Melia Durres

Kids club the best ours for the first time wanted to go. Great time had by all.

We stayed at the Melia Durres for seven nights at the end of our holiday in Albania. And it didn’t disappoint! We booked a Junior Suite with The Level. A really welcoming suite with large balcony to two sides – very nice. I had mentioned to guest experience that we were celebrating our 42nd wedding anniversary just before we arrived. Well ... when we walked into the suite it was decorated in red balloons, rose petals covered the floor, there were chocolates, there was sparkling wine, a hand-written note and two large inflatable gold numbers making „42“. Wow! Our stay was excellent. The restaurants are really good, and we ate in the Italian, Mediterranean, Sports Bar, Beach Restaurant and BBW restaurant as well as enjoying The Level for breakfast. Enjoyed everything. The bars are good too – and plentiful. A highlight was the rooftop pool and bar for The Level. So relaxing, never overcrowded, perfect service, great cocktails. The main pools are also amazing, and the few minutes’ walk to Melis’s own beach pleasant. We Could write and write about this great place. And the great people – friendly, genuine. We had one „slip“ during the stay when a restaurant reservation was messed up – these things happen. We ate elsewhere but a member of staff looked for us, apologised for the mistake, checked we were okay. Amazing. And it didn’t stop there – the next day we returned to our suite to find another hand-written note and a massive plate of fresh fruit as a way of saying „Sorry“. Such a small slip but it was so appreciated and demonstrated a very caring nature. Thank you! We look back with fond memories of the stay and will most certainly be back.

I’d actually give it 3/4 stars. This is a lovey hotel, fantastic pool, very clean and friendly staff. The issue we had was because the hotel splits itself between the adults only Level option and a normal family resort. You don't get the 5 star luxury experience that we were hoping for, you just get elements of it. Great roof top pool area which is adults only, staff amazing but you are limited to what you can order at the bar. No choice of coffee or bar meals. I had to go down a lift and walk to the bar to order 2 coffees, not what you expect. If you go and sit by the larger pool, there is no bar service, so you end up trying to carry glasses and bottles up and down the very large pool area. Finally there is a beautiful heated indoor pool and it’s full of kids on inflatables, not the spa experience you are sold. Our room was lovely but for two nights they put a family next door to us with 2 children, who played football all evening kicking a ball against our balcony wall. So the ‘Adults only’ is very subjective. No relaxing bar area, you could use the lounge but it wasn't a bar, so you ended up sitting in a corridor next to the sports bar and kids club, not relaxing or pleasant. Too cold to sit outside and too many kids running around. Food, breakfast in the Level lounge was great, if you stuck to the cold options. All the hot offer was cold every day. The buffet was OK but you could not order a decent glass of wine to accompany your meal. You had to drink the cheap stuff that was free to all. The fact that free wine was served in the buffet meant that groups of people after they finished their meal, just sat there ordering more wine. So seats were hard to come by if you liked to eat after 8pm. The Italian and Mediterranean restaurants were good but they’re were the only ones and you can’t eat from there for 10 days solid. The BBQ menu is advertised on the App but when you get there for dinner, you only have one option not choose from, a plate of pre grilled meat and a buffet on a table that has been out all night and looking rather sorry for itself. The staff were all well trained and helpful but what they said would happen, rarely did. A promised ring back for a table in the restaurant often didn't happen. A leaking shower which was promised to be fixed that night never happened, and a guest feedback option that was going to be emailed to me, never happened. So thats why you are reading a very long review on TripAdvisor. So if you are looking for a resort that offers a 4/5 star experience consistently, this isn’t it. It’s trying to be too many things to too many people and therfore doesn’t deliver for most. Fine for a short break and thats what most people seemed to be doing.

Lovely hotel, friendly staff, but disappointing all-inclusive experience and very remote location The hotel itself is lovely, and the staff were friendly, helpful and welcoming throughout our stay. The rooms were spacious, very clean and comfortable, with a lovely large bath which, during our October stay, we actually used more than the swimming pools! Unfortunately, there were quite a few things that left us disappointed. Firstly, the hotel is extremely remote. Although it is advertised as being in the Durrës area, it is actually around 45 minutes away from Durrës due to the poor roads. This made it difficult and expensive to arrange excursions independently. We enjoy doing excursions, particularly through GetYourGuide, but unfortunately the hotel was outside the normal pickup areas. We therefore had to pay around £70 for a taxi to and from Durrës just to be able to join an excursion. The hotel does offer excursions, but these had to be booked in advance and were often fully booked. We did eventually manage to book one trip to Tirana. I was also under the impression from the hotel/holiday website that excursions were included, so this was disappointing to discover was not the case. The biggest disappointment, however, was the “all-inclusive” package. We booked through On the Beach and paid for an all-inclusive holiday, so naturally we expected the main facilities and services advertised by the hotel to be available as part of that package. Unfortunately, after arriving we discovered that several of the more attractive facilities required a significant additional upgrade. For example, access to the rooftop infinity pool and rooftop pool bar was not included. We were told that this would cost €100 per night, or €50 per person per night, to upgrade. There was also a Jacuzzi and spa facilities where additional charges applied. This was not something that was made clear to us when booking through On the Beach, and we certainly did not expect access to the main advertised pool areas to require such a substantial extra payment. The food was generally okay in the buffet, although it wasn’t always particularly hot. The à la carte restaurants were better and we enjoyed some of the meals, but these also came with conditions. You needed a voucher to use them, and even with a voucher, certain dishes such as steaks and some fish dishes still required additional payment. The hotel also advertises six restaurants, but we found that the reality was closer to four restaurants, plus a sports bar. The food in the sports bar was not included in the all-inclusive package either, which again wasn’t what we expected from an all-inclusive holiday. Another disappointment was the swimming pools. We stayed in October and the outdoor pool was absolutely freezing. Unfortunately, the indoor pool wasn’t heated either, so neither was particularly usable during our stay. To summarise, our experience was roughly four restaurants, one sports bar, one lobby bar, and no access to the rooftop pool/bar or some of the other advertised terrace facilities without paying a substantial additional amount. On the positive side, the hotel itself is attractive, the rooms are large, spacious and very clean, and the staff were consistently friendly and helpful. We really appreciated the cleanliness and the size of the room, and the large bath was a definite bonus. Overall, we feel the hotel has a lot of potential, but the location, lack of accessible excursions, cold swimming pools and, most importantly, the additional charges for facilities we believed were part of an all-inclusive package made the holiday considerably less enjoyable than we had expected. The hotel and staff were good — it was the location and the way the all-inclusive package was presented that really let it down for us.

Bonito give me good services for the cocktails 🍸 👌🏾