SBH Costa Calma Palace Thalasso & Spa

Quite a disappointing experience- NOT a family hotel, even though pools are supposedly designed for fun. No balls,, no snorkels or goggles, essentially, no fun. The hotel guests are mainly German and over 50. Two Germans screamed at us because we were enjoying a family conversation with our well behaved grandchildren- we were told to ‘silence’! - so don’t bring your children here if you want them to enjoy themselves. Rooms are very dated. We paid extra for a superior deluxe with sea view. However our daughters rooms were identical with exactly the same view but they paid less.The hotel is very ‘tired’ and in places desperate for attention. In our room the bathroom tile grout was awful and shower gel dispenser hanging off the wall. Air conditioning pushed out only warm air and the fan clicked constantly. The refrigerator was barely cold. With the exception of one or two, the staff seem tired, over worked and generally miserable. Pick your time for breakfast as when busy the staff just can’t keep up, we felt sorry for them as there just weren’t enough of them and some of the guests were quite rude - no wonder the staff aren’t happy. You can’t pay for anything in the hotel with card payments - it’s cash or on your room. The beach is lovely but you do have to pay for the loungers which we didn’t mind. The beach bar is great food. Search out the nice restaurants close by: Manama, Asia Garden and 555 are great. Don’t go to ‘China Town’ it was awful. Sorry to say we wouldn’t return to Costa Calma Palace. They should definitely advertise as family ‘unfriendly’ or German adults only. Hope this helps other families considering booking as we don’t usually do reviews

What a beautiful hotel . Very clean . And right on the beach too . My only moan was that I upgraded to sea view and only had half sea view due to a tree fern blocking half of it . Each time we relaxed on our balcony ends up bitten . But still could see the sea or half of it we was on holiday and did not want to stress . Rooms cleaned every day clean towels every day. Toilet rolls topped up every day could not fault the cleanliness.. two pools to choose from both with bubble spa massage . Food was ok but a shame it was not served with a smile or manners . Stronger Wi-Fi in reception hit and miss in the rooms . The beach is beautiful too . Staff in the pool bar restaurant much more happier and did try to communicate. We felt we was the only English people there as most people was German. Did find one couple who was English.. outside the hotel if you turn left there are a few shops including spa supermarket and gift shops and a few restaurants too . There is a bus you can get into town Morro Jable loads of shops and restaurants but you need to find the bus stop it’s too hard to explain. Would definitely recommend this hotel and would love to go back in the future. It certainly lives up to its name Costa Calma.

Firstly I did email the hotel’s head office with this feedback but have no response - I felt I should write to you directly concerning elements of our recent stay at the above hotel and before I post other online reviews to see your response. My wife and I had stayed previously at this hotel in 2018 and found there to be certain areas where we feel that standards had fallen below what should be expected. We were not happy with our first bedroom after paying for a sea view and asked to be moved, we were just told the hotel is full. After asking again the following day and persisting and showing photographs of our view to Iris we were informed that we could move to a different room the following day. One of your reception team”Walter” certainly needs training in customer service. In relation to the buffet and dining room experience. The hotel was at 100% capacity as we were frequently told but large sections of the seating area were cordoned off. We actually requested to be moved 3 times during our stay. Generally we do find it somewhat outdated that when ordering drinks in the restaurant or any bar that a handwritten ticket is produced, a copy given to me, the customer while you retain a copy which has then to be manually keyed into a till point for it to register against our room number. Surely there is a better and more efficient method in these times of internet capability, tablets and point of sale devices. It seems overly complicated in this day and age to watch restaurant staff keying in such orders. The buffet system needs to be looked at. The cooking stations are too close together, the whole buffet area is not utilised effectively in terms of space as there are areas which are not used but large queues build up at various points. This is especially worrying at the dessert area. All the desserts are situated in a long line starting at fruit and ending with ice cream. If you only want to have something from the middle of this line for example you have to join the queue at the fresh fruit counter. Guests are not happy if you just want say ice cream and we were rudely told to go back and join the long queue. Also there is a dessert cooking station in the middle and this would be better placed away from the other desserts to help ease the backlog. As I said there is plenty of unused space in the buffet area which could be used for this. The queues for the cooked fish and eggs at breakfast were unacceptable. Items were not replenished and there was a total lack of supervision in the buffet area to check on items running out. The vegetable selection was very limited and repeated most evenings. It was just too busy for us and definitely down graded since our previous visit. We did not expect to be queuing up together into the dining room and joining a mad rush at 8am to get a table in the outside terrace! The hotel is in need of repairs and renovation. You can see from the attached photographs of our balcony and bedroom furniture that if

