Gran Hotel Guadalpin Banus

We stayed at Gran Hotel Guadalpin Banús as two couples and really enjoyed our stay. The location and views are excellent, the pools are clean and very well maintained, and everything throughout the hotel is exceptionally clean.

The best part of the hotel is the staff. Everyone we encountered, from reception to maintenance, was friendly, helpful and attentive. You really can’t ask for more. Breakfast is excellent, with special kudos to the omelet chef. She is very good at what she does, but also genuinely nice and funny, and somehow makes ordering an omelet part of the morning entertainment.

Now for the criticism. The hotel is well maintained, but it is tired. The style is what I would call 1980s chic. Nothing is falling apart, but it clearly needs an update. The balcony doors in particular have seen better days. On the positive side, the air conditioning works very well.

Then there are the light switches. Turning the lights on or off is a quest. You press one switch, then another, try to remember what happened, reconsider your strategy, and eventually the room does what you wanted. After several days we more or less learned the system. The electrical outlets are also located in some rather inconvenient places.

The elevators misbehaved a few times during our stay. Nothing serious, just occasionally temperamental.

Parts of the lower level, below the reception area on the way to the sandy beach, are currently closed because of an ongoing legal dispute. That area does look a little sad, but unless you are going down toward the beach, you really don’t see it, so it did not detract from our stay.

Despite these criticisms, all four of us enjoyed our stay and liked the hotel very much. The excellent location and views, cleanliness, pools, breakfast and, above all, the wonderful staff more than compensate for a property that is overdue for modernization.

With a good renovation, this could once again be a truly outstanding hotel.

For us, overall: 9/10.

The hotel has some positives — we enjoyed the pool and sea views from our room. However, the room had a noticeable musty/damp smell whenever we entered.

Unfortunately, my husband suffered a fairly deep cut to his big toe while inside the hotel pool. Staff provided first aid quickly, which we appreciated. However, the bleeding continued for hours and we eventually had to go to a private hospital for medical treatment.

We later showed the hotel the area where it happened, and maintenance staff inspected it. We could also see damaged/broken tiles around parts of the pool, which made us concerned about the maintenance standard. We have stayed in many hotels around the world and have never experienced an injury like this in a hotel pool before.

The injury was not life-threatening, but it was painful, affected our stay in Marbella, and may also impact the rest of our trip. What disappointed us most was the limited follow-up from management afterwards.

Overall, the hotel has some good qualities, but the pool maintenance and handling of the incident significantly affected our experience.