Gran Melia Don Pepe - Marbella, Spain 

We have just returned from a week at the Don Pepe and found it very disappointing. The hotel itself is nice, with a lovely pool - plenty of room for everyone and nice rooms, but everything else from the the food to especially the service (with the exception of a few staff) was dreadful. Our main gripe was with the service. I've never seen such reluctance to provide information, even finding out what exactly was inclulded in our room rate was like pulling teeth! Even the manager we spoke to didn't seem to know their own restaurant opening hours!!! Our room was on the 8th floor, half board which includes the evening meal. The menu was generally repeated each night with the exception of one evening while we were there and apart from the starter was awful. I couldn't eat the stuff. The Maitre D' of the restaurant was one of the rudest people we have ever come across. On one occasion, as we left the restaurant having finished or meal, we were pulled aside and THROWN a bill for ?100!! When we explained this was included in our room rate, they made a big to-do, calling reception, putting my husband on the phone etc. in full view of the other diners. Tactless and uneccessary. Something else that annoyed us was the preferential treatment given to the spanish guests staying there. One example was when we had found a free Sun Umbrella (the hotel was very busy at the weekend) only to have the maintainance man take it from us and give to a spanish family who just walked up and demanded it!!! Of course our objections fell on deaf ears as he implied he didn't understand us - conveniently. The final straw was when we were overcharged at the pool bar for a sandwich (?15.80) we never ordered and the woman on the till didn't know how to delete it off our bill. We complained to the manager, (as this was our FOURTH trip to reception, having to produce copies of our online booking, which was incorrectly entered in their system the previous THREE times). After everything we told her, she simply said that there was a computer error and that she'd get us a table by the window in the restaurant that evening!! Give me a break!! In short this is not a five star hotel and needs to be re-graded. Customer service is non-existent on all levels (with exception of a few staff) and we were generally treated as an inconvenience rather than guests. My advice would be to spend your hard earned reddies elsewhere, as it is generally expensive here, but extremely poor overall. If you do decide to stay here, make sure to double-check your bill and bring copies of your booking for repeated interrogation. We won't be back.

My daughter (age 20) and I spent 4 days at the Don Pepe and we were very pleased with the experience. The hotel is in a central location, near public buses to the other towns, directly on the beach and within walking distance to the old town. The hotel in general is very attractive, the rooms were spacious, and the grounds (which include multiple pools) were beautiful. We were able to get a very reasonable rate for the 4 days which included a sumptuous buffet breakfast and dinner. The service during dinner was 5* and the food was above average. The only part of our stay which could have been improved was the non-availability of a concierge to help us with plans to see more of the area. The front desk staff was "hit and miss" in that some of the staff were not so helpful (one was not even aware of a yearly festival taking place in Marbella at that time) but a few of the others were pleasant and helpful. Some of the staff were not fluent in English but did try to communicate. In summary I was pleased with the resort - beautiful setting, good accomodations and excellent location. We did not experience some of the negatives which other reviewers noted.