Gran Melia Palacio de Isora

We’ve stayed here before on two separate occasions. The first time was with the extended family, the second and third time as a couple in the ‘Red Level’ (more expensive, supposed to be more exclusive). The conclusion I’ve come to is that the ‘standard’ hotel is great for families - good pools, entertainment, choice of restaurants etc. The ‘Red Level’ however, just isn’t worth it and it has become less exclusive over the last couple of years.

The first time we stayed at the Red Level was March 2025. The area that the Red Level is situated was plagued by biting ‘buffalo flies’ from the next door banana plantation, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend staying at that time of the year - truly dreadful.

This time, no biting buffalo flies, but a discernible deterioration in the benefits of the Red Level. It’s always the ‘little things’ that start a decline in the overall experience, so I’ll give you some examples. In 2025 when we stayed, Red level guests had a choice of breakfast dining options. There is a dedicated restaurant, but also the option to dine in the main Pangea buffet in a specific designated area. There was also the Oasis restaurant in the middle of the resort that was reserved for Red Level guests. In 2026, that is no longer the case. The Pangea restaurant has no designated area, so you have to engage in the general melee. That’s fine if you like that sort of thing, but when I asked and said that there used to be a designated area, her response was ‘maybe many many years ago’. Well, March 2025 is 18 months ago and there really is nothing worse than being looked in the eye and lied to when you know that these people are just making it up.

The Oasis restaurant is ‘closed for refurbishment’, so that is not available. Our original room was close to this, so we requested a move - this was facilitated quickly and efficiently by the staff, who are generally helpful, so this review isn’t necessarily a reflection on them.

The consequence of both the Oasis and Pangea either not being available or not providing anything ‘special’, is that the dedicated Red Level restaurant is very busy at breakfast. So busy, that if you order off the menu, be prepared for a long wait. Two omelettes took 45 minutes to arrive - I left before they did. Really not good enough.

Generally, I’d say this hotel is best suited to family holidays and the attempt at attracting the ‘couples market’ has failed. They try to ‘up sell’ room upgrades and membership of some Melia holiday bond type thing, which I don’t really want when I’m on holiday.

The property is nice (although there are some parts that probably need maintenance) and the staff are good, but none of that makes it outstanding in a competitive market.

I doubt that I’d stay here again, particularly in the Red Level..

Stayed here for 9 nights in September 2026. We booked the "Red Level" experience which I think is supposed to give you a better room and some exclusive access. This wasn't really clear to be honest and the app they push you to use is pretty useless. Initial impressions were good. It's well maintained, with nice gardens, decent pools, and in our case a very nice room. However the multiple restaurants they say they have were all entirely booked up and unavailable to us during our stay, despite our trying to make reservations as soon as we arrived. The only restaurant we didn't need to book was the mega airport lounge sized buffet place. Luke warm, bland, and low quality food - avoid it. We had breakfast at the "exclusive" red level place. Food was okay but not great. On the plus side we did find some nice restaurants in Alcala, a 10 minute walk from the hotel.

Overall a good experience, but with a few areas that could do with improvement.

Location It's quite remote, so if you're happy staying within the resort (which we were) then it's perfect. Otherwise, it's a taxi ride to places such as Costa Adeje, Loro Parque or Siam.

Other than that the area is stunning with the surrounding landscape and banana plantations.

Atmosphere Overall great with nice decoration, fountains, music and scents around the hotel and grounds. Exactly what you'd expect from the pictures, with the plaza area particularly nice to look at and be around.

Oddly though, there's no aircon in the reception or surrounding area which meant on our last day when checking out at 12, we were sat in the high humidity melting in to the chairs waiting for our transfer at 6pm.

Rooms We had a family room which was spacious, comfortable and ideal for our family of 3.

A few slight quirks we noticed:

• the aircon won't go below 19c (we'd like it slightly cooler)
• there is a phone placed awkwardly right next to the toilet so you're constantly knocking it off the wall - and evidently someone had dropped it into the toilet at some point and lets say, there was evidence of it left on the earpiece
• in the wardrobes next to the room door, the "bar" that you hang your clothes on doubles as a light and is built in to it - I touched it briefly by accident and it gave me quite an intense electric shock

Value We went all inclusive plus and got exactly what we expected (kind of).

All food and drinks were included and in the resort we paid exactly zero extra, however exactly like what other reviewers have mentioned there are upsells and extra costs everywhere.

Bali beds around the pool - we were kicked off one of the beds and told that we needed to download the Melia app, book and pay extra for it.

There are two additional restaraunts in the hotel, from memory called Duo and Nami, these are not included. You need to book and it costs extra.

Lots of roped off "red level" areas for sunbeds, bars, etc.

Also we found that the service once we were seated was almost non-existant.

Cleanliness Around the hotel it seemed very clean (mostly), but our room needed some improvement.

In the bathroom we found glass shards along the side of the kickboard which I assume was from a past guest and hadn't been thoroughly cleaned.

I get the feeling like the rooms need a better and more frequent deep clean than they currently do.

Now on to the pools. As a family of 3 with a toddler, we mainly used the pirate pool and the pool just above the mexican (with the circle seating area in the middle of the pool).

In the pirate pool, on our first day, we were greeted by a childs poo at the bottom of a slide. It hadn't been spotted and we had to report it. The pool was shortly closed and the issue was dealt with.

It's great that it was dealt with straight away, however with it being a kids pool maybe some more "patrolling" is required to check for these things. Kids have accidents understandibly, but it would be better for the staff to keep an eye on these things rather than a guest finding it.

The other pool (with the circle seating) - great sized pool and we spent the most time there. There are two things I would improve here:

• Signs of wear and tear with tiles missing
• Despite being told it's heated, it was FREEZING and everyone who got in commented on the exact same thing. Our daughter didn't last too long each swim with shivers kicking in. They really need to get on top of that as it was a complaint everyone made.

Food We used Pangea mainly (for breakfast and dinner) and the food was great. Lots of options for meateaters, veggies, vegans and gluten free.

They also rotated the theming frequently so lots of variety on offer. Absolutely no complaints and each meal was delicious.

In Summary Would we go there again? Probably not.

Although we had a nice week away, we left feeling like it was a 4 star hotel at best (factoring all of the above in) and we encountered too many varying issues and annoyances throughout our stay.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice hotel but it could do with some improving.