Hotel Tabaiba Princess

“Sad to be leaving”

Just finishing a week long stay here.... Save to say I will be back.... It was amazing great staff beautiful hotel. Especially to Alejandro by the adults bar... So friendly and had us laughing all week...

“1st Birthday Family Holiday”

Came here for my daughter’s 1st birthday. The whole family had an amazing time. The food was good, something for everyone breakfast, lunch and dinner. The kids entertainment in the evening was the highlight of our daughter’s entire birthday holiday, she loved going to the show every single night. T… more

Came here for my daughter’s 1st birthday. The whole family had an amazing time. The food was good, something for everyone breakfast, lunch and dinner. The kids entertainment in the evening was the highlight of our daughter’s entire birthday holiday, she loved going to the show every single night. The drinks were quite good as well and the self service cocktail machine was a fantastic touch in my opinion. It’s a shame that there were not that many cocktail options on the all inclusive package but they still did the job. We had a family room and it was pretty good, cleaned everyday and a great size room.

less

“A week away”

Just returned from a weeks holiday. This hotel is a large complex, linked to next door hotel. In reality they work as one big hotel. The staff are all excellent. The hotel is spotless, the cleaning team must be commended. The main restaurant is the food market - the choice, variety and quality of t… more

Just returned from a weeks holiday. This hotel is a large complex, linked to next door hotel. In reality they work as one big hotel. The staff are all excellent. The hotel is spotless, the cleaning team must be commended. The main restaurant is the food market - the choice, variety and quality of the food is 5 star. All items are labelled. The restaurant can get busy at peak times, however, we always had a seat - tip eat outside as quieter. They have speciality nights. As we were staying 7 days we could book into the 2 specialists restaurants - Asian anf Italian. The Asian was well worth the visit. The Italian was nice but no different to what you can have in the food market (the menu should be reviewed). There is an adult only pool area where we spent our time - nice pool and bar. There are 2 snack bars available as well which were nice. The rooms are lovely and recently done up. On our side there is a lovely outdoor seating area to enjoy end of day drinks!! The hotel was busy with a lot of families, however, very calm and nice atmosphere. It is a nice 30 min walk to the dunes / beach. This is a good 4 star hotel. It dies need to crest more adult only areas.

less

“Nothing here is quite what it seems”

We stayed as adults without children. Overall, this was an adequate stay, but it quickly became evident upon arrival that this hotel is set up for families with pre-teen children and little else. We cannot understand why it justifies a “TUI 5T”or “Platinum Collection” rating or anything of the sor… more

