Exe Estepona Thalasso and Spa

I loved this hotel and my stay.

This is our second visit to this hotel. First time was July 2018 and then this week. We stayed for 3 nights with half board (breakfast and dinner). This was a spontaneous trip, my partner booked it the day before arrival as we are only 40minutes away.

TLDR: great hotel, lovely staff, great pool areas and restaurant. Cold breakfast and sometimes slow service at the bars.

Location: It's not really close to anything, so if you don't have a car, to get out and about you would need to taxi. The beach is across the motorway, I drove so not sure if its safe to walk there.

Parking: 3rd party booking site said there was no parking available, I was worried about this as there was an underground carpark in 2018. On arrival I checked, and there is underground parking at €10 per night. I feel that's quite reasonable.

Room: We had a deluxe double. This had a pool view, which they had upgraded us to on arrival. It was a nice room, clean, nice towels and plenty of the expected toiletries. The bed was hard. Not an issue for me, but my partner struggled, so something to bear in mind! Safe was available at no extra charge, which I always like to see! Alot of places charge for this! Complimentary water in the room (small bottles), but a nice touch. TV didn't have much choice, only Spanish channels.

Pool and pool bar: Pool area is great, nice sunbeds and plenty of parasols. The bar opens at 12:30 (I think!). Snacks are quite expensive and probably not what I would call 'snacks', we are talking club sandwich/burger, main meals and some tapas type dishes. We did eat twice at the pool bar. No issues, food was fine (but a little pricey €14 for a club sandwich and chips). You can find yourself waiting to be served, as seems the staff are trying to cover other areas of the hotel at the same time. A large beer was €4. They had a good selection of cocktails available, but I didn't try these.

Lobby bar: They seemed to have a good selection of wines etc. My partner drinks semi sweet white wine (🤢) and they had an option for him. I'm a brut cava kinda girl, and they had that available by the glass... only issue was there was no flutes available, and mine was served in a red wine glass so was flat in 5 minutes! I'd seen the previous barman open the bottle not more than 2 hours before, so it wasn't the bottle that was the issue. But anyway, who wants cava in a red wine glass? Barman was happy to source me a flute (from downstairs in the restaurant) and replaced my flat cava for a fresh one, so no complaints there! There is an issue here though. The barman is also helping in the restaurant downstairs. Both times I went to the lobby bar, I had to ask reception to call him up for service.

Restaurant: The restaurant wasn't very busy during our stay. There is a set menu, starter, main and pudding. Starters are not quite what you would expect a starter to be... think Spanish 'menu del dia', so if you get a salad it's the size you'd expect for a main! Every bit of food we ate in the restaurant was beautiful! Perfectly cooked fish, pork cheeks and the ox tail croquettes were to die for! We throughly enjoyed every meal.

Breakfast:

Here there is definitely as issue. The hot selection, is cold. I'm not talking luke warm, it's cold. I could put my fingers on the hot plate and not get burnt. Aside from this, coffee is okay, not the best but does the job. The selection of cheeses, cured meats and bread is great.

Staff: Very, very friendly! Reception, bar staff, house keeping all very pleasant and cant do enough for you!

To finish: Please do your research before staying here... as it may not be what you are expecting. There is no tea/coffee facilities in the room, and it's not beach front. They don't claim either of these to be true on their website or 3rd party booking sites. I say this as someone that stayed here 5 years ago and didn't check 🙈

Would I stay here again? YES Would I recommend to friends/family? YES

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Let down by nonsensical things, nice basic four star boutique style hotel a bit noisy near N340 and major roundabout but generally clean and well appointed, consider the following before booking

1. No bar or soft drinks available until 12.30 pm even peak season , no pool service at anytime ,
2. Limited on road free parking adjacent , hotel has own car park at €15 per night

3.spa entry costs €25 pp for two hour session all treatments extra and pricey. 4. Staff few and far between 5. Aircon in room is override from main reception and lowest cool setting is 19 deg not low enough in hot weather , reception immovable on adjusting this , rooms have minimal linen provided , no bath mats robes, face cloths etc. A few adjustments would make guests happier and venue more attractive

The hotel isn’t in the best location, so I would recommend hiring a car. The pool area was nice and clean, there were lots of sunbeds available. We only ate from the breakfast menu, but the food was okay, and repetitive. We ate out for lunch and dinner, tried to book the hotel restaurant twice for the set menu, but they only had the buffet for dinner time. The room had a comfy, and huge king sized bed, a big bathroom, nice balcony, and was tidy. However, there were a few ants in my room, so don’t leave any food out. The hotel was mainly quiet, not a lot of people and not much going on, there wasn’t much staff, so service was slow at times. We enjoyed the cocktails and relaxing by the pool. We didn’t stay in the hotel much, but enjoyed a few nights on the balcony. We had the street view, but you could see the mountains and sea in the distance. We didn’t use the spa facilities, and parking was 8 euro a night, but there was street parking for free. We parked on the street and no problems the whole week. There were a few local things, we went to two restaurants one next to the hotel, one 10 minutes walk away, and a few supermarkets. The beach is a 15-20 minute walk. We took a taxi to Puerto Banus, which was only a 10 minute drive, cost around 15 euros.