Maspalomas Princess

The hotel building itself is gorgeous and the pool areas are fabulous. However, there is no atmosphere in this hotel whatsoever after 6pm and unfortunately the clientele really let the place down.

We are a family of adults and I want to make that clear because I don’t want this review to come across as us expecting some sort of luxury, adults-only experience. We are very easy to please. We like sitting in the sun during the day, having a few drinks and having a bit of atmosphere in the evening. We don’t need much.

We were also celebrating some special milestones on this holiday and had spent a lot of time deliberating over where to go. We specifically chose this hotel because it looked so beautiful online and we were genuinely very excited about the holiday. We usually go self-catering, but because this was a special holiday, we decided to go all out and book an all-inclusive resort. We were really looking forward to having everything taken care of for once and just being able to relax. Unfortunately, the reality was very different from what we had expected.

What made the holiday difficult was that the entire stay felt strangely tense and competitive. Breakfast became a queue, then you were competing for a sunbed, then queuing for lunch, queuing again for dinner, and then competing to find a few chairs together for the evening entertainment.

None of the meal times were particularly pleasant or relaxing. The restaurants were chaotic, with children and adults sitting at tables with iPads and phones playing at full volume, children running around and people constantly moving in and out. It felt like you went into the restaurant, got your food and got out as quickly as possible rather than actually sitting down and enjoying a meal.

Even the relaxing parts of the day didn’t really feel relaxing because there was always some sort of competition or someone else’s lack of consideration affecting everyone around them. It was the cumulative effect of all of this that made the holiday feel so tense. Almost every part of the day involved either queuing, competing for something or trying to find somewhere peaceful to sit.

We actually spent our time at the adults-only pool, which was much more peaceful than the main pool areas and was a very welcome retreat. The pools don’t open until 10am, which in theory is a good thing as it should prevent people reserving sunbeds from very early in the morning. In reality, it just means there is a queue waiting for the pool to open.

There are regular sunbeds which are free, but they are in very high demand. There is a queue at either side of the adults-only pool each morning before 10am, so you have to be up and there early if you want to secure one. There are also Balinese beds available for €25 per day, but these are also in high demand and require you to queue at the pool bar to reserve them. Some mornings the queue for these started around 9:30am. Queue jumping also seemed to be widely accepted.

The main pool areas were absolutely jam-packed. People were sitting on top of each other and there was barely enough space to walk through in places.

Unfortunately, a lot of the tension also came from other guests. We witnessed a huge amount of what I can only describe as a complete lack of self-awareness. Families allowing children to run around a busy restaurant carrying wine glasses full of cola, children destroying the buffet with food and then simply walking away, leaving staff to clean it up. There was rarely any attempt to clean up after their children or even acknowledge the staff.

We also witnessed staff having to repeatedly deal with very drunk guests, including people smoking in clearly marked smoke-free areas where the children’s discos were taking place. Police were even called to break up a fight while we were there.

The staff themselves work incredibly hard and deserve a lot of credit. It was a shame to see how some guests treated them.

The entertainment for small children seemed good. The animation staff were very interactive with the kids and looked like they were doing a great job. Unfortunately, as a family of adults, we were bored to tears.

The evening entertainment was extremely disappointing. The shows take place in an outdoor area where you are essentially packed in, and there were rarely enough seats. An “explosive” acrobatic show lasted less than 40 minutes and consisted of men jumping through hoops and throwing hats at each other. The Michael Jackson show was so busy that around 40 or 50 people were standing.

This became another source of competition. You had to make sure you got there early enough to actually get a few seats together. Again, that’s not really how we wanted to spend our evenings on holiday.

Once the shows are finished, there is very little for adults to do. You can sit and play cards in the “bar”, although I use the word bar loosely. It has the personality of an airport lounge. There is no music and there is an endless stream of unsupervised children running between the tables.

The rooms are also dated and don’t really match how beautiful the rest of the hotel is. We stayed across four rooms during our trip and two of the doors visibly looked as though someone had tried to kick them in. A family member had a leaking toilet which was reported twice and was never fixed.

There are no irons or ironing boards in the rooms. These cost €55 to rent for a minimum of one week, €45 plus a €10 deposit. On the positive side, the beds were very comfortable and I generally slept well.

The all-inclusive drinks package only covers drinks until 11pm, after which you are charged. Cocktails at the bars aren’t included either. Some of the outdoor bars have premixed cocktail machines which were okay, but very sweet and artificial tasting.

We weren’t particularly bothered by the 11pm cut-off once we found out about it. In fact, it cleared a lot of people out of the bar, so if anything it was probably a good thing for us. However, quite a few guests seemed genuinely surprised when they were charged for drinks after 11pm. The information is in the leaflet given to you at check-in. It isn’t exactly highlighted in a way that would make you immediately notice it, but it is there if you read through it.

