Hacienda El Alcornocal

The hotel itself is very nice and we had a lovely room. That said, the terrace area for our room was so small, you could just about get a little round table & 2 chairs on it. Every day there was plenty of choice for breakfast, so no problems there. Ten of us booked for an evening meal one night, but disappointingly, the food was poor. There were ingredients missing from some of the starters and the chicken main course was so hard & tough, it was inedible. To be fair, they offered us a replacement meal, that whilst it was ok, it was served so quickly that there is no way the food is freshly prepared. Most days that we were there, we had the swimming pool to ourselves, but nothing else was open, including the pool bar. On our 1st afternoon, I went to reception to ask if we could get a drink to have by the pool, only to be told the bar does open until 7pm. On the Saturday afternoon that we were there, they had a wedding reception being held, and for a couple of hours, we were trapped in the pool area, as the exit to the main hotel lobby area was blocked off by the caterers for the wedding. With a few minor changes, this hotel could be so much better.

Disappointed with our stay once we realised that staff took no notice of our requests. Nice room, but marred by the fact that the air conditioning broke, and the hotel staff did absolutely nothing about it. There was also a couple in the room below us smoking **** on their patio, which stunk our room out, (window wide open because air con failed) and again, staff did nothing to stop this. When we complained about the lack of maintainance at check out the following morning, reception staff looked at me in amazement as clearly, she knew nothing about it, even when we told her we'd had no sleep at all and proceded to start to make a phone call ( to maintainance?) but we just walked off to be honest as we were leaving anyway. Average breakfast, no sauna or treatment room. This is one of the reasons we booked this hotel so we could have peace and quiet, and relaxing massages as treats. Poor gym with no air con and sun lounger mats for the pool we realised on the morning we were leaving, were stacked up in the rear of the restaurant, so we never used the pool because I suffer with back and hip problem so cannot lay directly on the hard plastic. We used the L shaped area with comfy cushions at the end of the pool bar to relax but when we came down to sit there on our last day, staff had taken all the cushions away, and put them in a cupboard in the gym area. Needless to say, we retrieved them and made ourselves comfortable. The bar area incidently outdoor was never staffed. Aside from our poor stay at the Exe, we thoroughly enjoyed our evening strolls into the vilage for evening meals, and can highly recommend Restaurante Yerbabuena which serves superb plates and the little pizza place next door but one is lovely The village locals are friendly, prices are low, and we also had a lovely morning at the zoo which is a rescue centre. We were just gutted the tiger cub was only 10 days old, so we couldnt hold her. Would we stay at the Exe again, ? On principle , no, as it seemed hotel staff couldn't have cared less.

Dreadful experience in this hotel. We arrived and the minute we walked in it appeared we had walked into some drama. One receptionist was finishing and we were served by the Second Lady who only spoke to mutter under her breath and type into the computer. Eventually after ages she gave us the room key. We asked about pool towels and she told us they would be at the pool and needed a deposit of €5. We went to the room which seemed lovely but had a double bed when we specifically booked for twin. We went down to the reception again to be told that was all that was available. Not happy about this I said that wasn’t what we booked and she then started to cry saying she had been working for 5 days straight! Ok call me a Karen but I didn’t have any sympathy, told her we work 5 days every week and this was our hard earned holiday. She told us to come back in 1 hour and she would see what she could do and we could use the double room in mean time. We went out to the pool which was deserted, no towels nothing except very hard recliners grass overly long with used plasters lying around. We stood on the grass and within minutes our feet were covered in ants. That was me done and we went back in and checked out. Not sure about the hotel as we didn’t get beyond the poor welcome and unhygienic pool area.

A lovely hotel in a small remote village in Spain. The hotel is clean and all the staff are on hand to help at any time. The food is lovely, breakfast is included and only 20€ per person for a three course dinner on the night. The town near by is quiet however there is lots of restaurants and bars to visit. About 25 minute taxi ride from Gibraltar to this hotel.

Booked here to stay one night with hotel groups website for 11th September, having stayed before in the summer and loved it. Unfortunately, due to the Queen passing away we couldn’t travel, so on 10th in the morning I contacted the chat help line to cancel . I was told that it was too late as the cancellation policy is 24 hours before guest check in date, as no time is given it’s not check in time meaning I had to cancel by 11.49 on the 8th. If I had booked with ***********, it would have been 24hours before booking ie check in time, so I would have been fine. I then asked if I could rebook, I was told to contact hotel direct. Did this by email and the just said it’s best to just cancel and rebook for when I wanted, I said ok please go ahead and cancel. This they did but without a word, charged me , I wrote back but no reply received. I am very surprised by this as having booked direct with the hotel group they would not have to pay the fees charged by other booking sites, so would expect better service. Sadly now , I will never return to this hotel.More