Gloria Verde Resort

I have just returned from a 10 night stay at Gloria verde with my family. I was a bit skeptical looking at photos on the travel agents website and thought the pool doesn’t look very big, the rooms looked dark and old fashioned and there wasn’t much to do. How wrong was I! I could write up a book for this place it was that good but here’s a very lengthy review instead!

Upon being taken to our room any doubts I had immediately went away. We had a family room and they were lovely. I would also suggest family rooms to have 2 bathrooms a lot of time was wasted waiting for everyone to have a shower and get ready. The bed felt hard and due to me having lots of health problems I feared it was too hard and would cause me a lot of pain but in actual fact they were really comfortable to sleep on and I didn’t wake up in my usual pain that I do at home due to multiple health problems. Room service is free from 11pm to 7am although we never used it.

There is 1 large pool that flows like a waterfall into what seems like 2 extra pools. The top pool was heated which we was really grateful for despite weather temperatures reaching 35°c we definitely needed the heated pool, a quick dip in one of the lower pools for a photo opportunity on bar stools under a waterfall proved there would be no way we could go swimming if the pool wasn’t heated….and in typical British style the first 3 days was a bit rainy and overcast but that did not stop us still from going for a swim!! Massive thanks to Hüseyin the lifeguard for being so pleasant and friendly always chatting away to me and my daughter and had a permanent smile on his face.

Food is in abundance here and there really is something for everyone! The fresh cooking stations were amazing piping hot fresh food that you ordered what more could you want? Failing that the buffet was very varied and the food was also really nice. Each night there was a different theme to break up the same food every day. There was a waiter who served us every night just outside of the doors he is really tall and unfortunately I have forgot his name but he was amazing! We didn’t even have to tell him our drinks orders every night he just knew straight away. I would love for him to receive some recognition for what he did for us. We only tried the Italian a’la carte as we had 1 free booking with our travel package and we don’t think when you are in an all inclusive plus package that you should have to pay to enter them, however the Italian was amazing! The food was beautifully cooked and it was a 10/10 from all of us! There are plenty of options for food 24/7 so you will never go hungry. As you can see in my photos the cocktail list was excellent and between all 5 of us we worked our way through the list minus a few. Again finding a drink 24/7 isn’t a problem either but a little tip is there are bottles of water on each bar to help yourself to but you can ask for cold water and you will get a bottle from the fridge. The fresh homemade lemonade was so refreshing! There is also a patisserie that’s open during the day until 6pm where you can get all kinds of sweet treats with a few pastry selections also.

Everything about Gloria verde was amazing even down to the ground maintenance team constantly looking after the place, although there is always something that people will find could be improved slightly which I will mention below however it will not change my score. Every member of staff from house keeping, bar staff, guest relations, reception, waiters, bell boys, and everyone inbetween was kind, courteous and helpful. Big shoutout to the head of entertainment…again name I have forgot….he went out of his way every day to find my daughter to encourage her to bring us all along to the evening entertainment.

Improvements:

The hill to the amphitheater/pool/beach is very steep and hard work especially if you have mobility issues and although you can get a bell boy to collect you in a buggy to take you to them obviously there could be a bit of a wait. Although it would be hard to implement now I really think long staggered steps would be a better option even if it is just on one side of the route due to still needing no steps for prams/wheelchairs/buggys.

As mentioned above the family rooms could benefit from 2 bathrooms to cut down on waiting around for everyone to have a shower. Also putting in sockets where you can directly plug in usb and usb-c chargers would be a massive help too. I also think the balcony and minibar should be in the adults room not the children’s room.

Evening entertainment could be more varied as most nights it consisted of dance & acrobats shows which were good but repetitive. I found the shows not to be very long and if you have young children which luckily I didn’t the show start time is a bit late at 9:30pm. The range of drinks at the bar should be expanded as the only alcohol options was beer and wine which 3 out of 5 of our party doesn’t drink.

À la cartes shouldn’t be charged considering it’s a 5 star all inclusive plus hotel. I think 1 free visit for every 7 nights would be better. Also if you visit the other 2 Gloria hotels your all inclusive should work even just for a drink otherwise you have to pay which put us off visiting both hotels.

The cabanas are very overpriced and we didn’t see a single one in use when we were there for 10 days. I really wanted to hire one for us females in the group while the men were golfing but the price couldn’t be justified.

I would have loved to have used the spa especially with my daughter for her first spa experience as it’s hard to find places in England that allow treatments for 16 year olds but it was so expensive we went to a spa outside of the hotel although I know it wouldn’t have been to the quality of the hotels spa. We only used the swimming pool and jacuzzis on the day we were leaving as we had a night flight so I can’t comment on any other facilities it had.

The games such as bowling and arcade are slightly expensive however we still had great fun playing!

All in all I would not let any of those improvements stop me from returning. The resort was just the right size for us with 3 of us having mobility issues. The service from everyone was on another level and possibly up there with the best hotels we have stayed in, I would go as far as to say the best hotel and we have travelled quite a lot and stayed in some beautiful hotels. Everywhere was clean and hygienic right down to the toilet doors working on a sensor!

If you are looking at the Gloria verde for your next holiday please don’t hesitate and book it because you won’t be disappointed!!

Thankyou Gloria Verde for an excellent holiday! We shall be returning next year and I don’t usually return to the same hotel as my view is ‘it’s a big wide world out there to explore’ but how can I not return to paradise!

Superb resort with outstanding service throughout. Very comfortable rooms, great restaurant with fantastic buffet plus a couple of additional à la carte restaurants for a very small additional charge. Impossible to find fault.