I was very impressed with this hotel when I first arrived. The location was perfect, the beach is a very short walk away and it is gorgeous. The architecture of the hotel is impressive, it is VERY quiet which was what I wanted, including the pool area which never livens up, even during the day! If you want somewhere peaceful, this place is great. Costa Calma is not a lively resort by any means, but provided a fab location for me as every tour provider I booked a trip with was able to pick me up from this hotel. Breakfast was good, very relaxed atmosphere. Mainly because it wa so quiet all the time. But that was a good thing! Evening meal got a bit boring after a few days as the menu didn't change much, but it was edible. Only downside is that despite me paying for half board, evening drinks were extra...over three euros for a tiny bottle of Coke or Fanta. Safe cost 27 euros extra, wifi cost extra, even tea and coffee in the room cost extra. Beach towels...yes, extra. Good job I brought my own. A four star hotel should be providing things for free. It is about keeping guests happy, not trying to make extra money out of us. The room was fine although you could tell it was a few years old. Some cosmetic repairs wouldn't go amiss. Air con was next to useless sadly. Overall though, I was happy with my choice. Until day four, when things went downhill. So...upon arrival at the hotel I was given a card with my name and room number on. I was told to take it to the restaurant in the evening. So I did. However, the head waiter told me on my first night that this didn't matter and I could sit anywhere (like you do at breakfast). I had previously been led to believe tables were reserved, and assumed this is what the card was for, but this didn't appear the case. Fine, no dramas. For four nights I just sat anywhere, and nobody said anything. Day four, and by this time I was fuming at the small expensive drinks in the restaurant. I was hot and dehydrated, and needed to take some medication before dinner. So on my way down I bought a small 90c bottle of water from the hotel shop. I went in the restaurant, sat down and took my tablets with this water, with the intention of still buying yet another over priced Coke. Another problem with this was the fact that most nights I would finish my first plate of food before anyone even took my drink order! Anyway...a waitress, whose name sadly I did not get, came to my table and saw my water. I immediately asked for a Coke Zero, as usual. However, she ignored this and started to "tell me off" in Spanish, gesturing with her hands and raising her voice, clearly trying to tell me my water was not allowed in the restaurant. I explained as best I could that I spoke "Ingles"......several times, but she carried on, looking cross and talking to me with a stern, angry look. Honestly, it left me feeling like a naughty child. I was upset after this, and quite angry. But the next evening I went down again as normal

If I could give this hotel more then five stars I would, I travel here on my own for a quite relaxing holiday and I can honest say I go that and more, I went for five days and would of stayed longer if I could, I will start by saying the food was so nice and they change the main meals every day and all were excellent especially the ribs, (drinks are not included in your half board). the location is perfect and the beach is outstanding felt like I was in the Caribbean, the hotel pool was great and you could always find a bed, the cocktails are amazing and you can bring these down to the beach if you wished which was great. There is local shop less then two minutes away an a spa, the rooms were cleaned everyday, and they were lovely I was given a sea view with a massive balcony the view was outstanding. the food at the pool side was very very nice with lots of choice. If I had to pick out little fault's it would be there is no charger next to the bed, the transfer is far from the hotel, about an hour and a half, but I would not mark the hotel down for these things it was just to nice. please note this is a very quiet hotel with not much night life so it is perfect for relaxation and chilling out. I will be booking again soon :)

This is our third stay at this hotel, and we choose it because of its proximity to the Club Ion Watersports centre, which is on the beach right in front of the hotel (we spend our holiday windsurfing). What we like about the hotel is that it’s very very quiet - no music round the pool, no loud entertainment at night (there is really lovely gentle entertainment outside the restaurant after dinner) - so this won’t necessarily suit everyone, but it works for us. A couple of things have changed for the better since our last visit: there are no longer two dinner sittings, and instead you can go to dinner whenever you like. This suits us much better and meant that there were no big queues at mealtimes. Also, the hotel’s free wifi now seems to extend to the bedrooms (we were on the 6th floor, near the end, and had good signal). The rooms are a bit dated, and the beds are a bit hard, but the rooms are spacious and the shower is hot and powerful (lukewarm showers are a dealbreaker for me). I especially love the balconies which have glass fronts and lovely comfortable sunbeds, so you can really relax on your own balcony. Pros: - Quiet clientele - mainly older German couples, very few children - Sea view balconies with comfortable sun beds - Fridge in room - Large pool area with plenty of sun beds (and very few people putting towels on sun beds first thing in the morning!) - Quiet pool area with no music playing, no aqua aerobics etc - Extensive breakfast and dinner buffet with lots of choice - Excellent service at meal times - staff very friendly and efficient. If you order a bottle of wine at dinner and don’t finish it, they will label it with your room number and bring it back out to you the next night. - Spar shop and plenty of souvenir/clothes shops and restaurants within a couple of minutes walk Cons: - 10 Euro cash deposit required for each beach towel - 20 Euro cash deposit required for bathrobes - Charge to use in-room safe - Very poor labelling of food at the buffet. I don’t eat meat so had to try and work out what did and didn’t have meat in it. If I was vegan or had allergies, the buffet would be a nightmare - Very little atmosphere in the communal areas We will continue to return as it’s perfect for us.