Paloma Hotel

First visit to a RIU hotel, went there with high expectations and initially we weren’t disappointed. Hotel is beautiful, location and views are amazing and the accommodation couldn’t be faulted. For us however, that’s where the plus points finished. We visited two of restaurants on site, the main Black Sea restaurant and the Steakhouse restaurant. The food served in the Black Sea restaurant varied in quality on a daily basis, and there was a disappointingly limited selection of local foods available, however if you wanted chips with nearly every meal then happy days. One good point was the variety of salads available, the food served at lunchtimes in the Steakhouse restaurant was again patchy and the all inclusive element was leftovers served from the coffee bar in reception. The one evening meal we had in the Steakhouse restaurant was ok, nothing better than that, 3 courses with limited choice and served alarmingly quickly. Hotel was advertised as serving premium international drinks, first drink I asked for was Southern Comfort, this was met with blank faces. Selection of drinks was very poor, local spirits were served unless we insisted on a branded drink. The cocktails were made in a blender, not a cocktail shaker in sight and the amount of ice used in cocktails was mind boggling. My wife asked for a Martini Rossi on one occasion, the barman disappeared with an empty Martini Rossi bottle, reappeared with the same bottle just over half full and proceeded to pour my wife’s drink, turned out to be Port. On another occasion in the show bar, a member of staff cleared our table and asked if we’d like further drinks. We told him what drinks we wanted, he disappeared and we next saw him about 10 minutes later wondering around outside looking at his phone. Majority of staff were less than helpful, service was very slow unless they were clearing our table. Getting a drink refill was painful and done reluctantly. Staff also had a very unpleasant habit of hawking (clearing their throats) in earshot of diners, not a pleasant sound when you’re eating. Staff were constantly using their mobile phones in restaurant and bar areas, and one female member of bar staff was in the habit of sitting on the the actual bar in the pool. The swimming pools were incredibly inviting but unbelievably and disappointingly cold, including the jacuzzi. We braved the indoor pool on a couple occasions and waded through to the poolside bar but there were limited tables in the sun. Evening entertainment was limited to 2 evenings in a week, neither evening was great. Best entertainment was the thunderstorm on the Thursday night. We visited the neighbouring hotel for one evening, another RIU hotel. This was family friendly, the drinks were worse than RIH Palace and bingo was the entertainment. Also, the neighbouring hotel started playing ear splittingly loud music every day at 10am. We strolled into Sunny Beach on a couple of occasions, not somewhere I’d choose to spend a