Roca Nivaria Gran Hotel

It was our first time at this hotel but came highly recommended from family members. A fantastic hotel - clean, great facilities, calm atmosphere and things to do for all of the family. Staff were very friendly and ready to help when needed. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and would definitely come back again.

First ever review…I’m telling you this because I have a lot to say and don’t want you to think I’m a serial complainer. This hotel had some good points but was not a true 5* and the ‘All Inclusive’ facilities were poor’. I don’t want to just slam all the bad things so let’s start with the positives. Sorry for the long review but if you want a 5* all inclusive experience, I strongly urge you to reconsider booking this place. We booked through TUI and their website is pretty deceptive. Positives *Kids club was good and activities by kids pool were fun. *the grounds were beautiful and very clean. *the evening entertainment was hit and miss but when it was good, it was really good. The Flamenco show in particular was fantastic. *the room was quite nice. *accessibility was very good. *the majority of the staff were very nice and helpful. Negatives *Kids pool needs to be heated. As soon as it clouded over, too cold to be in the pool. *Pool bars were not open enough. If you were sat by the lower pool, you had to go to main pool bar to get a drink, the small bar by that pool barely seemed to be open. Even worse, kids pool bar which was really far from the main pool bar, didn’t open until 12.30. Not even for water/tea/soft drinks. *Dining - this was our biggest issue. The only place to eat was the buffet and the food was mediocre at best and rarely hot. I know that’s what you expect from a buffet but we expected to be able to eat at the A La carte restaurants some nights and to be able to grab lunch from the pool bar as we paid A LOT for all inclusive. However, when trying to book the A La carte restaurants on arrival, they were fully booked or closed every night of our 7 night stay apart from one night. We booked that one but my parents were not able to get in and the ap wouldn’t let us book our daughter in either. Reception were extremely blasé and unhelpful and just said they would put us on a waiting list. One of the reasons we booked this hotel was the different eating options. We did go to our booking and took our daughter and they didn’t say anything about her not being on the booking. To our shock…the HUGE restaurant only had 5 occupied tables including us. Probably a total of about 25 ish people as one table was about 8. We asked if they could accommodate our parents as there was so much space and sooooo many servers but they insisted they were full. When we were eating, 2 tables finished and left and no further people arrived. I can only assume that the seemingly VERY exclusive Al a carte restaurants are a guise to reel people in to booking a hotel with ‘multiple dining options’. Truly shocking! So, we spent all our other meals at the buffet. The servers at the buffet were something else…they are so keen to clear your plate but when people leave, they don’t put fresh celery etc down. So, if you get to the buffet a little later and are the second sitting on a table, you have to track someone down so that you can eat your food with cutlery. You’d think this would be a simple task but no. Each member of staff seems to have a very specific role and if you ask them for cutlery and that’s not their job, panic ensues. If you’re lucky, they will ask someone who will ask someone else and you might get your cutlery. It really is shocking! My daughter was sat with her breakfast in front of her one morning…I asked a man with a tray of cutlery if I could please have some and he was going to but another server stopped him and went to ask someone else who then brought us cutlery a few minutes later. I think that they think this is 5* service…it’s really not! To add, the pool bar is extra charge until 3 when they bring the kids section of the buffet over and that is included. If this was the case from 12 then we would have been happy enough as eating in the buffet 3 times a day was too much. *Regardless of the fact we arrived at 9pm, our ‘All Inclusive’ privileges were stopped at 12 on our final day. Only after I complained did I get a voucher for food and one drink at…you guessed it…the buffet. Additionally, when we handed the voucher to the drink server, the attitude on her was something else. I tried to order for my parents who were on the way…she raised her voice and said quite curtly ‘NO, 3 only!’ Everything just seemed to be a way of cost cutting and money saving which isn’t what you expect from a 5* hotel.