Hotel Griego Mar

Review date: 10 September 2008 - A HotelStreet visitor from England wrote:-

Review title: "Good Stay"
Travel date: September 2008
That picture of the hotel on the main page of this website isn't what it looks like. Worth going for a cheap and cheerful holiday. Two adults aged 43 and 44 and two teenagers aged 17 and 18.

Security at all times in hotel so you know you're safe. Hotel has a shop and internet access and pool tables. Rooms were spacious and kept very tidy by the maids. Hardly any plug sockets though.

Beach quite far away and took about 30 minutes the first time to try and find it as not many signs showing where it was! But once you find a way, you will get there in about ten minutes. Go left at water fountain, then just look for lots of steps by the shops, then go all the way down. It's nice there though, but a bit stony in the water and it gets deep quickly. Sunbeds on the beach are four euros 50 each. Peddle boats on the beach are 15-20 euros, depending on which one you have. They also have a banana boat and other water ride games.

No kids' pool in the hotel, just one big one. People sit down by the pool at eight in the morning for a sun bed so get one quickly if you want one.

Food not bad but not that great either. Breakfast was the same every morning - just bacon, eggs and beans etc. Some cereals and they were OK. Lunch and dinner not much choice but fills you. Getting your drinks is easy but it gets a big queue at night.

Water park worth going to. Not many rides but a good day out as there's not much else around to do. Lots of shops and bars within walking distance from hotel.

Entertainment at night at the hotel is OK. They have a mini disco for kids, then play bingo, then a show. The magician is good.

Weather was good all week, even though on line it says it was meant to be raining, it got up to a maximum of 37 degrees in September!

Was a very good week stay but couldn't stay for two weeks as there isn't much there to do. Would recommend the Griego Mar hotel for anyone, it was that good and even children and babies didn't mind there wasn't a pool for them - they were too happy in the big pool to care.

Would probably go back to this hotel but there are other places I would like to go so maybe in the future. So don't worry if you are, it isn't that bad for the money you pay, unless you have paid way too much. Good place to go and to stay.

Review date: 17 February 2008 - A HotelStreet visitor from East Midlands wrote:-

Review title: "Holiday!"
Travel date: February 2008
On a good point, our cleaner was lovely - the only polite, non grumpy staff member in the place.

Our room was average with a leaking shower, floors constantly wet.

Couldn't get a coffee in the daytime as we were only half board. The food was appalling although salads were always fresh.

As for the entertainment, a parrot show twice in three days was a bit much. A gorgeous young Spanish singing sensation turned out to be a 60 plus year old bloke with a small electric piano and a group of young ladies lent the disco a CD so he had something different to play.

We knew the hotel would have a lot of elderly people for the time of year but they were mostly rude and demanding. We were always made to wait, however long we queued. I could be second in line and still five or six were served before me by rude, grumpy staff. There were some nice people staying, thankfully.

They sent us to a wonderful Irish bar just down the road where the company was great and the food wonderful. So away from the Griego Mar hotel we had a good holiday!

Review date: 19 August 2007 - A HotelStreet visitor from Elgin, Scotland, UK wrote:-

Review title: "I Loved It!"
Travel date: August 2007
I loved my stay at the Griego Mar and I would definitely go back. The staff were friendly and the rooms were spotless. The entertainers are the people who are making it worth going back to especially Ernest (I think that's his name!) He was so nice and made my week's stay very enjoyable.

Review date: 03 August 2007 - A HotelStreet visitor from England wrote:-

Review title: "Do Not Go!"
Travel date: July 2007
I would not wish the Griego Mar on my worst enemy! Arrived about 10 p.m. - 30 people + at the bar, two members of staff serving. Spanish or 'paying guests' go straight to the bar without queueing. If you are wearing an all inclusive wrist band you have to wait in line like 3third class citizens.

We were all inclusive and had booked last September. We requested a room with balcony with pool view if possible. Two adults, two kids. Our room as specified on the fire regulations was for a maximum of two persons! Our view was of run down residential towers blocks whose idea of getting rid of rubbish was to tip it over their balconies.

The kids had a sofa bed that was broken and no bedding was supplied at all during our stay. We were only supplied with two towels and the showers leaked huge puddles of water into the room (won't call it an apartment). Fearing an accident, we had to use these towels to mop the floor. Fire escapes are locked!

