Melia Tortuga Beach - All Inclusive

Be very careful booking this hotel. Hotel wasn't so bad room 225 and 443 were horrendous! This hotel was sold as a luxury hotel 4star, official rating 5star. It was bearly a 3star. Were people that are happy with anything....unless it's filthy. DO NOT BOOK THIS HOTEL!

But, shouldn't have worried. Will admit that we had a problem with our allocated room (aircon unit leaking). Asked to be moved, and ended up in a lovely room. Staff were very helpful. The hotel seems to get a lot of criticism re the food. We found that especially in the main dining room there was so much choice you could always find something to eat, and the desserts are really yummy. Only complaint would be that the air con in the restaurant and main building needs to be more efficient. Always book the speciality restaurants when you can, gives a bit more variety. The beach is wonderful, and a short walk to the safe swimming beach. I think people need to be aware that all of the food items are imported and as such may not be available on the menu as expected. All in all we enjoyed the holiday.

Just returned from 7 night stay. We definitely won't return. The rooms are lovely and air conditioning works well. At least 1 film station in English. Our towels weren't replaced for most of the week until I complained. She folded them and put them back and threw one over the shower side. The drinks glasses are random sizes. A beer in a tiny glass isn't great. Cocktails were rubbish. Gin and tonic ok, beer ok. Food abysmal. I had diarrhoea after eating in the beach grill at the very start of the holiday. The buffet has nothing cooked fresh except eggs and omelette at breakfast. The bread buns are rock hard. The toast bread toasts like concrete. Nothing is hot and there's no microwave. Coffee is served in a jug which you have to get yourself but they don't tell you. It's instant coffee in a jug. The Italian meal was atrocious. We were even offered something else. Both chose pizza. The base was so overdone we couldn't cut it. We ate the topping and left the base. The starter served with garlic bread. The garlic bread was stone cold and rock hard. There is no ice cream in the Italian or buffet. When you check in the receptionist mutters something about the wristband having 100 euros. They don't explain that it allows you to go to the spa etc and spend up to 100 euros on it but then you have to pay whatever you have used. Nothing is free. We had loads of mosquitos in the apartment when we arrived and got lots of bites while in bed and we had all windows closed. The animation team are the worst I have encountered. No interaction. They turn up at the pool at 10.45 carrying a speaker. Then the music starts. Sometimes they jig about. Sometimes they do aqua gym. But they never come around the pool asking people to join. We saw one child play darts. Again nobody was asked where we were. The darts board has sunbeds underneath and on this particular day, the only day in a week that a child joined in the animation asked the guests to move. Even then it was dangerous. The child soon gave up. It's also close to the pool edge. The main entertainment is dancing with flashing lights. I couldn't watch when the lights flashed. The dancing was very boring and the audience frequently left early. We did the island tour with a local. It was ok. We went to the lemon shark beach. We didn't go in. It's nothing like TUIs pictures. You wade out up to your waist over rocks in choppy seas. Nothing like it looks on TUIs page. We did meet some lovely people staying there but we all were of the same opinion that we wouldn't return

I'll start with the positives. ROOMS well suites clean spacious, but outdated but perfectly adequate. POOL AREA usually enough sunbeds but that didn't stop people getting up stupidily early to reserve there favourites. Ogrille restaurant very good food, but NEVER had a full menu, and you have to book for evening meal. But lunches very good. Prosecco really good Cocktails ok when they hadn't run out. Baileys hit and miss, good at times, watered down at worst. Beach stunning, but you can only swim by bikini beach. Bad Bits Where to start. FOOD in buffet absolutely disgraceful in the evening, 2 other guests sat with a plate of mash potato because they didn't like fish and there was nothing else they could have. I had a piece of fish but didn't taste right so I didn't eat it,no other potato option, we gave up in the end, and no puddings. Breakfast was OK, except food was incorrectly labelled, (mozzarella bites were actually sausage bites). I happened to see the tui rep and reported to him. Saw chips once... at breakfast. Milk not refilled, tea bags run out all the time. Couldn't book either the fusion or Italian,but people said the Italian was awful raw pizza bases. Snackbar in the Italian was awful one day the choice was 2 types of sausage or a sandwich, which were warm. Second day similar choice, such a shame cos we had some lovely snacks on our first day samosas, little croquettes, sausage bites but, this didn't happen very odd. So many people complained to the hotel and tui rep o e lady was told to eat out and keep the receipt and she would be reimbursed. We had to eat out 4 nights out of seven!! Not the end of the world but we didn't have a choice as couldn't get into the booked restaurants and they are not open every day making availability even more scarce. We are along with loads of other people going to formally complain to tui about the food. We did speak to the tui rep about it on two occasions. Room service. Beds remade every day. Tea coffee etc not restocked, despite asking on 2 occasions. Milk is powdered. Staff, at best don't speak English or they don't want to be there, at worst just rude apart from Eileen in ogrille and Ricardo at pool bar and another lady at pool bar who's name we didn't get. They are rude and speak in their own language while ignoring you. Pools are in need of maintenance missing tiles and not very clean. It's such a shame cos it has the potential to be a great hotel, I get it's meant to be relaxed, but this isn't relaxed it's shoddy. The £100 on wristbands wasn't offered to everyone only late bookers. Mosquitoes were a big problem not anyone's fault, just for your info Santa maria you will get hassled to go in shops but a polite no works, local restaurants are reasonably priced, and good food. Che pastis and picador are very authentic, sal beach bar excellent cocktails. You have to go to this hotel knowing its not 5 star and evening meals have to be booked and only between 11 and 2 The information

Big shout out to Antonio who was an excellent staff member that was so so helpful on our holiday, do not let him go!! He’s a star! Great family holiday, read a lot of reviews before going and the bad ones we read are simply not true. Staff go above and beyond for the guests! Lovely atmosphere with stunning views. Very clean and very welcoming!

Oh dear. Not sure what has happened to this Hotel. Not everything is negative on this review but the Food and High End Management was the main issue. We've stayed here on 6 previous occasions but this will be the last. Firstly, the staff at the Spa, Housekeeping, Gardeners, Bar Staff & Maintenance Staff work so hard. They never stop. I have to mention, in particular, Eileen, Flavia, Ava, Antonio (Spices Restaurant) and Ricardo. Myself and my mother in law visited the Spa and had a facial. We would both definitely recommend having a treatment here. The staff are wonderful and we both felt fabulous after our visit. Reception - Had an issue with the location of the 2 rooms that we had booked but the Male Reception guy (sorry forgot your name) was so helpful and sorted everything out within a day. Cant thank him enough. The Female reception staff need to realise that people have paid a lot of money for their holiday so any issues should not be treated as a joke. Food - this is the biggest issue. We've never had any issues with the food before but unfortunately my husband, mother in law and my son were sick for a couple of days. The quality of ingredients is very poor. There is only so much any good chef can do with cheap cuts of meat and fish. Director's bad attitude - on Friday 8th November, around 7am, we noticed a "gentleman" in the Spices restaurant who obviously had connections with the hotel. My husband asked one of the staff who the "gent" was and we were told he was a Director. The young lady who was in charge of "meet and greet" at the door ended up being pulled to one side by him. Instead of having a quiet word he started to wave his "fat sausage" finger in her face. I felt it was totally uncalled for and she looked really uncomfortable afterwards. Absolutely no need, no matter what the problem was. The Pools - although the pools are cleaned of leaves every morning, we couldn't help but notice that quite a few of the tiles have come loose and really do need replacing. I appreciate it would be difficult when the hotel is always full. All in all, we used to love our holidays here but will not return again.