The same applies to the juices at breakfast. They are essentially syrups mixed with water. Orange juice is an additional charge, as is Nespresso coffee.

There is a shop located below the Tabiba building. We popped in for a look and were shocked to see a pack of six bottles of water for €24. There is a small supermarket around the corner which is still a little expensive, but I would definitely recommend using it instead of the hotel shop. We bought bottles of mineral water for €1 each there to keep in the room, which was great.

One of the biggest disappointments for me was actually the handling of a special occasion.

We are a private family and didn’t disclose our special occasions to the hotel. We were celebrating privately and weren’t looking for freebies, upgrades or any special treatment. The only thing we did request was an experience that was advertised on the hotel’s own service list, which we paid €60 for.

I arranged the “experience” breakfast in bed for my parents. It was €60 for fruit, coffee and sparkling wine, all of which were available downstairs for free, but that wasn’t really the point. I wanted to arrange something nice for them as part of our private celebrations.

Ordering it at reception was already difficult. The receptionist told us several times that it wasn’t possible before eventually realising what we were asking for after we pointed to the package advertised on the hotel’s internal website. It was eventually ordered and we were reassured that the request had been sent to the relevant departments.

Three days later, on the morning of the special occasion, the breakfast never arrived.

When I went to reception, I was simply told that “it wasn’t prepared” and had to ask for a refund. There was no apology or attempt to do anything to make up for it. When I said that I thought it was very poor service, I received a simple “sorry”.

We weren’t expecting anything from the hotel because of the occasion. We simply paid for a service they advertised and expected that service to be delivered.

The hotel is around a 25-minute walk to Maspalomas, which is actually a lovely walk, especially in the morning. As there was so little happening for adults in the hotel after 6pm, we went elsewhere on two evenings.

Taxis have to be ordered through reception and generally arrived quickly. We were a larger group and needed a seven-seater. On multiple occasions, other guests simply walked out of the hotel and took our pre-booked taxi. They hadn’t ordered a taxi themselves and just got into the first one they saw.

On the third occasion I went to reception, I was told that our taxi had already departed according to their system. I was already aware of that because I was standing there because someone had taken it. Only then did reception decide to give the driver our room number so he could identify the correct passengers.

On another evening, we specifically asked reception to give our room number to the driver again. We were quite curtly told no, that the taxi had been ordered and we should wait outside.

One other thing worth mentioning is the photographer who walks around the pool areas during the day. We were approached twice and politely declined photographs. On both occasions he had a serious attitude about being told no. On one occasion, as he walked away, we heard him say, “I f**king love my job.”

The photographs cost €89 for eight.

We didn’t ask to be approached or ask for the service. We simply declined it. There was no need for the attitude afterwards.

In summary, I think this hotel would probably work very well for families with young children who want a big resort with lots of pools and activities.

For us, it just wasn’t enjoyable.

We don’t expect a luxury experience and we aren’t particularly high maintenance. We are very happy with a nice pool, some sunshine, a few drinks and somewhere with a bit of atmosphere in the evening.

What we found exhausting was that almost every part of the holiday became competitive. Queueing for breakfast, getting up early to secure a sunbed at the adults-only pool, queueing for lunch, queueing for dinner, trying to find somewhere to sit together for entertainment and then trying to relax around people who seemed to have very little awareness of the people around them.

The hotel itself is beautiful. The pool areas are excellent and the staff work incredibly hard.

But for us, the overall experience was stressful rather than relaxing. We had spent a lot of time choosing this hotel and were genuinely excited about having a special all-inclusive holiday where we could just switch off. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it felt.

The lack of atmosphere for adults in the evening was the final nail in the coffin.

We would not return.

This was Single parent first holiday. I was made to feel most welcome. The hotel Staff, where very accommodating, There are two hotels next to one another the hotel that I stayed in was the tabaiba princess which is the sister hotel to the Maspalomas princess. You could utilised both hotels with ease and use all amenities in either. The separate restaurants that are bookable depending on your length of stay where also great if you didn’t want to go far away from the hotels, however if you did want to go further out you could easily ask the reception staff, who are happy to call a taxi and it arrives quickly and where not to expensive to get. The excursion are a must as is the beach. With amazing restaurants with views of the ocean. The hotel tabaiba was very clean and the safety regarding swimming was first rate. The food was different daily there was something for every person even my picky eater of a daughter. The only downside was that I did find numerous cockroaches on the Maspalomas side of the hotel though. Which I didn’t go to at night after seeing. Overall myself and my daughter had a great time and I would definitely go again.