H10 Rubicon Palace

Very disappointing experience. Our room had small bugs, including ants crawling up the walls and getting into our personal belongings. We had to move rooms twice during our stay, completely disrupting our holiday! These were meant to be upgraded “privelge” rooms - definitely not worth the money!

To make matters worse, the hotel offered us €59 compensation on the condition that we sign a confidentiality agreement preventing us from sharing our experience. We were not allowed to keep a copy of the agreement and obviously did not sign it!

This was completely unacceptable and left us feeling that the hotel was more concerned with suppressing negative reviews than properly addressing the problems. It certainly makes you question how representative the positive TripAdvisor reviews are if guests are being asked to sign agreements not to disclose their experiences in return for compensation.

Would not recommend- definitely not a 5 star hotel!

Booked Half Board Privilege for my 50th. Sea view room number 9525. Direct full sea view. Beautiful! Room was spotless. Huge comfy bed. Rituals toiletries. Flat Screen with lots of UK tv channels. Turn down service with Lindor chocolates. Privilege lounge was fabulous and worth the money. Self service bar with all branded drinks and free snacks replenished every couple of hours. The view from the privilege terrace was unmatched.

Privilege pool was nice but too shallow. Can’t swim in it. We preferred the main pool. No sunbed issues at all.

My husband loved the buffet restaurant but I wasn’t really a fan. Found it a bit samey. The breakfast was epic though.

Loved Mikes coffee shop. Couldn’t get booked into the à la carte restaurants as no space on times we wanted.

Hotel is very out the way. But, Bus to Marina or into town. just outside the hotel. The number 30 and only 1 euro 40. Taxis were pretty cheap too. Reception can call you one.

Loved the hotel, don’t really get all the negative reviews.

One thing they should change however is the check in process, especially late at night. There was one guy on reception and three couples in front of us. Took an hour and a half to check in. This was at midnight and brutal after such a late flight. Although all the special touches are lovely, at that time of night I don’t want free banana chips or marshmallows. I just want my key. This could be a much quicker process, or put more staff on.

All staff were super friendly, loved the hotel and would defo go back. Would do privilege again.

Just returned from our fourth stay at this hotel for 10 days. We always book Privilege Half Board. We love this hotel, but sadly standards are slipping.

We are a mature couple who travel without children. For the past 3 years, we’ve always been allocated a Privilege room close to the Privilege pool, without having to ask. This year, we were put in a room over the other side of the resort, next to the children’s pool and play area. We didn’t understand this allocation as there must have been families there who would have loved to be near the kids’ facilities. Unfortunately, the rooms on that side of the resort don’t seem to have been refurbished. The room was old, tired and everything felt sticky. The room was also a long distance from the Privilege pool. Given that there are no toilets at the Privilege pool, it would have meant a very long walk back to the room to use any facilities required during a day using the pool. Thankfully we were moved to a refurbished room near the Privilege pool on our second day. Suki, Anil and Jose from Guest Relations/Reception, were instrumental in our move and are exceptional staff members. However, it was not the best start to our holiday as we spent the first day waiting around for the new room to become available.

The first morning after we arrived we went onto the App to book the speciality restaurants, only to find that everything was already heavily booked up. We managed to get a table at Dolce Vita towards the end of our stay, but we couldn’t get a table at Sakura (our favourite). Again, Suki pulled a few strings and eventually got us a booking at Sakura. It really isn’t good enough that right at the beginning of your holiday, there are no tables available to book anywhere, without staff members having to call in favours from colleagues to get tables. We noticed that Sakura was closed for several days during our stay. Why when it is the best and most popular restaurant on site? The speciality restaurants should all be open all the time. As the hotel is a long way from the centre of Playa Blanca, there aren’t many other eating options nearby and we only go to this off the beaten track resort because there are different restaurant options on site. If they’re closed or fully booked, eating options are vastly reduced and the resort is a less attractive option.

We tried the new adults only Blue Moon restaurant, but honestly, its awful. We were so disappointed. We weren’t offered drinks or the al a carte menu for at least 25 mins after arriving and even then, we had to ask for them. There was no one on the live cooking stations and the buffet supplies had not been re-stocked, so lots of things had run out. We were told by one of the staff that even the bread had run out and there was no more. When the hot food arrived it was average at best and only luke warm. We didn’t go back there again.

We had some lovely meals in the Volcan, although the menu hasn’t been changed at all since last year. The service in there can be mixed. Some evenings it’s very good, but on one occasion it was busy and the service was poor. They only have one staff member who knows about the food and we couldn’t find out what the day’s specials were. We waited for 25 mins for someone to tell us and then they wanted to take our order immediately, with no time to decide on the specials. Why not have more than one staff member who can discuss the food, or put up a “specials board” each day so guests can see what the daily offerings are as soon as they arrive? The poor staff member who was responsible for the food worked very hard and was rushing around – he was run ragged and we felt sorry for him.

The food in the buffet was good, as always, with plenty of choice, but as the hotel was so busy, it was like a canteen bun fight to get food and a table. We often ended up having to clear tables ourselves of used plates and glasses as the staff just weren’t getting to them. We also wiped down our own tables with our own wipes most of the time as there just weren’t enough staff.

We went to the piano bar a few times and its great when there’s entertainment in there, but on the other evenings, there’s not even any background music playing and there really is no atmosphere.

The new refurbished entertainment room is great – much smarter and brighter than before and most of the acts we saw were good.

The Privilege lounge is good as always, with a good choice of decent drinks on offer, but the snacks need topping up more regularly, as often they had run out.

The individual staff members in the resort are lovely and they work very hard indeed, but there just aren’t enough of them for such a big resort. The poor service in the restaurants in particular is our biggest criticism this year.

We’d hoped this would be our regular October holiday resort, but we’re now re-thinking plans for next year as we were disappointed with the drop in service standards this year.