar) did my cousin an Arsenal badge pancake which was incredible and made his day! The grounds are beautiful, all the pools were lovely and a reasonable temperature for a swim even in the winter months. Somehow, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the onsite Clarins spa and a game of padel at the sports hub. All the staff were so friendly and helpful - would definitely look to stay here again if ever back in Tenerife.

We stayed in the Gran Melia Palacio de Isora for 2 weeks as a family of 7 in 3 Red Level rooms from 4th October until 18th October. This was our 8th stay in the last 13 years & I can without a doubt tell you it will be our last. The service we received for our over £20,000 holiday was atrocious! Firstly, when we arrived after midnight on the Friday night, one of our rooms was in a terrible state. Smelt very badly of damp, chips out of the floor, chairs & sofas very dirty, loose planks of wood in the bathroom, the list was endless. This room was for my elderly mother & father. My father has just finished cancer treatment & has been left with scaring on his lungs therefore a damp room would have been very detrimental to his health. When I spoke to a red level member of staff the following morning about moving rooms, the only thing the lady was interested in was getting my credit card on file as it hadn’t been requested at check in (the three rooms had been paid in full at this point might I add) I note when requesting a new room the member of staff said ‘we need to make sure the new room isn’t in the same state as the previous one’ which doesn’t say much about the condition of your rooms. The room in question was 1157. The service in the bars & restaurants was the worst I’ve ever experienced. Every day we had to queue for atleast 30 mins at breakfast, lunch & dinner. It was impossible to book restaurants, we only managed to book the Italian twice in 14 nights. The service in the bars & restaurants was terrible. Couldn’t get drinks under 30 mins wait time. Very short staffed. There was some sort of conference on for 2 days while we were there. These people were allowed at the plaza bar & to stand & order drinks there but no other guests were. We must have waited over an hour to get a drink those two nights. My husband visited the reception 3 times to ask to speak to a manager about the service. 3 times his number was taken & was told someone would call back, still haven’t heard anything. Around a week into our holiday, my 7 year old son started to feel unwell. Sore throat & cold symptoms & lost his voice. He shared room 1149 with my husband. When I had went into their room on occasions, I noticed a strong odour, I thought it smelt like urine & quite offensive. I kept their window open a few times to try to eliminate it to no avail. My son continued to be unwell for the rest of our 2nd week. We returned home & had to visit the doctor after his breathing & cough became terrible to obtain antibiotics. The doctors have said his condition is most likely down to ‘staying in a mouldy, damp environment’. my husband has also been unwell since around 48 hours before we left. He has asthma & his breathing has not been great. We had a late checkout in one of our rooms on our departure day (room 1155) we noticed that when my husband & sons room (1149) was being cleaned, the maid had the window wide open as if she was airing it; coinciding with our thoughts