One pool for 900+ people, no paddling area for little ones. Sunbeds are stacked and then chained and locked until 9 a.m. in the morning. Plenty of beds but no room for them. Beds are four deep all around the four corners of the pool. No chance of even putting your feet down at the side of the beds because you are packed in so tight. If you're lucky enough to get an umbrella, don't leave it people will take it as soon as your back is turned!

Food passable as long as you want chips with everything. My kids gave up the will to eat in the end. Kids are only allowed one drink, ice cream or ice pop at a time.

Entertainment is the pits. Although hotel states air conditioing in all rooms, half of them only have basic cold air vents (ours dripped water all over the floor - that joined the puddle from the shower!)

Staff are used to hearing so many complaints they don't bother listening to you. Dodgy pipes lead from our bathroom out of an open window. These mysteriously disappeared after the fourth day?

Despite all the problems, we were amazed when repair man turned up to fix our towel rail! (We hadn't even noticed it was broken).

Check out by 11 .a.m. Holding room is just a dark cupboard, no lock, no showers, no air conditioing. We paid £1,300 for four for one week. Ended up taking the kids out to local water park twice just to get them away.

On the positive, pool is cleaned everyday (but watch the broken tiles on the bottom). Two members of the staff were OK - Luis and Juan who are on the pool bar. The female members of staff would find it hard to crack an egg, let alone a smile. If you haven't booked, please don't. Shame my e-mail address isn't public because we can show you actual pictures of everything I have described that you will not find on any web site.

Review date: 26 July 2007 - A HotelStreet visitor from London wrote:-

Review title: "Griego Mar Hotel Is Just OK!"
Travel date: June 2007
Myself, partner and 16 month old son went to the Griego Mar. The room was really small but the air conditioning was good. The food was the same stuff more or less every day. The lifts broke down while we were there. The swimming pool area was really unsafe - the tiles were coming up in the pool. The area around the pool was so small the guests of the hotel were practically sitting on each other!

Some of the advertisements for the hotel say that there is a baby paddling pool, which there wasn't. The queue for the bar of a evening was so long it was trailing out of the door and took about half an hour to be served by grumpy staff!
The entertainment in the evening looked as if it was being run by about a ten year old, it was that bad!

Apart from that, you could have a good holiday, but we won't be seeing you there, Happy holidays!

Review date: 09 July 2007 - A HotelStreet visitor from UK wrote:-

Review title: "Griego Mar Was A Disappointment"
Travel date: June 2007
When first booking over the internet, all the boxes were being ticked, and the Griego Mar looked a fantastic prospect for our holiday, up until we arrived. First we were squashed into a room which was barely big enough to accommodate two people let alone four, the TV was not working and took ten days to fix, sockets were hanging out of the wall, the room smelled of sewers first thing in the morning, the room was only kitted out for three people at any given time and one of our party had to sleep in a foldaway bed. As a result of this, she set off home after only a week. As we were all inclusive, this came as a shock, more so for all the expense than anything else. The gym was only available for one hour in the morning between nine and ten and you can imagine the scramble for equipment every day in an hotel with four hundred plus rooms. In order to get telephone access you had to leave a 30 euro deposit at reception.

Food was basic, entertainment was appaling, when you had seen one night, it just repeated itself for the duration of our stay. The staff there were very hard working but at most times seemed well understaffed. I have to sympathise with them, as the are doing a terrific job under the circumstances.

Review date: 03 August 2006 - A HotelStreet visitor from Wales wrote:-

Review title: "Not The Best Or The Worst!"
Travel date: July 2006
The best?
Friendly staff especially in the restaurant.
Maids did a thorough job of tidying and cleaning your room.
Resident entertainment staff were friendly.
We reported a fault on our air conditioning and it was sorted immediately.

