Cordial Mogan Playa

My review of the Cordial Mogan Playa Hotel. Overall it is very close to 5*, just a couple of minor niggles which I will come to. We were an extended family of 4 adults and 2 young children staying in 2 rooms.

First the positives ;

The Hotel is in a good location in Puerto de Mogan, opposite a small selection of shops, bars and restaurants. The resort itself is beautiful and probably the nicest we have been to in any of the Canary Islands. We arrived about 10pm at night and were soon checked in. The reception we received was very good.. We were offered some cava or orange juice and advised some cold food would be available if we wanted it as it was too late for dinner. A concierge took all our bags to our rooms and gave us a mini guided tour of the hotel on the way. This was very useful as it is a large site with a lot to see. We had emailed the hotel 2 weeks before arrival asking for 2 adjoining rooms on a low floor. This we got, both rooms having a view of the childrens pool. TIP - the hotel is landscaped with a lot of trees and greenery. This means if you do book a pool view room, which are more expensive, you may not get an unobstructed view so bare that in mind and think if the extra expense is worth it. Some people have commented that the rooms are dated. I do not agree with this. They are typical Canarian/Spanish decor with a lot of brown wood. Each of our rooms had twin beds pushed together to make a double and a spare bed made up for a child. There was plenty of tea/coffee/bathroom supplies and a coffee capsule machine as well. We liked the rooms which were cleaned each day to a high standard. I didn't notice any black feet when walking barefoot on the room tiles as you normally get, they were mopped each day. We also had a small terrace with 2 chairs, a table and a clothes airer. Every member of staff from the pool lifeguard to the waiting staff/reception etc were friendly and efficient and all understood English and even my poor attempts at Spanish (with good grace). I would say they were the best I have experienced and it shows commitment by the hotel management to good staff recruitment and training. The hotel grounds are fantastic, being beautifully landscaped and well tended. There is a cactus garden, numerous artificial 'caves' for the children to explore and many trees and plants both inside and outside the buildings. There is an Archaeological park attached to the hotel which was very interesting, they do a guided tour on a Friday at 11am. It's quite hard work walking up the hill in the hot sun but there is a bar near the end to cool off at. Many people used the park to exercise on. I have never seen anything like this anywhere else. All of the pools were very good. We mainly used the childrens pool and the 'noisy' pool where the animation team work hard at entertaining everybody. This pool allows inflatables, ball games and young children generally letting off steam and having fun. All pools have lovely warm water you could walk/swim straight into. The pool bars served a good selection of snacks, drinks and some meals. The breakfast selection was excellent and I was particularly pleased to see smoked salmon and even proper honeycombs on offer along with just about anything else you can think of to eat at breakfast, and some you wouldn't. Everything was kept on hot plates except for omelettes which were cooked to order. The Mini Disco at 8pm was the standard fare but again the enthusiastic animation team kept up the childrens spirits and spoke in several languages. We didn't stay to watch any of the entertainment at 9:30 as the children were in bed by then. Most people in the hotel seemed to be British.

The few problems ;

The evening meal is held in 2 settings, 6:30 and 8:30, you can choose which you prefer. We had 6:30 as we had young children. You are allocated a table which you keep for your stay. There was plenty of choice of food although anything cooked was very heavily salted and started to taste bland and 'samey'. The queues could be excessive with over 10 people at each station waiting for freshly cooked food. Food that was already cooked and on hot plates was mainly at these stations but randomly spread around, so you ended up queuing to get the main part of the meal, then if you wanted something else (chips/rice/vegetables etc) you could end up having to wait in another line for that. Once I did this 3 times to get the combination I wanted. Of course things are going cold on your plate whilst waiting. You could also find it difficult to see what you were actually queuing up for. You have to pay for any drinks you have, even water, but it is not too expensive. There are no water hydration points anywhere in the hotel so you need to stock up at a local shop and keep it in your room fridge. In a hot country you do need to keep well hydrated. The dinner table we were allocated was fine but strangely on day 6 we arrived to find another family sitting there. When we queried this we were told we had always had the 'new' table, which was untrue. On showing out restaurant card the person in charge apologised and said he would fetch us a new card. Nothing wrong with the new table it was just unnecessary hassle. The new card never arrived then 2 days later we were mysteriously back on the original table. The gentlemans dress code of long trousers was completely ignored by a lot of men and nobody seemed to care. We had a problem with the toilet overflow in our bathroom and rang reception. Nobody came and we had to ask again the next day when it was fixed. Again unnecessary hassle. On the other hand when the room safe battery failed, we again rang reception and that was sorted out within 10 minutes.

TIPS Do you really want to pay extra for a pool view room which may be obscured by trees? If you want to be at the Mini Disco choose the early dinner sitting. Buy water and beer for the pool and your room from the local Superdino supermarket. A beer in the hotel (40cl) was €4.70, you can buy 6 for that. In the hotel a very generous glass of Bombay gin was €6.50 with the tonic another €3.40, a cava was €6 and a Sprite €3.10.
Choose your swimming pool depending on whether you want a quiet pool or one with more activities and associated noise. If you are interested, I recommend the hotel tours of the Archaeology and Cactus parks and also the 'behind the scenes' tour of the hotel itself. Stick with breakfast only and eat out. There are many reasonably prices places to eat both locally and a 15 minute walk to the sea front and marina. On your last day checkout is at 12. Above the arcade/games room there is a courtesy suite of bedrooms, showers and lockers where you can freshen up if you have a late flight. CONCLUSION Overall an excellent hotel and one I would stay at again on a breakfast only meal plan. Without the few small niggles and the evening meal I would have easily given it a 5* rating.

We have just had a lovely week returning in the early hours of this morning. Both of the pools were clean and not too busy, the entertainment staff are great with the children (including the life guard/s).

We were in a room which gave a nice view and a balcony in shade which was lovely after a day in the sun. The air conditioning was perfect for the room and we slept well.

Food was great, again the staff were all very friendly at breakfast and dinner. Drinks were a little pricey but no more than UK prices and we were a short walk from Mogan marina which was nice to visit during the evenings. the market on a Friday is also a nice few hours out.

All in all we had a lovely week and would recommend this hotel to family and friends.