GPRO Valparaiso Palace and Spa

Visited this hotel in October and what a magical experience. The hotel was immaculate, the grounds and pools beautiful. The staff were so accommodating . The bedroom (we had room 602 with partial ocean view) had a balcony and the complimentary toiletries were replenished daily. The bed was huge and very comfortable Food was spot on and the light evening entertainment was welcomed. Only criticism was the the spa could possibly do with a little bit of attention and I would have liked a kettle in the room. Thank you for the complimentary bottle of fizz and chocs - it made my birthday that extra special. Fab 8 days :-)

I haven???t been to many fancy hotels so when I was told we were off to a 5* Urban Resort (website description) I was very excited. As always in big hotels the entrance foyer is grand and very well looked after. The style is 1970???s but I liked it very much. The corridors and lifts are nice and the room we had was pleasant enough. We were in a group of three girls meeting up for the weekend and so had asked for a room for three. Staff gave us an extra bed which was perfectly adequate and fit the room OK despite being obvious it was wheeled in from a cupboard somewhere. We were given three robes and slippers and plenty of towels and toiletries in the room. The view was superb as the hotel is on a hill, looking out from the balcony you could see the cruise ships in the harbour. I was sad to see we only got two water glasses, two cups and two ???nespresso??? style coffee pods between three of us. I could see from the box on the table there was a charge for more coffee pods which I think is unfair. Us English love our tea and I was disappointed there wasn???t a kettle or any tea bags etc. There was a welcome note addressed to someone else and two cookies on the table in the room. Small things but poor for a 5* hotel. The room was clean and well decorated and had a smart TV but the air con was turned off and the only source of fresh air was the patio door. Sadly, it was raining so we couldn???t have this open as it was right next to the ???extra??? bed and she would have got wet. I feel like the hotel has tried too hard to be posh and just missed the mark, breakfast was ???28 each so we avoided this having already paid over ???200 a night for the room. Luckily we had a hire car but bear in mind many local places are closed on a Sunday in November. We visited the Spa on the second day and we were very disappointed. Due to a misunderstanding / language barrier we went after we had checked out and staff did not want to let us in despite saying we could the day before. When they did we were given the basic towel only and no slippers/ gowns/ water like all the other spa guests had, this was embarrassing. We didn???t bring gowns from the room because we didn???t want anyone to think we had stolen them on check out. The pool was dirty and seemed excessively chlorinated, dirty puddles of water in steam rooms/ sauna room and treatments averaged ???90 for a massage. Overall I had a good weekend with good people and I accept that as I don???t speak Spanish it makes it harder to correct issues but I feel like the issues were basic ones that should not crop up in a five star hotel. If you compared this to a 5* hotel in Dubai or the US this would be more of a 3* with less for the Spa.

Had I just booked bed and breakfast, I would have walked away from 7 nights at this hotel very happy with my stay. There are a lot of great features including; great breakfast and a beautiful room to enjoy it, you can even eat outside which is a lovely feature; lovely staff behind reception; fabulous pool area, lots of space, with the most comfortable loungers I have ever enjoyed in a European hotel; lovely clean room with a number of British TV channels, (although charging for Nespresso pods is a bit cheeky given the cost of the room!); location is great with a bus stop outside the hotels and buses running into Palma every 20 mins. The part that wasn???t so great was the dining experience with the evening meals- unfortunately it really ruined the week, in that towards the end of it I would have rather have gone to McDonalds of an evening as at least it would have been over quickly! I eventually dreaded going to dinner as I knew that it was going to be a frustrating experience from start to finish. Firstly the menu is the same every night and every lunchtime for that matter. There were sometimes specials but you had to rely on the staff giving you a good description - English for some of the staff was a challenge- it would have been better o have it written day for clarity. Some nights the restaurant was pretty dead so completely lacked ambience. Other nights it was busy and a 3 course meal took 2.5 hours to complete- I have never waited 20 minutes to have my main course plates removed in a 5 star hotel before - and this is the problem - it???s a 3 star hotel restaurant operating as a 5 star wannabe. Twice I got the wrong main course given to me, twice I specifically asked for an ingredient not to be added, e.g basil, and still got it then had to wait 20 mins for it to be re-cooked so my partner and I ended up basically eating separately. Everything is drowning in oil, which I found a bit much so I stared to ask for a dish without oil, but it still arrived swimming! I asked for appletiser and because they had run out they give me apple juice - who does this? Any decent restaurant staff would simply tell you so you can decide if that was ok or alternatively make a different selection. There is no dress code in the restaurant, so it was typical to have someone sitting in jeans and hoody on the next table- is this suitable for a 5 star restaurant? It???s a great hotel and it???s just a shame that the restaurant really lets it down. Restaurants in the area are not great and I would not want to walk down and up that hill in heels every evening for dinner anyway. Taking taxis in and out of Palma isalways an option in the evenings, but that cost mounts up if you are doing it every day. Please sort your restaurant out and I would return- as it stands I could not recommend it to anyone other than as a B&B.