Just returned from Excellence and heres a review of what I found.Oh and we stayed in a junior swim out room aws.
Me and my wife have just returned from visiting ERC (Sept 6-20) it was a return visit having already stayed there in Nov 06.
This time we went with my sister and brother in law who were so impressed with our photos from our 06 holiday they decided to come with us.
Again we had a lovely time, the hotel itself is much the same as we remember its kept very clean and well maintained, the staff by large are a credit to the hotel they seem to have the knack of not making the hotel too pretencious but knowing how to do a top notch job although there 1 or 2 examples of a language barrier but after all I don't speak Spanish and it was never a major issue as someone was close by to sort it out.
To compare it to our last stay I would have to say it didn't seem quite as good but that could be down to the fact that we had been there before.
Rooms.
The rooms were still kept clean throughout but use your do not disturb/please clean our room sign as we found that we often came back to our room after breakfast and the maid was already in the room which made it inconvinient if you wanted to put your swimsuite etc on, we also found the turndown service a little erratic she turned up a couple of times at 5 or 6 oclock but even then you just can dial 0 on your room phone and request a later time.
The room service we found to have actually improved since our last visit always prompt well presented and served in a very freindly manner by the servants who were excellent and most importantly it was hot and tasty.
The minibar was replenished daily and you can even request behind certain bars a different brand of beer (we requested Corona) and Diego behind the Kafe cafe bar just wrote down our room number down and hey presto on our return to the room at the end of day they were there.
Food.
Breakfast
In general the food was good The Barcelona which was buffet style had a great selection of pasries, fruit, breads (the cheese bread was delicious) cold meats, cheeses, bacon, sausage with a couple of cooking stations, cooking eggs the way you like them, if you would rather be waited on then the lobster house had a breakfast menu which was good .
Lunch
Lunch was for me the most enjoyable meal of them all (reasons explained later) always plentiful, good quality and a good selection I particularly enjoyed eating at the lobster the sandwiches were good, there also was buffet lunch at The Barcelona, pizzas at Oreganos and Burgers etc in the grill.
Dinner.
For me this was the only real dissapointment of our holiday , in general the food was still good the menus were largely the same as they were 2 years ago which was not the problem as the food last time was 1 of the main reasons we returned, the problem was the consistancy and quality of the meat (largely steaks) that we had, the Chauterbriand in the French which was simply 1 of the best meals I have ever eaten the last time we were there was nowhere near as good, on asking the restaraunt manager after the meal he confirmed they now use the meat of Mexican cattle instead of the black angus which is far superior,
On another 2 occasions the meat was fatty and tough, but then on 3 occasions the steaks were fantastic, the lobster was fantastic also although I was a bit miffed that after 4 days of closure due to maintanence of the roof (storm damage) which was of course no-ones fault it re-opened for 1 night only to be closed the next which was where we wanted to have our last evening meal.
Service.
Still a strong point of the hotel they were only to willing to help with a genuine smile even the gardeners say hello when they see you, although the service could be a little inconsistant as already mentioned it was usually just a language issue if it wasn't they simply weren't left a tip,
Grounds/gardens & pools.
The gardens are very well maintained there is always someone weeding or cutting the grass it is never overgrown there are a nice selection of flowers round the hotel and its nice and tasteful, the pools were mostly kept clean but there were occasions of polystyrine floating in the pool.
Hope this helps.
