Consumer
Nothing Lux or easy at this resort Greco Botanica
We are currently staying at Grecotel LUXME Costa Botanica as an extended family, having booked what is marketed as a 5-star LUXME – “Luxury Made Easy” experience. We still have 9 days of our holiday remaining. Unfortunately, our experience has left us wondering where either the luxury or the “easy” is. The rooms are basic, wherever you are situated. The food has been very disappointing — repetitive, often highly processed and simply not what we expected at this level of resort. Snacks are extremely limited. Around the beach and what is described as the water-park area, the only snacks we have found available are crêpes and ice cream. One of our biggest disappointments is the lack of service. Self-service appears to be the theme throughout the resort. There is only one pool where we have found an actual drinks bar. At the other pool areas, guests are reliant on self-service drinks machines, which in our experience frequently do not work properly. Even obtaining basic food and drinks included in the package can mean leaving the area and walking some distance to find them. The drinks provision itself is another example of where the reality falls short of what we expected. The self-service drinks machines around the resort are regularly surrounded by wasps, making something as simple as getting a drink unpleasant. The coffee is, in our opinion, comparable to something you would expect from a basic petrol-station machine rather than a 5-star LUXME resort. Even at breakfast, you cannot simply sit down and order a freshly prepared coffee — you are expected to use self-service coffee machines which we have found to be poorly maintained and unclean. For something marketed as “Luxury Made Easy”, very little actually feels easy. We have also had a concerning experience with the swimming pools. After using them, swimwear has developed a green discolouration and hair has also turned green. Whatever is causing this, we believe it warrants investigation. There are maintenance issues throughout parts of the resort and areas where we have concerns about hygiene. Some of what we have reported has been described as “wear and tear”, but in our opinion the overall condition simply does not reflect what we reasonably expected from a resort marketed and sold as 5-star LUXME. Mosquitoes are a significant problem, as are wasps. We have been told that spraying is not undertaken for environmental reasons, but the reality is that many guests appear extremely uncomfortable. What is particularly frustrating is that we are guests here on a family holiday, not the hotel’s quality-control team. We should not be spending our holiday identifying, photographing and repeatedly reporting problems with maintenance, hygiene, facilities, food, drinks and service. These are standards that should already be monitored and maintained by a resort marketed and sold as a 5-star LUXME experience. Our experience with the staff has been very mixed. We have met some exceptionally kind, friendly and hardworking people, while unfortunately some other interactions have felt rude and patronising. I do want to specifically mention the Operations Manager and Food & Beverage Manager, both of whom have genuinely tried their very best to make us more comfortable. This review is not a criticism of those individuals. The problem is that individual managers can only do so much when our concerns relate to the overall product and experience. We booked this as a special family holiday based upon the way this resort was marketed. We have raised our concerns while we are still here and have asked EasyJet Holidays to relocate us, but they have declined. We still have 9 days remaining, which is precisely why we tried to resolve this now rather than simply complain when we return home. I have travelled extensively and have never previously found myself wanting to leave a resort during my holiday. We are not expecting perfection. We simply expected to receive the experience that was advertised and for which we paid. The saddest part is that no compensation can give us these family days back. “LUXME – Luxury Made Easy.” After experiencing Costa Botanica ourselves, my question to Grecotel is very simple: What does “Luxury Made Easy” actually mean to you?