Name: Hotel Palmasol
Price range: from £367.10pp (7 nights includes flights and transfers)

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Hotel Palmasol

My wife and I recently spent 2 weeks half board at the Palmasol. It was the first time we had stayed there. Before going into detail about our stay there are two significant issues I need to alert you to.

Nearby construction work: along the whole of the ‘front’ of the hotel, containing around 50% of the hotel’s 270 rooms, there is a large building site. See the pictures taken from our room. We understand they are building a 7 level apartment block and, at the time of our visit, they were working on the 3rd level. I estimate construction work will continue for another 18 months at least (i.e. to around April 2026). The crew work from 8am to 5.30pm weekdays. They do not work at weekends. During working hours it is always noisy and, at times, extremely so. It’s also not an attractive outlook from the room/balcony. Even those rooms at the back of the hotel (pool view side) would not be immune to construction noise at times. Some of the package holiday companies are not particularly upfront about this work on their websites. For example, you would have to go quite a way through the Jet2 booking process before they disclosed this issue. As the rooms at the front of the hotel are the sunniest and have side sea views it seems likely that, when complete, the new building could have a permanent adverse impact on the occupants of those rooms. This is not the fault of the hotel and I feel sorry for them, but the reality for you is that there is very little they can do to mitigate the adverse impact on guests occupying those rooms currently or in the future. So, unless you book a pool view room, you will almost certainly get a room on the front.

Poor accessibility: if you have mobility issues or young children the hotel might not be best suited for you. This is because it is built on a sloping site and the lifts do not go down to the restaurant level. Outside the hotel you need to go downhill to get to the marina and seafront (and back up again on return!). You can either do this using the sloping road or go out the back gate, but the latter involves navigating around 30 steep steps. You need to go uphill to get to the road along which buses run to Malaga, Torremolinos, the Pueblo, Mijas, Fuengirola etc. Inside the hotel you get to and from the restaurant by staircase with around 20 steps - with no handrail for part of that. There is a workaround that seemed to involve people exiting the reception level, going down a slope and entering the restaurant through its emergency exit door (and visa versa). We did see people doing this but it’s far from ideal.

I now turn to my detailed review which does not deal with anything pool, gym, spa, bar or all inclusive option related.  If you don’t want to read it all suffice it to say that, excluding the two issues above, the hotel was just about OK. For us, and all reviews are subjective, there was not one major positive or negative aspect which is why I have given it a middling 3 stars overall. But there were, in our view, a large number of relatively minor irritating aspects which did detract from our experience.

Pre-arrival: I tried to contact the hotel to make a room request. The hotel’s online contact form did not work – it thought I was a bot attempting an illegal operation! Perhaps it did not understand English. Even a direct email to reception was ignored. Not great customer service. Unsurprisingly, therefore, my request for a quiet room with a walk-in shower on a high floor was not met in full – I got the high (4th) floor only. 

Arrival: we got to the hotel at 8.45pm tired and hungry after a long day of travelling. The receptionist asked us for our “voucher”. We did not have one. She insisted we should have one even though our booking was on their system. Eventually she said she would complete one for us and asked us to sign a document written in Spanish. We were told the hotel was cashless and given a wristband with a metal disc inside onto which we could load money (and also use to get access to our room and register our use of the restaurant). When we said we wanted to hire a safe (3.5 euros a day) she asked for a 10 euros deposit in cash (for the return of the safe key). Go figure. We asked if there were instructions on how to operate the safe. She said there was but they did not have any in English and the printer had broken so she could not print one off for us. She proceeded to translate in broken English from the Spanish version of the instructions. It involved putting a key into the back of the safe door, setting up a code using a keypad containing letter and numbers, listening for various beeps, watching for various indicator lights and turning a knob on the front of the safe door. We had no chance of remembering all this and by then we were even more tired and hungry. Eventually we had to call for a maintenance person to come to our room and show us what to do. Overall, not a great first impression. But we did get our dinner!

