VIK Gran Hotel Costa del Sol

Me and my husband booked El Grand Hotel Costa del Sol to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, his birthday adn also Easter. I tried to contact them before checking in, to organise something special for my husband's birthday, but I never got a reply from them - the communication and customer service are terrible. We got there on the 17th of April at 10 am, we went to leave our luggage and the receptionist, an older gentleman was very rude, not even said good morning or to welcome us, he just said on a high tone that the check in is at 2 pm. We only asked to keep the luggage until the room will be ready and he simply gave us the keys, to place it ourselves in the luggage room. When we come back to collect the luggage that room was full.. horrible. The cleaning of the room was very bad, everything was dirty, especially the toilet, the mirrors, the curtains. The food is bad too, do not book all inclusive, you can have very tasty and cheap food around the hotel. We have all inclusive, but only been for dinner on the first day. The coffee is horrible, the cocktails at the pool bar are very very bad. We stayed for 5 nights and they did not change the linen not even once. The towels are very old, one of it had a very big hole, never been in a worse place than this and they advertise it as a 4 star hotel. You better book an Airbnb than this horrible place. Everything is old and dirty and the customer service is horrible horrible. They don't care at all about their guests.

The hotel is in a great location and is pretty cheap. It served a purpose for us but the place is very dated - it doesn’t look like they need to spend any money on it because it seems full all the time. Most of the complaints people have made on TripAdvisor are valid and some are easy to fix. For example, there is no iron in the entire hotel and people are complaining - surely this is an easy win. We only had bed and breakfast and like most people have said, the food is not very hot. This could be amazing and La Cala is becoming more and more expensive so it’s likely people would spend the extra money to stay in a real 4* hotel.

We stayed here in late October 2024.

Positives.
Quite cheap.
Great staff.
Fabulous location on the beach with great views
Basic but clean rooms.
Okay, but not great, food.
The pool is fine.
Cheep drinks at certain times of day.

Negatives.
Not even close to a 4 star hotel. More like a 2 star.
Rooms are cold, poorly insulated, and the air con/heating barely works.
Some rooms are smoking rooms and, as the insulation is terrible, it makes the non-smoking rooms stink, too.
Very clinical and dated, almost like sleeping in a sports centre.