Melia Alacante: Convenient Location, Poorly Managed and Not Relaxi
by davidspro
We checked into the Melia Alicante after 3 wonderful nights spent in Valencia at the Hotel Las Arenas Balneario Resort, a five star hotel which we would highly recommend. The Melia Alicante, which was rated four and a half stars, is conveniently located with easy access to beaches, harbor, casino and Santa Barbara Castle. There are great views from balconies on either side of building. We booked two rooms and one had a view of the harbor and the other, a view of the beach. HOWEVER, our overall experience was negative and we cannot recommend nor would we ever consider returning to this property.
Upon checking in, the rooms smelled of cigarette smoke. Air conditioning did not work and rooms were very warm, about 80 degrees. If you open the balcony door to cool off at night, there is a tremendous amount of noise from partying teenagers who hang out on and around the hotel property until 4am in the morning. So, your choice is to either sleep in an oven or try to cool off and hear the screams, shouts, banging on dumpsters and blasting car radios of the local intoxicated teens. In the morning, after our first night, I mentioned to the concierge that it seemed odd that the lobby of the hotel was air conditioned and comfortable for the hotel clerks, restaurant workers and management, but the rooms were terribly hot for the guests. Later in the day, the hotel sent a small bottle of Muscatel and some candy to our room. A minimal, but nice gesture.
On our second day, we decided to go with the flow and be proactive and keep the balcony doors open to allow the room to stay cooler. Later in the day, we noticed an infestation of small ants in our bathroom. We called the front desk and asked if they could spray the room while we were out for the evening. When we returned, about 4 hours later, the ants were still in the bathroom and had spread into the bedroom. No one had sprayed. I went to the front desk and the clerk offered to send someone up to spray or to give us a new room. Since it was 1am, we decided to move rooms, rather than have to inhale the pesticides, knowing we would need to keep the balcony door sealed to cut down on the street partying noise. The room we moved to had been closed up all day and the temperature in the room was over 80 degrees. We opened the balcony door to cool off and considered moving one of the mattresses onto the balcony, however at that point the partying was well underway, below our balcony. At one point we looked over our balcony and noticed teen age girls and boys, who were “fall-down” drunk, urinating amongst the dumpsters below our window. We soon realized that this was not an isolated event, and that this location was the public urinal for these teens. Groups of girls and boys continued in a non-stop stream (no pun intended) to stagger drunk from various directions to the dumpsters below the hotel balconies, to relieve themselves. At one point, a car, blasting loud music, pulled up below our window and several drunk teens got out and urinated below our window and then got back into their car and drove off. Knowing how insane this was, we actually videotaped the ants swarming in our first room and the endless public urination below our balcony.
In the morning, I went to my kids’ room, which was on the beach side of the building. My children are teenagers, and before I could say a word, they complained they were exhausted from all the partying noise on the beach, which prevented them from sleeping. I met again with the concierge, armed with the video of the ants in our room and the endless stream of visitors outside our balcony the previous night. I pointed out again that it seemed odd that it was so cool and comfortable in the lobby where she worked, yet her guest’s rooms were so hot, and opening the windows to cool the room down subjected her guests to the loud noises from the teens roaming the hotel grounds, and the smells from the public urinal below. She checked with her manager and agreed to deduct 30 Euro from our room charge. This was an extra person charge that was added to the room where my 3 children stayed, when we checked in. I thanked her, but indicated that I felt it more appropriate to comp us for at least one of the rooms. She said this was not possible and offered to “take care of us” on our next stay with them… and after some protest by me with the concierge and her manager, that’s pretty much where it ended.
Location is ideal and views are wonderful. Bugs, loud partying on hotel grounds and lack of air conditioning, make this a light sleeper's nightmare.
