Gf Isabel

“Great holiday with small improvements needed”

GF Isabel – Overall a lovely stay, with a few improvements needed We had a lovely 10-night stay at GF Isabel and overall really enjoyed our holiday. The hotel itself is clean, well maintained and set in lovely surroundings. Our room was clean, comfortable and had a fantastic view from the balcony… more

GF Isabel – Overall a lovely stay, with a few improvements needed We had a lovely 10-night stay at GF Isabel and overall really enjoyed our holiday. The hotel itself is clean, well maintained and set in lovely surroundings. Our room was clean, comfortable and had a fantastic view from the balcony . The pool area was also lovely and clean. We would get to the pool around 11 am so somedays we we got a sunbed other days we would just leave our stuff by the snack bar but sunbeds would become available by 2/3pm. A special mention to our maid, who was fantastic throughout our stay. She even left a little teddy of the hotel mascot in our room for our daughter’s 4th birthday, which was such a thoughtful touch and really made her day. ❤️ The evening entertainment was also very good and there was always something enjoyable to watch. There were, however, a few things that could have been better. The food was edible and there was always something we could find to eat, but unfortunately we found it quite bland and repetitive, especially over a 10-night stay. The drink service in the evenings was also quite slow at times. One thing that really disappointed us was our experience with the restaurant on our last day. We had only eaten lunch in the restaurant twice during our entire 10-day stay, but on our last day we were refused entry because we had already used our lunch allowance on the first day. I do understand that there are rules in place but considering we had only used the lunch service twice during the whole holiday, I feel a little common sense and flexibility could have been shown. Unfortunately, the restaurant lady was also quite rude when explaining this, which left a sour taste on what had otherwise been a lovely holiday. When we spoke to reception they was again dismissive and said we could use the snack bar but the food in the snack bar was very poor. We decided to eat out and had a lovely meal in Marylebone over the road which was lovely. Overall, GF Isabel is a lovely, clean hotel in a great location with beautiful surroundings, good entertainment and friendly housekeeping. With some improvements to the food variety, evening drink service and a little more flexibility/customer service in the restaurant, it could be an even better experience. We would still recommend the hotel, but hopefully these points can be taken on board.

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“Meh”

We went a family, 2 adults and a 7 year old, all inclusive, you can tell in it’s prime the hotel was lovely, but it’s now rather dated, the rooms had cracked tiles on the floor, roof tiles in the bathroom hanging down, mould on most the ceiling, just a bit dated really. The balcony was a nice siz… more

We went a family, 2 adults and a 7 year old, all inclusive, you can tell in it’s prime the hotel was lovely, but it’s now rather dated, the rooms had cracked tiles on the floor, roof tiles in the bathroom hanging down, mould on most the ceiling, just a bit dated really. The balcony was a nice size though. Be aware if you’re near the football pitch, which is meant to be vacated by 2100, it’s not. And it’s noisy until midnight most nights. Some evenings also ruined by other guest but that’s not the Hotels fault. So the hotel, shop on sight, decent prices, especially for water. We didn’t use the 2 other pools, only the main one, standard ridiculous sun bed wars. Pathetic if you ask me, and they are super close together. Staff were all pleasant enough, bar staff had spoke decent English which is always appreciated, the hotel do have a 2 drink per customer rule, not just alcoholic, all drinks, so as a family of 3, this was a massive pain, wife and little one playing in the pool, I have to que twice to get 3 drinks, luckily most staff don’t enforce this, just a couple, speaking of ridiculous things, they give you a food card that they mark off every meal time in the restaurant (well they marked 30% of our visits) but get arsy if you forget it, madness. There also isn’t enough staff of an evening, it’s table service down by the stage, pretty often your spending 10 mins trying to wave down someone with the machine to take an order, and on more than one occasion it never came, so easier to go to the bar upstairs. Also a note for smokers/vapers, that whole outside tables area by the stage is no smoking. Location of the hotel is decent, beach 10 min walk, lots of bars and restaurants around. Food wise. Dinner and breakfast was fine, standard all inclusive stuff really, chips/pizza for kids and a decent selection of other things. Lunch was a bit poor, but it didn’t effect us to much as we either grabbed stuff at the pool bar (hot dogs, burgers, chips and fruit, or a cheese toastie) over all it’s a decent enough hotel, we wouldn’t go back there if we returned, not because it was bad, but it wasn’t wow this is great, the animation team are really good, engaging with kids, friendly, the shows we all really enjoyed with them, the other performers they get in, again standard Spanish stuff, some good, some not, some cheesy but decent cheese! So it was pleasant enough. But not amazing.

