R2 Bahia Playa Design Hotel and Spa

Disappointing experience – wouldn’t return

We stayed here for a week as an adults-only holiday and, unfortunately, came away thoroughly disappointed. We have stayed in several 4-star hotels before, so we feel we have a reasonable comparison for the standard we expected.

One important thing to be aware of when looking at the photos on Tripadvisor: there are two sister hotels, and we found that some of the photographs shown on Tripadvisor are not an accurate representation of the hotel we stayed in. I would strongly recommend checking which hotel the photographs actually relate to before booking, as this gave us a different impression of the property.

The hotel also felt very predominantly geared towards German and French guests. We appreciate that an international hotel will have guests from different countries, but as British guests we often found communication difficult. Even trying to get straightforward information from reception, such as local bus times, was challenging, and this made it very difficult to explain more complicated issues we were experiencing during our stay.

Our room was another major disappointment. The balcony was effectively unusable because of the amount of midgeys/insects, meaning we couldn't sit outside and enjoy it once during our stay. We were later told mosquito-repellent devices were available, but nobody had made us aware of this during our stay.

The room was also extremely warm, with the "air conditioning" not making much difference. We didn't raise this directly with reception because, given the communication difficulties we had already experienced, we didn't feel confident that we could properly explain the problem.

The hotel is advertised as beachfront, but we were surprised to find there were no hotel sunbeds on the beach. Having stayed at other beachfront hotels, we had understood this to mean there would be somewhere to actually sit and relax on the beach. This wasn't clear from the description.

Housekeeping also fell below what we would expect from a 4-star hotel. We experienced issues including floors not being properly cleaned and glasses being left behind.

The food was definitely one of the positives. There was a great variety and the quality was very good, and the restaurant staff were friendly and worked incredibly hard. The pools were warm and there were some good evening entertainment options too.

However, some of the all-inclusive drinks and service didn't feel like the 4-star experience we expected. We completely understand that premium drinks can cost extra, but cocktails being dispensed from a machine simply by pressing a button wasn't what we expected from a 4-star all-inclusive hotel.

There were also smaller things that added to the overall disappointment, including sunbeds being reserved very early despite the hotel's signage, dated furniture and paper cups around the pool that would blow away easily.

We don't usually complain and initially intended to simply accept that we were disappointed and move on. However, there were enough issues throughout the week that we felt it was important to leave an honest review.

There were positives, particularly the food and the restaurant staff, but unfortunately there were too many disappointments for us to consider returning.

Nice hotel, rooms are nice and all areas are love and clean. Not the greatest aircon but we managed. It is a busy hotel, but we never struggled to get a seat, table or sunbed. We loved that it was mainly no smoking and people round the pool had to go to the designated area away from people relaxing, the downside was this was just outside the pool toilets so you had to walk through them or as we did chose to go back to the room to use the toilet. Another issues with these pool toilets are when coming out of the ladies you can see directly into the gents and if someone was at the urinals it was clear to see. The dining room could sometime get queues, but they soon moved, plenty of food on offer, we have been to a few all-inclusive and in our opinion the food was plentiful, fresh and tasty. Shame there is not kettle with tea or coffee and disappointing they charge you for the safe as this should be included.

I’m writing this as we’re still staying here and leaving tomorrow, 30th September. We have had an amazing holiday, it’s just been wonderful. After reading some of the previous reviews, we did wonder what we were coming to, but, for us there haven’t been any niggles or upsets. We have/had room 370, overlooking the sea, a lovely airy room. The aircon is actually fine. We left ours on all the time. It isn’t the most powerful, but does make a difference. The restaurant is great with a vast selection of different dishes to suit everyone. We loved the different selections and for me, the seasoning was just right and there is always salt, pepper, oils, sauces to choose from. The staff are so lovely and helpful and nothing was too much trouble for them. In fact it was my husband’s birthday whilst we were here and a large portion of cake was delivered to our room, placed in the fridge with a bottle of Prosecco. We hadn’t said anything to anyone. There are two separate pool areas, the single pool area is quieter, the other area contains the pool bar and two smaller pools, music and activities take place there. For us we preferred the quiet area. Also, we never had a problem with the sun beds, but did put towels out about 08:00 in the morning. If you prefer to have a ‘stronger’ or non all inclusive drink, you can pay an additional charge of around €6-€7. We would definitely come back again, we loved it so much. Thank you to all the staff for making our holiday great.