Lifts: for a 270 room hotel spread over 5 floors to have only two small lifts is poor. Each lift’s official capacity was 6 people (subject to an overriding weight limit) but it was often a tight squeeze with just 4 people. In consequence, waiting times could be long and lifts were often full at arrival. There was a small screen in the lifts which, amongst other things, gave information about restaurant opening times and the weather. But it changed so quickly you barely had time to read it even if you could see it through the occupants of the lift. Because there were not many floors a lot of people used the stairs. Without that mitigating factor the lifts would be pretty awful.    

Room: we booked a double room with a side sea view, en-suite bathroom and balcony. See the pictures. It was a decent size and in good condition with two large comfortable and quiet (no creaking) single beds separated by a small bedside table (with neither drawer or shelf beneath). The bedside table had a large old-fashioned phone on it so there was virtually no room to put much else on it. We moved the phone to the floor beneath the table to make more room and the cleaners left it there for the duration of our stay There was a sliding door wardrobe with the safe in. There were various shelves and 2 drawers inside. We could have done with a few more hangers but, overall, the wardrobe was adequate for our needs. There was also a ‘desk’ (no drawers underneath) and a padded chair. If you look at the hotel’s room pictures this is shown with a lap top on but, in reality, the mini bar is beneath the desk and a big chunk of the top is taken up by a tray containing a kettle, mugs, bottles of water and tea/coffee supplies. So I don’t think it could actually be used as a desk. Indeed, the lack of surfaces is one of my main gripes about the room. Note you only get water and tea/coffee supplies on arrival. If you want them to continue to supply these there is a daily charge of 2.5 euros a day (plus a 10 euro deposit, no doubt payable in cash, on return of the kettle). We did not pay but they did leave the kettle with us for our use. The mini bar had two removeable shelves allowing 3 to 4 wine sized bottles to be stored within and it worked well and silently. The room had a smallish wall mounted TV, on which you could get BBC1 & 2, ITV and Channel 4, and a large full-length mirror. The room’s lighting was very good and there were 3 electrical sockets – one by the kettle and two above the bedside table. Sound insulation between the rooms was not so good. During part of our stay we had a person with a booming voice on one side – we could hear nearly everything he said – and on the other someone with a horrendous sounding cough. I guess we should be grateful we did not also get a crying baby! We had an intermittent problem with our room door. Sometimes it closed and locked other times it did not lock and we had to fiddle around with it to get it to lock. We did report this but nothing was done about it. The air conditioning appears to have been retrofitted so while it worked well the wall mounted control was inconveniently located above one of the beds.

En-suite bathroom: I can best describe it as compact. It contained a bath with shower over, a WC, a bidet and a wide wash basin. The water was hot and the shower reasonably powerful. Soap dispensers were provided for the bath and basin. There was a hairdryer, a large mirror and reasonable lighting. There was one electrical socket. The socket was placed directly above the hair dryer. Using a travel adaptor meant I had to remove the hair dryer to get it into the socket. Poor design or what? There was a small shelf and a larger storage area at the end of the bath but this was behind the door when open. Reasonable quality towels were changed periodically or by request by putting them on the bathroom floor. The WC was located right up against the shower screen and approximately 3 feet from the toilet roll holder, which itself was under a towel rail which if used meant the towel partly covered the toilet roll. Again poor design. The bathroom could have been modernised with vastly improved usability by replacing the bath with a walk-in shower, getting rid of the bidet and putting in a smaller wash basin inset into a unit with storage below and a flat surface for additional storage alongside.

Balcony: from the room there were sliding glass doors to the glass fronted balcony. Opening these turned the air conditioning off. It contained two plastic chairs and a table. It also had a useful clothes dryer contraption. Rooms on the front like ours got sun on the balcony from around midday until sunset. Those on the pool side got no sun after about midday. 

Room cleaning: you could ask for your room to be cleaned or left alone by a door hanger. I’m not sure asking for your room to be cleaned that way had any affect. The cleaners seemed to have their own plans and did it when it suited them. Bedding was changed periodically and I did not see anything you could leave out to ask for it to be changed more frequently. The actual cleaning was a bit hit or miss. It never took them very long even when changing the bedding. We have usually found cleaners to be a happy chatty lot but those we encountered at the Palmasol were not at all communicative.

