Lopesan Villa del Conde Resort & Corallium Thalasso

We stayed at the hotel at the start of October, on arrival it all seemed great - a glass of fizz at reception whilst checking in, the cases sent to the room from outside meaning we were bag free... then we were told that we had to pay for the safe in the room, we were both absolutely gobsmacked!! There are hostels and B&B's that don't charge for a safe!! Then we were told that you have to pay for wifi if you want to be anywhere other than reception...this was also a massive shock, in this day and age, there's wifi available everywhere complimentary! We had to pay for wifi on 2 occasions, and they mentioned we can get it free in reception, well who's spending all day in reception? The connection to the paid wifi would drop constantly as well, which made it rather pointless. Guests want to check their social media accounts, catch up on news etc whilst at the pool. I'm not sure if I am just too used to staying in 5 star hotels in Dubai etc with the service and amenities being fantastic but given the VDC is a 5 star hotel, I expected the same. I couldn't find slippers in the room so I called to ask, apparently they no longer put them in the rooms... in this case you should update the website to reflect this. You can hear EVERYTHING in the neighbouring rooms, babies crying, conversations... the guests in the room above us would take to rearranging furniture at about 7.30 each morning. Every footstep is heard, conversations in the hallway are so loud, there's a gap under the main door which doesn't help this. We paid for a sea view room, but could barely see the sea. We ran out of hand wash on the Monday (3 days into the stay) and we thought it would have been picked up on... on the Wednesday I had to mention to reception who said they would tell housekeeping. The room was made up and still no hand wash. At turn down (which you only get some nights), we had to tell the maid, only then was it replaced. I accidentally dropped some makeup in the bath and in a rush to get out for dinner, I didn't have time to wipe it, forgot about it etc. It took 1 day for it to be cleaned by the room cleaners, and even then, it wasn't properly cleaned up. The mini bar fridge didn't work, all of the contents were warm. It is also tiny, only offering coke, diet coke, water - still and sparkling and a mini bottle of champagne. There were 2 bottles of water outside of the fridge but we didn't know what they were for... after asking it turns out they are complimentary (finally something that is) and we stupidly thought they would be replenished each day... they weren't. One of the days, there was blood in one of the lifts, this took a whole day to be cleaned and was definitely not hygienic. This was towards the end of the holiday and I was at my wits end by this point, I was ready to go home. The pool areas were lovely, nice breeze and clean. Breakfast was nice, we were half board so had the buffet options at night again. This got VERY repetitive and I think if we were to return, we would go for B&B so as to go locally for dinner. We ended up going out for dinner for the last 3 nights as I was so bored of the buffet. As previous reviews have said, you are not shown to your table for breakfast & dinner, which caused confusion for us at the start of the holiday as this isn't something we are used to. A lot of lovely restaurants nearby and shops on the promenade, this was the most enjoyable part of the holiday for me. All in all, the holiday was to be a relaxing one for us, and we achieved that by lying at the pool, just disappointed in a lot of factors and was ready to go home by the end, a feeling I've not had in a long time.

We had previously stayed in the Baobab and i liked the look of this hotel.It is lovely very quiet and peacful. As with all hotels you can alwayd find faults a couple of things that i think should have been provided are - Free safe, free wifi & tea & coffee in room. It was all very clean,the room very spaceous , a lovely walk in wardrobe. No problems getting a sunbed what ever the time of day.The hotel did take towels away if they were put down before 10.00am which generally does not happen.The grounds were very nice, kept clean & tidy. Food very good, the restaurants were set around a coutyard which was very appealing. We had good service the whole time we were there.The only problem we did encounter was with the a la carte restaurant which was very disappointing. We had booked as it was our anniversay,The wait between courses was so long, we like to wait a little while but we felt we were left, all the other tables were getting served. In the end we left,we didn't get our dessert and we made a complaint.The hotel did sort this out the following day which i was impressed with but i doubt very much if i would visit the a la carte restaurant again.The surrounding area is good a promenade for walks.Local shops very near.Would i go here agin - yes but reading what other people have said the prices have gone up a lot so i would have to look at that.We did enjoy the hotel and had fantastic weather which helped!