The worst?
Arriving at 10:30 a.m. and not being able to check in until 2:00 p.m. Having to hang around with a bored five year old by the pool in our travelling clothes in temperatures of nearly 40 degrees. When we returned to reception at 2.00 p.m., our designated room still wasn't ready so we had to have an alternative.
Beds were hard with a thin mattress on hardwood.
The pool was much too small for the amount of guests. Being five months pregnant, I got kicked and shoved no end of times so decided against it. Its better to wait until late afternoon (4.00 p.m. onwards), although the terrace is mainly in the shade then so can be cooler.
If you want a sun bed by the pool then be prepared to get up early. There is only a small terrace and everyone wants to get near the shallow end as that is where the sun stays the longest. If you want a parasol good luck! There are not enough and they are in high demand.
The food was OK but boring. Not much variety for a vegetarian or children. Salad and chips is on the menu every day.
There are lots of Spanish holidaying here which is OK, but they assume they can push in front of you so be on your guard.
The kids club wasn't very innovating. Sometimes it didn't even open but there is a park next to it.
A bit of a trip to the beach. Fine going as its all downhill but a killer coming back especially if you are elderly/pregnant/disabled/pushing a pram etc. Its at least 100 steps twisting down with shops and stalls at every turn.

Griego Mar is OK but a week was enough. Torremolinos is a nice resort with fabulous shops (not your normal tat). There is a train station five minutes from the hotel which we took for day trips to Fuengirola (zoo)(five euros return for two adults and two children). It took 15 minutes and Benalmadena was less than 10 minutes. Very efficient train service and easy to use.

Review date: 20 June 2006 - A HotelStreet visitor from Gibraltar wrote:-

Review title: "Very Good And Very Bad"
Travel date: June 2006
I stayed at the Hotel Griego Mar for three nights from Friday 16th to Monday 19th June 2006 with my boyfriend and my younger sister.

Very good:

1. AI programme allowing you to drink all day and eat until 12:00 midnight
2. Food very good, kitchen staff very friendly.
3. Staff at the pool bar and disco bar were great.
4. Bonus oint for the cleaners for keeping everything so clean and for having so much patience with the state guests left things when they got drunk
5. Entertainment brilliant, entertainers have a wicked sense of humour and are very nice.
6. Nightlife around the area fantastic e.g. Benalmadena Square you get the Mango Disco and Kiu Disco and loads of wicked bars (15 minutes away from hotel with transport)

Very bad:

1. Arriving at the hotel at 12:00 p.m. and not getting into room until 3:30 p.m.
2. After having had a lot of patience waiting for our room and having seen enough of the receptionist laughing on the phone to her friend, we asked why the room was taking so long, she got in a mood and answered 'we are very busy you know'. Yes, very busy on the phone to her friend she was. A lot of guests were in the same position as us.
3. Room very unattractive and furniture didn't match e.g. modern pine bedside tables, old-fashioned black drawers from the 1960's and a dark brown wardrobe. Beds had hard bumps making it difficult for us to sleep.
4. You cannot make an outside call from your room, you have to go downstairs and use pay phone by reception.
5. Waking up at 7:00 a.m. to get a place at the pool is totally useless you get up at 4:00 a.m., get a place and then go back to bed. Well, I assume guests were doing that because by 7:00 a.m. the pool area looked like a tin of sardines. If you do manage to get a place, don't be alarmed if you come back to find your deck chair inside the pool bar itself.
6. Thanks to some hooligans, there were at least ten massive holes in the ceilings of the game rooms. You know, they get drunk, play some snooker, lose the game, have to blame it on something and decide to make some holes in the ceilings with their snooker sticks. Dirty towels are also left lying around and plastic cups are left on the sofas, making the sofas stink of alcohol.
7. Hotel security guard was obviously bored and had to pick on guests every ten minutes or so (especially the kids) to make his day at work an interesting one, failing to see all mentioned in number six.
8. Receptionist didn't believe in the phrase 'the client is always right' and instead would deal with any complaint a guest had in a rude manner (witnessed several times).
9. The hotel in general was not that bad if you ignored all of the very bad things and just had a good time like we did. If perhaps they implemented an anger management class for the hooligans, sent the receptionist on a customer service course and involved the security guard in some of the hotel activities to entertain him a bit, then I'm sure this hotel would make your stay worthwhile. Oh, and did I mention some real cameras? ;)

Review date: 12 January 2006 - A HotelStreet visitor from Norwich, England, UK wrote:-

Review title: "The Best"
Travel date: July 2002
1997 was the year I stayed at the hotel. I stayed there four times. I learnt to swim there. It was great!