We stayed as adults without children. Overall, this was an adequate stay, but it quickly became evident upon arrival that this hotel is set up for families with pre-teen children and little else. We cannot understand why it justifies a “TUI 5T”or “Platinum Collection” rating or anything of the sort. We have previously stayed at premium TUI resorts and this is nothing like them. The hotel is well presented, but behind the veneer, there are shortcomings aplenty. These were not ruinous to the holiday, but did leave us with “buyers’ remorse.” There are positives however, and if you’re looking for a basic all-inclusive family getaway in the sun, and if you have children under 10, this may be a decent choice for you. If you’re a sun seeker, there are plenty of beds to choose from, although some are worn. The pool areas are very clean and well presented and maintained. (Some tiled areas are slippery when wet, as others have mentioned, but that goes with the territory.) The gardens are mature, maintained immaculately, and are beautiful. We found the staff to be pleasant, courteous and helpful. We stayed in a “prestige suite” which had been refurbished. “Prestige” means that the room comes with an empty fridge, cups, tea, coffee, kettle etc. and these are serviced daily. We were also provided with daily bottled still and sparkling water. It is interesting to note that “standard” rooms appear to be lacking in some of these amenities. We would certainly require tea and coffee making facilities. The room was refurbished, and cleaned daily, although some ‘out of the way’ areas clearly had not been cleaned regularly, and other parts looked tired. The safe did not work, one television did not receive broadcast TV and, somewhat to our amusement, the other television did so only before 6pm! The room featured a segregated terrace with sunshade, chairs and sunloungers, which turned out to be essential for us. It is difficult to overstate the abundance of small children at this hotel, which runs more like a resort but without the staffing and comprehensive entertainment programme required to properly support them. While there is an adult-only pool area and “H2O” bar, the best spots are payable at €20 per day, and sunshades are relatively few. Consequently, we made significant use of our private terrace in an attempt to find some peace and quiet. There was no evening entertainment set up at the adults-only bar which was a real shame, as it was beautifully appointed and would have been ideal for evening drinks away from the melee of the hotel bars and restaurants. Neither was this bar open after 1800. On one day of the holiday the entire adults only pool and bar area was cordoned off for a private party, which was frustrating. We did not use the gym or spa. Evening bars comprise of a “chill out bar” (Tabaiba side) which is meant to be adults only, but that was not enforced at all, consequently after dining times it became overrun with hyperactive infants. The other evening bar is situated on the Maspalomas side, adjacent to the substantial outside entertainment area, which appeared to almost exclusively put on nightly shows for small children. How appropriate the “Rod, Jane and Freddy Show” is at 2130 we will leave for others to decide. There are several dining options for lunch, including a “heathy shack” and a “fast food shack” in addition to the somewhat euphemistically-named subterranean “Food Market.” The latter is your only choice for breakfast and is the main location for evening dining. There are no “in room” dining options. Prefer to dine in peace? We would advise to arrive early, and to leave early. The food is… edible. Children will love it - especially the desserts, some of which look practically psychedelic. We were reticent to try some of the food when it was, for example, labelled as “Chef’s Surprise.” Many of the items are not labelled at all (particularly desserts) and we wondered how difficult that might make things for allergy sufferers etc. Whilst we did not fall ill on holiday, as others have recently reported, given that the Food Market is purely self-service and with an approximate capacity of 500, we can surmise that guest-to-guest transmission (whether adult or one of the countless unsupervised children) would be trivial via the numerous tongs at each buffet station, for example. There are two Nespresso coffee machines at the Food Market which advertise that an espresso will cost you €2.70, and which appeared to have no customers during our entire stay. (The standard coffee machines fitted around the hotel appear to be “bean-to-cup” however, this is misleading as the beans displayed at the top of the machines are purely cosmetic, as evidenced when we were dispensed cappuccinos comprising of only milk and hot water on more than one occasion, the “beans” still displayed up top.) Also available are two “restaurants” for evening dining - these are available for an additional €20 per head per sitting, or one complimentary visit per week if “all inclusive.” One might imagine that at some point in the past, these were full table-service restaurants as they give the appearance of being refitted for buffet service. We do not consider a buffet to be equivalent to a restaurant. Particularly at a 4-star / 5T hotel. While you will be required to reserve a time-slot, and conveyed to your table (which you will find be set immaculately with real napkins etc.), after an initial drinks service, your experience will revert to that which you would receive at the Food Market, albeit with the potential of being slightly quieter and less chaotic. The food at the Italian “restaurant” will be in the main as you would find it at the Food Market, whereas the Asiatic restaurant has a more varied cuisine and was, in our view, the best dining inside the complex. However, a trip to a beachfront restaurant at Faro De Maspalomas (ten minute taxi ride) will provide a far better cuisine and experience than any of the catering at this hotel. Speaking of “all inclusive,” there are so many limits and exclusions to this that you might be tempted to upgrade to “all inclusive plus” for €15 per head per night. During our fortnight we saw no one with the tell-tale gold wristbands. This was not a surprise as the upgrade is not good value. Standard all-inclusive will get you unlimited soft drinks, powder coffee, basic beer and white label spirits (and some labelled lower-alcohol spirits such as Pimm’s) all before 2300. Bars become payable for all between 2300 and 0000 and then close. The upgrade offer is for some hand made cocktails, and some labelled spirits, but many are merely discounted rather than included. We could not understand where any of this represented good value. Overall then, we would say we have had an adequate stay here, but we feel the hotel exaggerates itself (as does the TUI listing) as some sort of premium experience. It is far from that. If it presented itself as a family-oriented resort, put on a comprehensive programme of children’s entertainment throughout the day and early evening, with something (and somewhere) for adults to escape at all times, it would fare far better, as the experience would more closely match peoples’ expectations. The reality is that it is attempting to market itself as something more than it is, with pricing to match, and consequently it represented poor value for us.

less