Review date: 23 October 2006 - A HotelStreet visitor from Madrid wrote:-

Review title: "Think Twice!"
Travel date: August 2006
After spending a week in Doblemar this last summer, I have to say it does not come close to the four star standard. The hotel decor is very old. Carpets in all the rooms, which after all the years of use are dirty and badly stained. The lifts/elevators are so old and slow that there is almost constantly a queue to use them and are like smelly, stuffy saunas.

The food was really, really terrible - the worst I've ever had in any hotel and we're a Spanish and Irish couple so we have a point of view from both sides. Even though it's supposed to be four star, you still have to go get your own cutlery, drinks etc. This may appear small to some, but with children, its means getting up and down like a yo-yo and something nearly always inevitably gets forgotten. The staff service in the restaurant, equally as poor. They had no scruples in asking us to move from one table to another (even with toddler in tow) because they decided to keep it for one client or another. I even found a piece of nail sticking out of a chair and it was just moved to another table when I reported it! Some of the restaurant's ‘popular and repeated' delicatessen was cows tongue and fried blood.

The only positive thing I can really say is the free crèche that the hotel provides. The carers are very nice and friendly, though the facility doesn't have a toilet so when one toddler needed to go, all the children had to line up and go to the nearest (not so clean) bar. All in all, I would not recommend to anyone a stay at Doblemar.

La Manga itself has been over developed with hotels and apartments but with no proper infrastructure. Besides the beaches (which are great) there is little or no entertainment for tourists and as for going for a walk/stroll, nothing but bad and sometimes dangerous footpaths, when in existence. I'm afraid we were sadly disappointed.