Melia Tortuga Beach - All Inclusive

hotel - not complete luxury but still very lovely! very nice, villa cleaned daily, bathrooms clean and good pressure from showers. comfy beds and pillows. shampoo, body wash and conditioner included, conditioner is soooo good. a few extras provided, e.g. razor, shower cap, mini sewing kit, cotton wall pads, etc. two main pools, one lively with music and one quiet. loud pool has a swim up pool bar! shout out to ricardo and bruno, very good bartenders. tiles missing from pool but really not as issue unless you just want to be miserable. also two kids pool, one undercover. sun beds and umbrellas are good but can be hard to find as they are reserved early. no deposit is actually needed for the towels and they are easy to get from the towel hut by the pool. resort is beautiful with trees and flowers and lovely cats who we invited into the villa. aircon in living room of villa but not all bedrooms, but keeping bedroom door open in enough to control temperature. no problems with villa. two little gift shops with cute key rings, jewellery, soap, clothes etc. do not wait to get to the hotel to buy sun cream!!!!!!! one bottle is £20, so get it at the airport or bring it with you. beach is very nice, clean, but with limited sun bed. you can use sunbeds from neighbouring hotels 50 meters away, they don’t care. tropical fish in the water and opportunities to dive and snorkel. there is a man with a monkey! very cute. some staff a little rude, but mostly very friendly and enthusiastic. shoutouts to fabio from the spa, little willy from the pool, and the zumba/ darts man (forgot his name). all staff by the pool were lovely and fun. little willy asked for my instagram. food and drink- a few cocktails to chose from with the all-inclusive, along with a wide variety of other drinks, soft and alcoholic. cocktails were delicious and bartenders are happy to add more alcohol if you find them weak. bars are at the pool, in the lobby, and at the beach. restaurants are the buffet, an italian restaurant, a japanese restaurant, the beach restaurant and the secret garden. i recommend the last two, but all are nice experiences. a la carte restaurants are included but you need to book them, you can book all nights at once at the start of your holiday. be careful with the buffet or eating any fish or high risk food, a lot of food poisoning complaints but can be avoided. can’t be sure but looked like a lot of left over food was used the next day at buffet and sat out for a bit too long. secret garden has lovely steak and other grilled foods. food wasnt amazing overall, but some choices were great, and the a la carte restaurants were generally super good. very good variety considering it is all imported. water is good, a lot of bottled water provided. if you run out just ask at reception. entertainment- daily activities including water gyms and aerobics, pilates, yoga, zumba and dance classes, darts and beach volleyball/ football. there is a timetable in recepti

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.

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