Riu Costa del Sol

Booked for my husbands 60th Birthday in October. First time stay and visit to Malaga. ●Check in - speedy and friendly, no issues ●Room - clean, twin beds with a sofa bed for my son (17years). No table and chair so he couldn't play on his laptop in comfort. The room was quite small for three of us. Balcony was also small but we did have a sea view across from the street. WIFI was strong in the room ++ ●Food - main restaurant, breakfast normal English options, coffee was in pots and was like treacle. Soft drinks and cruzcampo was on tap definite ++. Lunch and dinner in the main restaurant also varied. On the Wednesday we had a casserole and rice at lunch...the absolute NEGATIVE of our stay...by 7pm I was vomiting and had diarrhoea, by 11pm husband was the same. We were up all night being sick. Thursday was a write off for recovery. This ruined the rest of our hotel experience so ate out after that. We know it was the rice as our son was not ill. There is a booking system via the app for the other two restaurants, we ate in the Italian once which wasn't too bad but very busy. Main pool bar was quick service and coffee was alot better than breakfast option. Bottles of water available to take to the room at every bar. ●Location - right next to the beach, 20 mins walk to Malaga shopping which was lovely +. All up hill to the shopping area so you can get a lift up and down for €1 each. ●Spa - not a spa really, just a small indoor pool with kids in there taking selfies for social media. We went in there once - ●Hotel cat - loved him 🐈‍⬛+ Overall we would say average 3* (Canaries offers better 3* hotels) not 4* as stated. -minus 2 on my rating for the food experience and the spa not being up to standard.

We recently just came back from a 7 day all inclusive holiday with my partner and 2 year old daughter. First I just wanna say the hotel is MASSIVE an we stayed on floor 1 which wasn’t to bad just that the lifts was really really small and hardly fit a standard buggy in there and we had to wait for it as people were to lazy to walk down steps. The food was okay, a lot of variety for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As being a toddler mum I felt like the cereal department lacked in variety and also the fruit. Seems always melon and oranges. I did see strawberry’s but they were not every day. Hotel room was okay, we had a cot for our toddler which she was okay in. We had a room that viewed the pool and was not too loud. The cleaner and staff were really nice and smiley and always saying hello. They did have a riu funland for kids which was okay just a room to colour in really, would be great to see a little play area for them to play in. The kids had a little part with a boat and slide which my little girl loved, but what I didn’t like was random men coming in without children and sunbathing and took up beds which I thought was quite strange as there 3 main pools for them. The evening entertainment we didn’t go to only the RiuKids at 8:15pm every night. This was repetitive and same music all the time. Feel like they should change it around be better for the kids and the stage was really small so children didn’t have much to dance and be toddlers. Overall was okay. Very quick to airport around 10 mins and literally on door step to the beach.

What a blinder of a find! Great location on the main prom into Torremolinos lined with bars and restaurants to cater for every taste and budget. The hotel, spotlessly clean, great choice of food in the restaurants, and drinks a plenty from the bars, and entertainment in the evening was first class! For someone who is somewhat sceptical of all inclusive and always travels self catering, we’re already planning our next holiday back to this hotel.

First family holiday for us, and will definitely be returning! really impressed by everything there. Loads of positives, just a few negatives.. Pros: - this time of year, always sunbeds available across all 3 pools - Room was very spacious, even with travel cot in - Aircon & ceiling fan very good (actually almost too good, spent some nights shivering haha!) - Food was always good, lots of choice (although sometimes a bit cold) - Always somewhere to sit at entertainment - Location perfect - lots of supermarkets and bars/restaurants right from doorstep onwards - Lots of bars open until 11pm so lots of choice of where to sit if you don’t want entertainment - Other restaurants to book onsite if you fancy a change to the buffet - Snack bar was great! - Staff really friendly - especially with our baby! - cocktail menu as well as prosecco (white and rosé), beer, spirits, and branded soft drinks! Cons: - shower extremely slippy when wet which made washing our 8 month old tricky - Sometimes there were ants by the front door of the room - Not many plugs in the room (thankfully we took an extension lead with us!) - Cocktails not greaaat - done out of a machine and a little slushy which aren’t my taste - Hotel doesn’t do straws - can buy from the supermarket across the road though - outside seating at restaurant… prepare for the influx of birds!! They are everywhere.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here, it's a nice hotel in a good location right across the road from the beach on the outskirts of Torremolinos. We arrived at lunchtime and had a couple of drinks until our room was ready after about 45 minutes. The room (1308) was spacious with plenty of storage space and a nice side sea view and a lovely powerful shower. There are a few restaurants nearby and the walk into town is 20 minutes or so. Take the lift up to the old town ( the lift is signed, just before the Melia hotel) for 50 cents...and then take the 200 or so steps back down ( or the lift). We also walked to Benalmadena...a pleasant walk of approximately 1 hrs 15 mins...we then got an Uber back for 11 euros. We enjoyed the hotel food although the main restaurant is very large and busy, so we mainly ate in the Italian ( dolce vita) and the Spanish (sardinia)... the Italian in particular was excellent, book these on the Riu app. It's so nice that there is a choice of bars and pools and no sunbeds problems (although they are very close together in some areas). The staff are efficient and helpful and we would love to return.