Wifi: free and worked wel.l

Evening entertainment: during our stay there were 3 live shows a week. One was a flamenco show which we saw twice and was good. One was a Harry Hill look alike who serenaded us with songs in Spanish. He did not appear to speak English at all. We saw him twice. He was a good singer and got the Spanish guests in particular up and dancing. One was a singer who sang songs in both Spanish and English. We saw him once and thought he was entertaining. Finally, we saw a kind of Il Divo take-off who were good until they switched from operatic style songs to US classics from the Frank Sinatra era. In between the days of the live shows the entertainment team did bingo and musical/film quiz sessions. The main problem was the venue. It was a large room with 6 huge pillars (4 x 3 feet each) spread across it. So unless you were one of the few sitting directly in front of the stage virtually no one had an uninterrupted view of the performers. The information about the entertainment programme was poor. In the reception area there was a screen that set out each days events. However, it only remained visible for about 15 seconds and the detail it gave was not very helpful.

Stag groups: according to Jet 2 these are not allowed, which sounds great. But they do allow large groups of golfers and they can get a bit raucous at times.

The self-service buffet restaurant: the opening times were as follows: breakfast 08.00 – 11.00; lunch 13.00 – 15.00; dinner 19.15 – 21.45. On arrival at the restaurant someone scanned your wristband. More often than not no one was there so guests either ended up queuing on the stairs until someone appeared (dangerous if you are not very mobile) or they just walked in. They really did not like you doing that so they should just make sure someone is always there! Easy peasy.There is a dress code for dinner - long trousers and sleeved shirts for men (i.e. no singlets) but this appeared to be widely ignored by guests.  We noticed immediately that the biggest plates were only three-quarter size. Strange. The food was good although, in our opinion, the breakfasts were better than the dinners. In both cases there was reasonable choice and daily variations. A lot of the main dishes at dinner were stew type concoctions and we like to know what we are being offered – the labelling was pretty uninformative at times. On the other hand, the desserts were really good. We did not experience cold ‘hot’ food as some reviewers have reported. We also did not notice any special effort to identify vegetarian offerings yet alone vegan! The dining experience, however, left something to be desired. The ambience was more like a works canteen with people darting here there and everywhere to get their food. Parts of the dining room were often closed off meaning guests were crammed into a smaller area. When questioned about this we were told either that the hotel was not full or, more truthfully I suspect, they had insufficient staff. The plastic topped tables were a good size but they were close together. I’ve never known a hotel restaurant that ran out of plates and cutlery so frequently. Food also ran out occasionally before being replaced. The wait staff seemed to be constantly rushed off their feet and some were downright surly. We were rarely asked if we wanted something to drink, used crockery and cutlery were slow to be removed and vacated tables slow to be made up. On occasions we had a table that had not been cleaned properly (and rocked) and/or dirty cutlery. A lot of this is down to poor management and therefore rectifiable.

Summary: all in all we had a good holiday in spite of the hotel. We would not stay there again.

A good holiday in spite of the hotel

The hotel is located a five minute walk down to the marina and a two minute walk up to the main road and bus stops. Our room (104) was of adequate size with two queen size beds and plenty of storeage space. The air-con works well and there is a kettle and "welcome pack of tea/coffee etc" which is not normally replenished. A safe is provided at a daily charge with a 10 euro deposit.  The balcony had chairs and a table and overlooked the outside bar/pool area.  The bathroom has a fantastic, good sized shower area and hair dryer was also fitted. The room was serviced daily and with new towels. The staff were all friendly and helpful. We went half board and breakfast and dinner were well stocked with at least 60 items to choose from and well presented and tasty - soething for everyone. The restaurant staff worked really quickly to ensure tables were cleared and relaid for new guests. 
We like to travel by bus to visit the nearby towns etc and found the bus service clean and regular. It would appear that all routes cost approx 1.70 euros however one can purchase a travel card from most tobacconist for a minimum of 5.00 eures and then each trip costs only 0.45 eures giving 11 trips per card. One card can be used for two people.
The local marina is well worth a walk around and from the left, you will be on the outskirts of Torremolinos and on the right is the quieter local beach area.
A few nice places to visit are Mijas and Benalmadena Pueblo (the Old Town) where you can also walk down quite a steep hill to Castillo Colomares.
All in all, a lovely relaxed week with plenty of sun (low 20 degrees) and we fortunately missed the really bad weather the previous week.
Would be very happy to return here in the future.

