Seaside Grand Hotel Residencia

This was our first visit to the island and the hotel. We were not very impressed by the island itself, being very barren and only Mogan worth a trip out - if you like to explore and visit lots of places then we would prefer the mainland and Balearics. However, we knew this before we went and chose the hotel because we wanted to relax for a couple of weeks and the hotel was perfect. The weather was fantastic so days were spent sunbathing on very comfortable loungers with a superb pool and excellent pool service. Everywhere is immaculate, beautiful gardens with parrots in the palm trees and very few people using the pool and plenty of beds every day.Our garden room was lovely, again kept spotless by lovely happy maids and cleaned twice daily - everything you need is provided, good quality toiletries, powerful hairdryer, newspaper, fruit, water and choccies daily! Also all the UK TV channels plus loads more if you want them. Plenty of coathangers for two weeks which is a bug bear of mine! Bed linen and mattresses great, there were two types of pillow cases, two soft, two hard - I have a bad neck and found the combination of one of each perfect. Aircon quiet if you have the fan on half speed. Pool bar/restaurant very good with some nice refreshing alco free drinks and excellent food/tapas. We had half board and it was very good - great breakfast cooked to order, different menu every night with good choices including vegetarian and the barbecues were superb - loads of choice and the meat/fish top quality. Good extensive wine list. Service in the restaurant was fantastic, the staff all speak English, German, Spanish and other languages and were extremely professional whilst still being friendly and amusing - special mention for Yander and Maria but they were all great and also Jeronimo who is so efficient. Senora Martin is lovely and always on hand and the manager was evident in our first week. Some UK people have commented on this site about the hotel being full of Germans and geriatrics - yes the age group is probably mainly 50+ with a lot of over 70s and there was about a 50/50 mix of German/English while we were there and everyone was friendly (in fact the only few we found a bit offhand were English). It was a huge bonus for us not to have any children there, an often empty swimming pool to ourselves and quiet relaxing evening live music which is why people return as I expect we will. What really stands out is that ALL the staff seem genuinely happy in their work and go out of their way to assist you. So five stars and well deserved.

This was our second visit to the Gran Hotel Residencia after a gap of six years. We have almost never returned to the same hotel twice, for fear of a second experience being a disappointment. In this case the hotel seemed to deliver better food and service than we remembered. This destination goes the extra distance to ensure guests have complete satisfaction. A completely brilliant stay. We will go back next year.