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“Very average hotel with some plus points and some big negatives”

Booked here as a family of 4, before we came we asked for adjoining rooms and this was provided. Rooms were spacious although very dated, only 1 socket in each room and none near the bed, 1 room the air con was great, the other poor. Good size balconies however the lights going off just after 2300 … more

Booked here as a family of 4, before we came we asked for adjoining rooms and this was provided. Rooms were spacious although very dated, only 1 socket in each room and none near the bed, 1 room the air con was great, the other poor. Good size balconies however the lights going off just after 2300 was disappointing as we like to sit on the balcony and relax. Sunbeds are a joke, I’m sure you have all seen the videos of people running once the barriers are down, we eventually gave up and went to the top pool where the beds are a lot nicer and there is nearly always availability. Don’t necessarily blame the hotel for this, if you don’t have a cut off time the towels will be down by 4 am! They need to design a better system for next summer. Grounds are lovely and they seem to have a lot of activities on, main pool is big and one of the warmest we’ve had in years. Staff are friendly however we had a major issue with cannabis being smoked near our room, reported it twice but not much changed. Would I come back? No

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“Good for families with young children but would avoid if a couple”

Just got back from 11 days here (4 adults and a 3 year old). Hotel:- The complex is large and sprawling with 384 rooms. The complex is well maintained with a large pool, a smaller one more geared for children and a small child's pool/playground. The rooms are large and have good air conditioning bu… more

Just got back from 11 days here (4 adults and a 3 year old). Hotel:- The complex is large and sprawling with 384 rooms. The complex is well maintained with a large pool, a smaller one more geared for children and a small child's pool/playground. The rooms are large and have good air conditioning but a little dated. Toilet paper goes in the bin and not down the toilet - the bin was emptied everyday. Pools:- We used the middle sized pool as there were never enough sun beds free at the large pool. The pools open at 10am and by 9.30 there were always queues for the large pool so we avoided. We always got a bed at the smaller pool but it is more suitable for kids than adults and they were plentiful so not a pool for swimming in really. There are bars next to both pools which served up until 6pm and the larger pool one had bar snacks as well. Restaurant:- The staff were great and really excelled themselves in providing for our grandson who has a nut allergy. They brought specially prepared meals which we pre-ordered the night before and they were always good quality with very large portions. They can do this for lunch and breakfast too. The food was generally very good with a wide range and themed nights. My wife is vegetarian and there were always options for her. Vegans may struggle for variety a little but it may be an option for the chef to prepare something (he was doing this for gluten free diners). You had to take your dining card with you to lunch and dinner which seemed a bit of a faff as we had all-inclusive armbands on but not a big imposition. Bar Area/Entertainment - The main bar area was busy from 8pm onwards and getting served for drinks wasn't a great experience. Sometimes we would wait between 35 and 40 minutes from being able to order our drinks and then receiving them. About half the time the orders were wrong as well but they were quickly rectified. This resulted in many tables ordering double rounds which then slowed the whole process down even more. Most evenings after 10pm when the waitresses seemed to disappear for long periods, we'd end up going out to drink in town later in the evening which isn't great when you've bought an AI package. The entertainment was generally aimed at children and the adult shows were pretty poor other than the Kenyan Boys who we weren't expecting much from but were actually excellent. The children's entertainment team seemed to be all German so the majority of the nightly children's disco were German and Spanish songs which left a lot of (mainly British) children fairly bemused but it kept a lot of children occupied for 35 minutes. Optional Siam Park Unlimited Passes - the main reason we booked this hotel was for the unlimited free access to Siam Park. It didn't turn to be good value for us as we only went twice. It's a fantastic water park but very busy with very long queues which we soon got tired of. I would maybe suggest booking a day trip there and leave the package off. Excursions - there's a free shuttle bus to Jungle Park which is a great zoo and very shady when it's hot. It's a short transfer and we actually preferred it to Loro Parque which was further away and more expensive. The stop is located outside Duke Shops. The free shuttle to Siam Park is located next to the market opposite Duke Shops. Surrounding area:- There's a lot of shops and restaurants nearby and the beach is about a 15 minute walk. For bars, we stuck to the Colonial Bar which had great service, atmosphere, live music and a wide variety of drinks. The beers were 5 euros so more expensive than many bars along the front (selling at around 2-3 euros) but we were happy to pay the extra. The cocktails were also very good. Summary - We enjoyed our stay here and it makes a very good family location. I wouldn't advise couples to stay and if we went back as a family, we would try somewhere else just really based on entertainment/bar and pool experience.

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