{"id":10765,"date":"2022-01-20T13:17:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T13:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/?p=10765"},"modified":"2022-02-23T20:12:10","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T20:12:10","slug":"my-review-of-ritz-carlton-abama-tenerife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/2022\/01\/20\/my-review-of-ritz-carlton-abama-tenerife\/","title":{"rendered":"My review of Ritz Carlton Abama, Tenerife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Failing to visit Mauritius, my friend and I decided to spend the Christmas holiday in Tenerife instead, which is also a popular winter sun destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly there isn\u2019t a strong presence of international hotel chains on the island \u2013 none of Hilton, IHG and Hyatt has any property at all, whereas Marriott has one each of Sheraton<\/a> and Ritz Carlton<\/a>. Gran Melia Palacio de Isora, generally regarded at the best Melia hotel, is also at Tenerife, and redeeming points for a half-board package can be an awesome deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Getting Here]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time I stay at a Ritz-Carlton, and in fact it\u2019s the main reason why I wanted to choose this hotel. From the airport (TFS) we grabbed a taxi which took us only around 20 minutes, and it usually costs between 40 and 50 euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It actually brings up my first point \u2013 the hotel is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and you have nothing to do or see outside the hotel unless you drive or hail a cab. Unless you want a staycation, don\u2019t pick the Ritz-Carlton and the Sheraton is probably a lot better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Check-in is very slow although to be fair we are sat down and offered free drinks. The receptionist hands us the room keys but explains nothing at all. We only realise it afterwards and come back to ask about elite benefits, facilities and food options etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[Room]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We paid 200,000 points (off-peak) for five nights in a standard room. In terms of upgrade we are offered a choice: standard room with sea view, or junior suite with resort view. We end up with the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apologies for the mix-up, we switched from a double room to twin:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The room is huge, about 50-60 sqm in size. If you are not with kids I don\u2019t see much need of a suite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Balcony is nice with a partially blocked but still impressive view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A special holiday gift is prepared in the room \u2013 a bottle of Cava and chocolate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[Facilities]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hotel is massive and signage can be confusing at times. The swimming pool is well designed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Very disappointingly, the spa centre is closed due to Covid, which I think is a big let-down for a resort hotel. There\u2019s only a small gym and you need to make prior bookings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these facilities are in the main building, a.k.a. Citadel. Behind it there\u2019s also a massive Villa area which offers residences with better privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don\u2019t get a chance to see the inside (although a friend who used to stay in Villas didn\u2019t like it), but it\u2019s definitely a much quieter area, and feels more exclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villa guests have their own swimming pools, as well as a mini gym.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you walk past all the villas, you reach the hotel\u2019s private beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are frequent shuttle buses between the reception, villas and the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few more random photos of the hotel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[Dining]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hotel features a Club Lounge in Citadel and a Villa Club in the villas. However both are closed at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All paid rates include breakfast, but redemption rate doesn\u2019t. We are offered a half-board package at \u20ac65 pp which we think is fair and have accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breakfast is served in the restaurant La Veranda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is literally one of the worst<\/em> breakfast I\u2019ve ever had at any hotel, to the point that the only edible dish is the freshly-made omelette. I\u2019m shocked how a Ritz-Carlton can get away with it \u2013 I guess breakfast is inclusive for 95% of the guests anyway so they don\u2019t need to sell it, and they put you off having breakfast then you have to spend more on lunch and dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villa guests have breakfast at El Mirador, but it\u2019s also a buffet and I assume quality will be similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For lunch and dinner, there are around five restaurants available and you can use your half-board\/full-board package at most of them. More expensive items (often half of the menu) require surcharges though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Mirador is probably the most popular restaurant, next to the villas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Txono is another restaurant by the swimming pool. I ordered a wagyu steak at a hefty surcharge, and it tasted no better than a \u00a35 Waitrose steak!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The last restaurant we tried is the Melvin. It\u2019s owned by a Preferred hotel nearby, but Ritz-Calton\u2019s half-package is also accepted here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Food here isn\u2019t much better than the Ritz Carlton, but service is at a totally different level: the shuttle driver is super welcoming, and a waitress proactively apologises for us waiting too long and offers a couple of complimentary dishes. We\u2019ve had so many issues at Ritz Carlton on the other hand: waiting more than half an hour for the appetisers, the waiter forgetting our requests etc\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to eat out, there\u2019s a small town nearby called San Juan. It costs \u20ac5-\u20ac7 to get there by taxi, and there are many cheap restaurants in that area. You can have a promenade by the sea too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a word, I\u2019m very disappointed by the stay. First of all the location is very weird and it\u2019s anything but easy to get around; secondly the room and hotel facilities don\u2019t feel luxurious at all \u2013 I mean they are adequate but far below the Ritz Carlton standard; last but not least, as friendly as they are the staff needs substantial training too, to avoid the so many teething issues we\u2019ve had throughout the stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Failing to visit Mauritius, my friend and I decided to spend the Christmas holiday in Tenerife instead, which is also a popular winter sun destination. Surprisingly...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,3],"tags":[128],"class_list":["post-10765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-marriott-bonvoy","tag-hotel-review"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10765"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11354,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10765\/revisions\/11354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.verylvke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}