Gloria Palace Amadores Thalasso and Hotel

Wonderful hotel with very few negatives. From check in to check out, everything was really great.

We usually go adults only but this hotel looked so nice we gave non-adults only a chance.

I would say if youre a family, or a couple, or solo traveller, this hotel is more than suitable to all. You have 2 pools, with one being aimed more at families and kids with a splash pool and a bit more lively. The other pool was much more adult vibe, but honestly, kids were not rowdy or anything like that, so would happily recommend to all.

Rooms: We were on floor 8, room 3811. Huge room, nicely decorated and jacuzzi bath on the balcony is a very nice touch! Room has all the features you'd expect, and air con more than sufficient. Great view, but I suspect pretty much 99% of rooms here have a great view. Rooms are cleaned daily and cleaned very well.

Food: Really good choices, most days plenty of new menus and themed nights so always plenty on offer. Some of the best AI food we have had. Plenty comments saying not huge choice, but we didn't find that. Never struggled to get a tasty plate (or 2) of food.

Staff: Really friendly, nothing is a bother and they go above and beyond. Reception mostly friendly, did find one guy a little less friendly and helpful but otherwise great. Good sense of humour with many staff too.

Pool: One of the very few negatives is the sun lounger situation. We had days just in the hotel so went up early to relax after breakfast. By 8.30am, pretty much all the pool side / front row beds were "reserved". One day we went up about 2pm and just about managed to get a bed. One day we were pool side but were surrounded by a large group who said they were out in town until 4am, came up to put towels down on around 10 beds, all poolside at 4am. They didn't use the beds until nearly 3.30pm. And when they did arrive were rude, loud and made it clear to everyone around them they believed the beds to be theirs!

Didn't see a lifeguard once, and absolutely no system in place for sunbed issues.

So that would be my only real negative. If I were to leave constructive criticism I would suggest an active lifeguard who puts a marker down to allow 1 hour on an empty bed. After 1 hour if the marker is still there, remove the towels. Its not the hotels fault, but they can enforce rules to help this. Such beautiful views and id say only 50% of the best located beds are used.

Location: 5 minute walk to the harbour where there are a few shops and bars. You'll find excursions and the water taxi here too. A 10 minute walk in the opposite direction gets you to Amadores beach which is very nice. So location is great. Sunsets are beautiful here with the disappearing behind Tiede in Tenerife. Puerto rico is about 5 minutes in a taxi, maspalomas is around 25 minutes in a taxi. Bus is an option too. Puerto de Morgan is around 35 - 40 minutes by water taxi. So all in all - everything is not on your doorstep but is pretty easy to get to with a small amount of travel.

Atmosphere: its quite a relaxed atmosphere, not too loud and not over bearing entertainment. Ive seen a few people say its a bit boring. I get that, but we prefer a bit of quiet so each to their own!

Entertainment: My only other negative. With exception to the motown trio, the entertainment was quite poor every night. Same old holiday songs, most nights each singer repeating the same songs just in a slightly different style. Boring. Would suggest to the hotel to seek better entertainment as it was really quite poor.

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 is my rating. Much better than 4 stars, not quite 5 stars. Would happily go again and recommend to anyone. Only real improvements i see is an active lifeguard, and entertainment upgrade.

We stayed at the Gloria Palace in August and on the whole it was a great stay. The positives are the rooms are modern and spacious with comfortable beds, lovely balconies with a great view! The entertainment is great for an all inclusive, and there is lots to do for kids. The entertainment team are great through the day around the pool and it really is an inclusive environment for families with children. The pools are lovely and the poolside staff are patient, friendly and work really hard to ensure everyone is served quickly and efficiently at all times. The downside of this hotel are the cleanliness for us. The restaurant in particular, we would have to look for several tables before finding a half clean one, i.e. remnants of food stuck to the tables from the previous meal, obvious that food had been just wiped off the tables onto the chairs and all under the tables were filthy. You felt like you needed to wipe everything down before you sat down, it was not upto the expected hygiene standards of a 4 star hotel for us. The breakfast glasses didnt feel clean, took an age to find something half acceptable, they all had food stuck to them from previous meals. The food was good on the whole, but the breakfast was disappointing out of all of the meals. The eggs, pancakes and churros were often dry and overcooked, almost broke a tooth on the churros, they were that hard. The chef is unable to fry a decent egg, they were often a mess, turned over to conceal this i suspect. And when asked to not turn the eggs over, we were given half cooked snotty egg. Just not really good enough for a 4 star hotel when you cant even get a decent egg for breakfast. The lunch and tea however were good, and a couple of the nights (last night in particular) was excellent for the food (salmon, king prawns, sushi) all offered. Also note that the same icecream flavours are offered everyday (bar one night) which was disappointing as where we normally visit Rui hotels, they offer different flavours on different nights which is nice. The other negatives would be that the poolside areas are not kept particularly clean either, everyday that we went out to the pool, the floors were dirty with remnants of dirt still there from the day before etc... There is a fridge in room but unlike other all inclusive hotels, no soft drinks/cans offered as part of a mini bar, other than water each day, and no free of charge safe. Also upon check in there is no courtesy service to take your cases up to the room. Its just the little touches that make a difference in a hotel for me. To summarise the hotel I would recommend for families with children as cannot be faulted on that, but for us the cleanliness and breakfast was the downside of this hotel.