Globales Maioris

Lovely hotel, clean & very friendly staff, especially the animation team. Perfect for a quiet family holiday, quiet and no sun bed race! Located in a more residential area but we got a taxi into Arenal which only took 10 mins and was so quick and easy. Can’t fault the food, lots of variety and always fresh. Great entertainment too. For the price, you can’t fault it!

Good for family, friends and couples. Friendly staff

Great family atmosphere, clean and tidy rooms, great pool area, fab food choices

We came for a 5 day last minute deal in mid August. We were swayed initially by the price, we had looked at a staycation in the UK but this Jet2 deal was a fraction of the price and “all inclusive”. I’ll touch on the “all inclusive” later, but it’s far from what’s advertised. Upon arrival, we were told it would be a 3 hour wait to access our room. We were happy to wait but our toddler was exhausted from the early morning flight and was very distressed. We were told to come back at 1.30pm and the reception would do their best to get us access as quickly as possible. Despite check in being at 2pm, it was 2.30 before we were able to get into the room. The room was spacious, however, it was crawling with ants. It wasn’t the cleanest and myself and my partner spent 4 days getting bitten by bugs. Thankfully, our toddler avoided such a fate. We had a lovely big terraced balcony which was excellent, however, cockroaches on it in the evening!!! Entertainment at the hotel was mid-range. The kids disco was fine and the performances were good, however, joining in with the bingo was at an additional price - you had to buy your book and pen - so not all inclusive 😂 there was also bingo on twice as entertainment across our 4 evenings so rather repetitive. The facilities at the hotel are minimal. The arcade is €1-€2 euro per game so again, not all inclusive. On 2 out of our 4 evenings, we had the displeasure of cockroaches crawling along beside our tables. So much so the table beside us went to bed early. Avoid the toilets in the public areas, they never have toilet roll and are not kept clean. In particular, AVOID the splash park toilets, the were completely disgusting and unusable, especially for women. The splash park itself was very good. They don’t unlock the doors which access it until 10am which was ideal as it meant no sunlounger wars and we never struggled to get a bed. The lifeguards on duty are a bit much though - fun police. Depending on who’s on shift, you might be able to have fun with your child - or you may get screamed at for helping your child to the top of the slides. On our last day, they had created a new rule which said no floaties on the slides which meant a lot of upset children but I believe a child had been seriously injured the day prior so they were clearly trying to cover their backs. At mealtimes, expect to queue at least 5-10 mins for a table. As there is only one eating area and meal times only last 2hrs, the place is packed to the brim and extremely chaotic. A lot of people also don’t police their children at mealtimes. Several times there was children aged 8+ putting their fingers into communal food and eating straight from the bowls. Not much the hotel can do about that but if I witnessed my child behaving that way I would certainly correct the behaviour as a priority and courtesy to other guests. The food was average. The pasta, pizza, fish, tacos and ice cream were all edible. However, drinks wise the soda is all flat and not real brands. Some meal times the drink dispenser was broken and there was no attempt made to fix it so it was fruit juice, water or … pay the premium for something better. The all inclusive liquor is completely undrinkable, and I say that as someone who can drink just about anything. They don’t even put ice in the glasses so it’s warm murky disgusting “cocktails”. Anything like a strawberry daiquiri or drinkable alcoholic beverage is … you guessed it “an additional charge”. The higher priced cocktails were actually decent. We tended to spend the money and gave a few Mai Tais in the evenings but I will say only one member of bar staff in the main hall is able to make these and on his night off he himself wished us “good luck, because the rest don’t know what they’re doing” - sure enough, the drinks made the following night were not the same or as nice. The location is okay. It’s in a very quiet area. About a 15 min walk is a complex which has some restaurants. We actually had a stunning steak dinner at El Gaucho which I do highly recommend. Their sangria was also delightful. I also spotted a few nice coffee shops in the complex, although didn’t get the pleasure of trying. The beach and more lively area of S’Arenal is a 15 min taxi each way and cost us about €20 each way but was worth it for a day out of the rubbish hotel. Reception was always overly busy and waiting in excess of 15 minutes if you ever needed help with something. We decided to hire a safe on our second day for €45. €15 euro per day. We were told to keep the receipt and upon check out, as long as we had that we would get our money back. However, when given our safe key - our safe was keyless. Trying to explain this to the reception was a nightmare and we waited an hour and 30m for ‘an engineer’ to come and see that it was an electronic safe and required a little black tag to go in the back and activate it. Upon check out, the same issue occurred and the woman on reception refused our refund because we didn’t have the key. After a heated discussion she made a call, and said she wanted the black tag from the automatic safe. I retrieved this from our room and she refunded us a grand total of €10. So don’t be fooled, this is clearly another money making scam from the hotel. You will not get your deposit back on the safe in full, and I suspect they do this regularly to guests hoping they need to just accept it as they’re rushing off the make their transfer. The clientele at the hotel were mostly like minded couples with young families. Everyone was pleasant. A good mid of British, French and Spanish families. Several couples we spoke to also had similar complaints about the hotel bugs, cleanliness and “all inclusive”. All in all, our daughter had a great time and loved it. As an adult, it was barely satisfactory for the 4 nights. We tolerated it for the time we were there as it was a short last minute trip - however, if I had booked that as our main summer holiday I would’ve been honestly gutted. Wouldn’t recommend nor return.

The hotel was clean and well presented and staff went above and beyond to make our stay special. The cleaners did a fantastic job of keeping our room clean. Our daughter and my wife both have food allergies. Although not all food was labelled in the restaurant Slevin and his team were amazing and walked us around each meal time to inform us what we could and couldn’t eat. They even provided ice lollies for our daughter who has a milk, egg and soya allergy as there was not an allergy friendly alternative included in the all inclusive ice cream offer. They honestly couldn’t have done more to make meal times a breeze. We had a lovely stay and would love to come back again.