Gran Melia Golf Resort Puerto Rico

My husband summed it all up very well. Please read it carefully. My wife and I arrived at the Gran Melia resort on the 9th of February,2011. We were eagerly looking forward to enjoying the beautiful environment.We presented our Cheap Caribbean papers and were told that we would only be allowed to use the two restaurants,Namia and Tempo for dinner. If we wanted to go to LE Pasion we would have to pay for the meal. We were also told that we could have breakfast at Le Soleil and lunch at the poolside restaurant. There was nothing else mentioned though we specifically asked if there was anything else. They emphasised that our drinks and food were prepayed in these areas. We had a drink in the verandah outside the restaurants and they said that we would have to pay because we did not have it in the restaurant. We ordered Scotch on the rocks and they said we would have to pay for it as this was not included in the drinks we were allowed to have. We ordered breakfast in the room and expected to be charged a room service fee. They charged us for the whole meal as they claimed we were not allowed to have meals in the room under our plan. All this was told to us as we were getting ready to leave the resort and were settling our bill. I pointed out to the front desk that this was highly unethical as they had not clearly told us of these restrictions and limitations when we arrived. I also said that though the amount in question was small, it was the principle. I informed them that I would not come back ever.I also informed that if they treat guests like us in this shoddy fashion they would would be doing a great disservice to the people who own and run this place. I told them they need to reconsider their guest relations program. What could have been a truly wonderful vacation was completely ruined by the petty behavior demonstrated by the front desk. We were definitely planning to come back next year but after this I do not think we will return. The name of the manager I spoke to was Evalina. - Show quoted text - -- n.c.sekharan M.D.

When we first arrived, I was stunned at the beauty of the resort. Unfortunately the extremely slow and long check-in process made me crazy...someone needs to fix the way they check-in & out their guests. Oh and I don't understand how ANY hotel can charge so much to park your car. It's a racket! The rooms are really nice, very comfy beds, but they don't use a fitted sheet on the mattress (nor a mattress pad) so all night your legs are getting caught up in the sheets, and you feel the mattress itself...very annoying. The room was clean. though the refrigerator in the room had an odor that was pretty nasty. And you can't fit much in there, it's shallow. I think it's meant to be a mini bar, but our room and the other people we travelled with had nothing in them. The pools were beautiful, and large, though I was looking forward to the infinity pool featured on the website. But I was told it was for the "red level" members only. Really? And on the weekends they give deals to the locals and it sort of feels like you're at a public pool. The beach front is narrow and very rocky. Again I was told the "bigger beach" was further down and for the "red level" guests... Now for the restaurants...can you say overpriced and awful? And that goes for room service too. Which ends at 11 pm! The best food was at the buffet breakfast. But ask for the deal, because we were told $23.95 pp at the front desk, and, when we got there we heard some people getting 2 for 1! So after a few bad meals, we ventured to the local places and ate like kings! The Pincho Factory and Il Verde BBQ are top notch!!! But these places are nothing to look at.... The location of the resort isn't that close to Old San Juan, so if you want to visit there, be prepared for a 45 min -1 hour ride each way. Though it's close to the rainforest and Luquillo, which has all the kiosks of fried food by the beach...yummy! The resort is really beautiful, and I can see the attraction, but between the bad & overpriced food, and the location, I personally wouldn't go back. Oh and the staff isn't very friendly, though Iluminata who works at the Martini Bar is the best!!!! She makes great drinks and goes out of her way to talk to you. And a shout out to CheapCaribbean.com. You guys rock!

The Gran Melia Resort in Puerto Rico was very nice, especially if you go with your signifcant other. It was very quiet and peaceful. On the day we arrived, it started off a little rough. We requested a refrigerator because we needed to keep certain medication cold and the front desk told us they would send one to our room. Well when we got to our room they had brought us a cooler. They apparently did not have refrigerators, which they should have told us that from the get go. A cooler and refrigerator (two different things). The cooler they brought us was not working, so we called the front desk and they sent out another one. Since it was a "cooler" we had to wait more than an hour for it to actually cool. It worked for a while and then stopped working. We had to keep calling them to bring us a "working" cooler and eventually 2 days before leaving we had a complete working cooler. Also, the room was very nice and spacious, but it seems the floor was not clean when we arrived. There's no carpet and it seemed that the floor was never mopped. Our socks and feet were soo dirty. That was quite annoying. The first 4 hours in our room made us believe we had made a bad choice in hotel, but eventually everything got better. I would definately recommend this hotel to friends, but just let them know our experience to prepare them. I would NOT recommend room service though. They charged us $5 for a small bottle of water. Room service prices were outrageous and the food we ordered (pizza) was not good at all such a waste of money. The best thing to do is rent a car at the hotel from Avis (which runs about $99 per day) and stop at a store to buy water, snacks, etc. You definately will be spending alot of money at the hotel if you do not rent a car. Other than that, our trip was great! If we do travel again to Puerto Rico again we would probably like to stay closer to San Juan, since we were about 25 miles away from all the action. Make sure you take lots of OFF bug spray for the wonderful mosquitos and if you do not know any spanish make sure you take a spanish class before because alot of the hotel staff ONLY spoke spanish.

We had booked 3 rooms for a family vacation and had requested that the rooms be close together. When we got there the, our rooms were in 3 different buildings and no where close together. The next morning, around 9:00 a.m., I had sewage backing up into our tub and toilet and they made no effort to change our room or make us comfortable to well after 3 in the afternoon. More than half our day was waitng to get cleand up so we could start our vacation.. They said thy would upgrade our room for the inconvenience, but we couldn't accept it because my husband was in a wheelchair and it was on the second floor. They did finally move us close to our daughter which was nice but it was not an upgrade. The third day there, we had 2 dead rats outside our patio. I have the picturs of them and will refrain from posting unless you need proof. We called to have them removed. When we left they were still there. We had an Avis car rental from the hotel and were supposed to get free parking. I was finally able to get thatcharge taken off my bill, but my son and daughter are still fighting with the Gran Melia/Avis on the charges of over $300.00. We also had a charge for Unicef on our bill. Nobody asked us if we wanted to donate to this charity they just tacked it on our bills. Then there were multiple charges for water sports activities that we didn't use. We tried to work with the hotel and we got nowhere! Would I ever recommend this hotel to anyone--not in my lifetime! On the positive side, the support staff--the maids and the gentlemen that shuttled us around, were polite and did an excellent job.