A lovely week at Hotel Palmasol

Excellent quality and service. Superb cleanliness. Fully inclusive menu options outstanding, especially with myself being a vegetarian. Highly recommended and will be definitely using again very soon!!!! Beautiful Marina and Sea life centre on your doorstep

5 day break

Lovely hotel, ideal location near the marina. We had a fantastic end room, double aspect with large balcony.
The staff were so helpful and friendly. From the receptionist, kitchen staff and cleaners..
The room was really lovely and the hotel was spotless.
The food was delicious with so much choice.. they even had a special gluten free area with my own toaster for cross contamination.
We had an amazing holiday and we will definitely be back.

Thanks you to everyone at the hotel

Craig and Nikki

Really lovely hotel

I am an inexperiened traveller so have not stayed in a lot of hotels although I did work in a large hotel chain for a number of years.
I've given 4 due to a few minor issues that can be easily rectified, some mentioned in other visitor reviews.
1  Food.  i had avery good deal on half board. Breakfast-if I took hot food there I am veggie/vegan so only had hash browns/fried tomatoes/mushrooms/roast veg.  Cold food cereals/dried-fresh fruit/nuts/yoghurt.
Dinner-usually pasta/sauce veggies/salad/advocado.
Hot food I took was luke warm/cold-I like piping hot food also plates were smallish and flat so occasionally something would fall off the plate e.g. sauces/tomatoes.
I bought a pasta bowl the next day from a charity shop the next day and used that, I also found the microwave a couple of days later so that solved the issue of getting proper hot food.  A fellow visitor commented that the meats were brick hard.
POSITIVES- great selection, well laid out, I loved what I ate including the varios sweet option/rustic bread and cheeses.
2  CLEANLINESS-Public areas looked really clean however definite room issues.  I clean as part of my job and it's amazing what you see sitting on the toilet.  What I thought was mould on the grout/tile ledges/sink piping was dirt.  Also I dropped something on the floor, very obvious no deep clean had been done under the beds before the handover to me.
POSITIVES-Cleaning staff were very pleasant and asked me daily if I wanted my room clean or a linen change.  Having worked in the industry I know that these cleaners are given instructions from someone sitting behind a desk to get a room done in so meny minutes in an impossible time scale.  So who ever that is you show the cleaning staff how to throughly do what you expect them to do in the allocated time.  I look forward to seeing how you get on.
3 GYM- excellent gym for a hotel.  I do functional training/olympic lifting-enough there to keep me ticking over.  Bar collars required for the 20kg bar.

Staff were fantastic/really helpful and helped me with my Spanish attempts.  I hope to return in Feb 2025 for a 2 week language course in the area.  Great location easy walking/bike hire hire, bus access, airport 25 mins away. Cheers George

Great Holiday Thoroughly Recommend

Twin rooms consist of a private balcony, private bathroom, free toiletries, hairdryer, air conditioning, Satellite TV, and wake-up service. 

Twin Room

Equipped with a private balcony overlooking the hotel swimming pool, these rooms also include a private bathroom, hairdryer, free toiletries, air conditioning, Satellite TV and wake-up service. 

Twin Poolview


Enjoying a delightful position in front of Puerto Marina and just 250 metres from the wide sandy beach and a stone's throw from the attractive centre of Benalmadena, the Hotel Palmasol is surrounded by beautiful gardens and offers guests an all-inclusive package with a wealth of guest facilities.

##### Rooms at Hotel Parasol:

Comfortable air-conditioned rooms all have balcony (except Single Rooms) are ensuite/heated and facilities include hairdryer, telephone and flat screen TV. Minibar and safe are available at a fee. Junior Suites are available at a supplement.

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Hotel Palmasol

Rooms at Hotel Parasol: