Puerto Azul Aparthotel

3 readers found this review helpful

I went as part of a group of 6 girls in nov 08 to this hotel. We only were moved there as the hotel we originally booked was still under construction. This was supposed to be a fun girls holiday which ended up a nightmare!!!! On arriving at the hotel we had 3 rooms we all 6 of us chipped in to buy a safe to keep our valuables. We went and got settled into the rooms and then we all locked our valuables in the safe before going out for dinner. one and a half hours later we returned to our rooms to find that our safe door had been ripped open and all of our valuables and cash for the holiday had been stolen. this was the room that i shared with one of the other girls and i cannot tell you of the trauma of having someone invade your privacy and rummage through your personal belongings including underwear!! After the initial discovery one of my friends phoned reception to report what happened and was told by the receptionist it was "impossible"! and hung up the phone. My two friends then went up to reception to explain the situation and were told it was not their problem and to shhh as she had guests to check in. With the end result that all six of us had to share a one bedroom apartment as some of the girls including myself didnt feel safe. The rest of our holiday was wasted with having to move hotels and make police reports. We were moved to the cumana which although only two stars was far supreme to the supposed 3/4 star puerto azul! So from this i hope anyone thinking of staying here will see we are not simply moaning but doing them a favour when telling them not to go. Further more the next day we bumped into a man who had been staying there for a week he wanted to tell us to be carefull as there had been 10 robberies since he had been there!! it was too late for us but its not for u. u have been warned!!!!

1 reader found this review helpful

We have stayed at the puerto azul on several occasions, the last time in 2003 and there has been a severe lack of any sort of investment or maintenance since then.
Our room, although clean, was tatty.
The pool area has loads of loungers but very few umbrellas - the few that were there were either broken or ripped
The service of food and service at the pool bar was terrible. We never ate at the hotel, there are loads of fabulous restaurants in puerto rico so no need to risk the hotel food
It was such a shame to see the fall in standards at the hotel - it used to be lovely. We will gothe puerto rico again but will stay somewhere else.

2 readers found this review helpful

Originailly booked for the Rio Sol, but found out 2 days before out holidays that bulidin work was still going on there and tht we wub be stayin in the peurto azul apartments,
On arriving at 6.30 at night we checked in got the room keys (had 3 rooms), payed 4 a safe which we all agreed we would share so 6 of us chip in and split the money 4 the safe, after this we set of down a lift, had to go down 3 separate lifts each 3 flights down and are hard to see , fiialy get to the rooms , started to unpack the cases then decided to go for dinner, before we left 4 dinner wee put everything in the safe and locked it, thinkin it would be safe ther till we gt back from dinner.
only away 4 an hour and a half to come home and find out someone had broke into the room with the safe, took the safe door off hinges and left it lyin on the cupboard, thy took everything belongin to us over £1500 , 450 euros, 4 cameras , fone , 2 nintedo lites and 2 ipod touches last but no least thy stole knickers how sick can thy gt!!! when we discovrd this we foned reception where the fat lady said it was impossible and hung the fone up, so then me and my friend goes up to the reception where we meet the lady on reception explain wats happend she thn tells us its ' not my problem ' and walks away , we thn try to explain again and she tells us shhhh i have people checkin in, we then found out that 10 people had been robbed durin the week and nothing had been done about it, obvisly an inside job . all 6 of us then had to share a 1 bedroom apartment becasue the girls were scarred to go back to there room, after wat seem like ages talkin to the rep we managed to get moved the next day to the Cumana Apartments which wer fab.. I Dont Recommend Peurto Azul To Anyone, And Take All Your Belongings With You At All Times, Anyone who was there between the 10th november and it happend to u , please gt in contact with us

on arrival at midnight we soon found our way down 3 lifts following the map given to us by staff. opened curtains in morning to see the most beautiful views of the beach and harbour and thought brilliant, thats where the brilliance ended. we arrived on the tues and on thur we soon felt the presence of armed guards, when we enquired why we were told its only security. on fri we soon found out why, catering firm had went bust leaving us with scrambled egg only for breakfast nothing else. everything that could move was taken from restaurant and bar. no tea except herbal no coffee no toaster no orange machines,not enough cups bowls cuttlery(had to wait for these items)no table covers no glasses(plastic cups were used, washed then reused,totally unacceptable)staff although nice were very slow couldnt clear up quick enough leaving you waiting for cuttlery etc. food was diabolical cold and very basic, same all the time, no soup for days and no ice cream in restaurant. paid over 1200 pounds for AI and had to eat out frequently.we did receive a letter from management accompanied with a bottle of wine saying things would be back to normal on the mon,this was not the case things did not get back to normal until the following sat.the lifts were constantly out of use(cleaning staff jammed doors so they could get their work done quicker)leaving guests to walk up several flights of stairs. bar staff allowed only 1 drink per person even after having to wait in a queue of about 15 before being served. bar meals were hamburgers or hot dogs no other choice. saw a couple of good acts but entertainment was poor and finished at 10.30 most nights. the pool was lovely but not the toilets. the hotel was nice but saw a few cockroaches at night. staff in general were nice and helpful. when a taxi was required it was no problem to them. think twice before booking this hotel.

We went here last year at same time and it was really good, BUT this year the food was an utter disgrace. Same blamange dessert for 7 days lunchtime and evening. Soup
cosisted of whatever was leftovers from day before.
only thing we ate every lunch and dinner was salad. even that had previous days lettuce among it. no ice cream for dinner time. You didn't know what the food was supposed to be most of the time. At snack bar ran out of ice cream continually, and no orange juice for last 3 days of our holiday. food from previous day was revamped into something else usually. Apartment floors were filthy the bath foot towel was covered in dirt from floor, never washed while we were there. 1 coffee/tea machine for all to use. Barman at snack bar hadnt a clue no matter what you asked for, Never go again ever.

2 readers found this review helpful

Like all of you, I was concerned about this hotel after reading some of the awful reviews - but I was worrying about nothing. I can't believe that the authors of some of these reviews just sat there wallowing in misery on their holiday!! why? If you wanted a perfect holiday don't be so tight with the money and pay for one. This is a cheap holiday for people on a budget and for what we paid, I thought it was great.
Ok, it didn't start too well with a 5 hour delay. We got to the hotel and the reception area looked really nice. The receptionist gives you a map to you room, please listen there are alot of rooms here, you wont go wrong if you actually listen! There are as many as 4 lifts to take but you can soon cut a couple out and use some stairs when you get used to the hotel and when you're not with your suitcases. I must admit when we got there and were on our way to our room in the dark, it didn't look too pretty. There was not much light, it had been raining and large puddles had formed in the pathways. The rooms are absolutely fine, very spacious with everthing you need. The balcony was huge and the views were fantastic, we could see all of Puerto Rico from ours. No complaints. And we never saw a cockroach once in the complex.
As far as the food goes - we ate in the hotel restuarant every meal time the week we were there. On only 2 seperate occasions did I feel the food wasn't quite as good as it had been at other times - and that was the lack of choice rather than quality. We found there was alot of choice especially at lunch and dinner - there were healthy options always available if you were sick of chips. Breakfast was the same everyday but everything that anyone ever needed for breakfast was served! We did find that the manager gave us the odd sneaky funny look, I can only assume he thought we weren't all inclusive or something (we are not loud people). The queue at the bar was not that bad and yes alot of the drinks were served in plastic cups but so what? If you're going to let that ruin your holiday then good luck to you. There is plenty of choice where the drinks are concerened as well.
Around the pool area - there was alot of space, many sunbeds, it was clean, near the bar, near the toilets - what else is needed? There was the odd whiff coming from the toilets but thats to be expected by the end of the day, it is a warm place and there are alot of people. And its not that bad anyway. Although most toilets in the entire hotel dont have locks on - that would be a small criticism - I really don't think its too an important issue but sometimes it was annoying.
My 2nd criticism. On our last day at the hotel it was raining all day and the wind was strong. This is when things kept being blown off the roof of the poolside bar. Im talking big metal pipes, long bits of plastic etc. Bar men closed some shutters around the bar and hid the bits that had fallen. ?? Im not sure they take much pride in their health and safety.
Basically, if you are not fussy, have OCD, and are not uptight you will have a good time on this holiday. These people who are complaining about it not being a classy hotel blah blah blah are just being picky. You would pay around £750+ for a 4/5 star all inlclusive. Go and pay it next time. This cost us £350 each. What are some of you expecting for this kind of money in this day and age.

Well I really don't know where to start! First impressions were ok I guess...well atleast until 10minutes into our arrival when my friend screamed in the next room as a cockroach tried to eat her!! It was that big!! (we went with another couple).
Then it was a mission to find a water machine that worked and we must have gone in three lifts down 2 sets of stairs and back again to find it! (we arrived early hours of the morning).
The pools are nice, that is one good thing about the hotel. Although the poolside toilets have no locks on the doors and hardly ever any toilet paper, also filthy so advise you wear footwear when attempting to hover over the seat!!
The food was below average when we arrived but didn't expect much so made the most out of it. The bar snacks were ok though and so were the drinks. However this soon changed towards the end of the week when we noticed security followed by ARMED POLICE hanging around the hotel and despite trying to find out what was going on or even if we were safe was a waste of time as staff were reluctant to tell us what was going on! The next morning was interesting as we went down for breakfast only to find NOTHING there. I mean NOTHING, no food, drinks, cooking materials etc EVERYTHING including staff were gone! Later we found out that the catering company had gone bust and they were attempting to rectify the situation by Monday....it was now Friday! In the mean time they tried to provide food & drink that was just about edible. One morning the scrambled egg was RAW!
At the poolside bar (catering company even took the pumps for the beer etc and grills & fridges!) it got worse...one evening they ran out of plastic cups and dropped a crate of glasses so began "washing up" the plastic cups! The drinks were from plastic bottles so drinks were flat and the beer went from San Migel to really cheap stuff and they didn't have sangria.
Also to add to this the lifts were not working for the last three days and we had to carry our suitcases up 3 sets of stairs when we left.
I know this all sounds hard to believe but I am being 100% honest with this review. We still had a wicked holiday but did end up spending more because of the catering company and feel the quality got worse throughout the week.
I feel paying customers deserve the full truth about this hotel.
If they just made more effort and redecorated the rooms this hotel would do well.
But we won't be going back. For those who have already booked this hotel DONT WORRY! All this would have been sorted before you get there and you can just about handle 1 week AI.
I really hope this review helps.

Before we went on this trip, we did look at reviews & were a bit concerned, but usually take them into consideration and still draw our own conclusion.
I'm afraid to say that the previous reviews on the food standards were correct, the breakfast was a spanish interpretation of english cooked, with fatty bacon, uncooked fried eggs/overcooked boiled, cold sausages(thankgod for the microwave & cardboard cereal. there was the alternative - toast, which my 10 year old lived on. lunch and supper were much and such the same as each other, cold meats & salad,inedible stews, fish, breadcrumbed chicken or not properly cooked roast chicken, and chips, chips & for a change CHIPS!! Standards of food hygeine are low not like UK so beware, i found a live cockroach in a clean pudding bowl and a dead ant in my melon.
We did eat out a few times, although i like trying local food did fall for british food as we had a fussy kid with us, so if you have the same scenario, I do recomend the Mau Mau cafe/restaurant in puerto rico(1/2 roast chicken, chips & salad less than 5 euros for an adult, 3 for kids. Drinks at the hotel were good they even make cocktails inclusive, both alchoholic and non, and there is scoop type icecream for kids etc from 10 til 5pm, but they aren't labeled so try before u scoop.

The pool water was clean & so was the area around although the pool edge itself had been painted that many times without proper preparation that the paint was cracking and peeling and quite sharp in places, saw a few cuts being treated.
Listen to instructions on how th get to your room as there are 600 rooms and can be tricky finding your room if you don't.
The rooms were basic but comfortable, all appliances eg. 2 ring cooker,microwave toaster,kettle, even a juicer were provided, so great if you go self catering. would say room more suitable for 3 people than 4 as the living area bed is a sofa with a drawer bed beneath, which was quite uncomfortable. Rooms were cleaned every day and fresh towels/linen 3 times a week. No air con though, only a fan so quite sticky at night but we left window and patio door open, leave outside light on and u dont have a cockroach problem, only 1 got into our room in 2 weeks.
Entertainers were good, live show 5 times a week and bingo/quiz on other nights. But its only on between 9.30 & 10.30, then after a break its KARAOKE. During the day there is kids club, crazy golf, pingpong, tennis,water volleyball and aqua aerobics.
There are 3 computers in the reception area for internet use etc, charged at 1 euro for 15 mins, about 10 pool tables 1 euro per game and 2 massage chairs - 2 euros for 1/2 hour. There is a massuese in the pool area but he is expensive.
Reception staff are helpful and will book you a taxi too if you ask but there is a taxi rank just outside the main gate and will save you 45 cents if you get from there. The hotel is up a steep hill but only a 15 min walk into town or 3 euros in a taxi. Beware of Anfi salesman if you are trying to avoid timeshare(he will tell you it isn't timesahre, but it is), & 2 looky looky men selling watches and sunglasses, although a strong NO is usually enough to deter them from annoying you.

If you decide to go to 1 of the islands Aquaparks would recommend atlantica in puerto rico, the one is maspalomas is bigger but there are queues for the slides, no queues in this one and they have a free bird of prey show on at 1pm, the kids can stroke them too.

Overall I would only recommend this hotel if you were staying self catering purely because of the standards of food but that aside it isn't a bad place, we have stayed in a lot worse, and other than the restaurant it is quite clean and friendly.
Temp in Aug/Sept a very warm 25 - 30 centigrade.

We arrived at 3.45 in the morning after leaving East Midlands airport at 9pm the previous night, when we booked we were told there were tea and coffee facilities in our room and after having nothing to drink since the half cup of tea on the flight were a little upset that we could not make a drink as there was nothing in the room to do so, everything was shut up so we couldn't go for a drink but we soon forgot how thirsty we were when we spend an hour and half chasing cockroaches around the apartment.
The Breakfast next morning was dreadfull, they did an English Breakfast which quite frankly I wouldn't have fed a dog and there was no milk to have with your tea once you had found the tea bags and sugar.
The fan in the room was so slow even on fast speed it barely touched you.
The shower dribbled out and it was pot luck whether you had hot water or not.
The pool was ok but the showers around the pool were dirty and could have done with a good clean and a lick of paint.
There was more often than not only one bar staff at any time and the queue for a drink took at least 10 minutes each time.
We went to reception on 2 ocassions to cash travellers cheques and were told by the rude receptionist that we would have to come back in half an hour as they were changing over. They were not guards at Buckingham Palace, how difficult is it to change money when staff were swapping over!!
The food on every occasion was absolutely diabolical, anybody with children would have had great difficulty feeding them with the concoctions they were serving.
We asked if we could have a late check out room and were told it was the islands bank holiday so they were fully booked up and we could use the courtesy room to shower.
Shower was a joke, the courtesy room in the ladies had brown smelly water dripping from the ceiling. The ceiling being underneath a toilet block above which was leaking and the area where the water was coming from was underneath a toilet which the door had been locked all week, god only knows what it was dripping through the ceiling, the floor of the courtesy room was absolutely sodden and the showers were no better than those in the rooms they dribbled out and there was no hook for the shower head.
Most of the toilets in the hotel didn't have locks on and once you were in the cubicles and the timer went out on the light switches you were on the toilet in darkness.
If the maintenance Men from the hotel actually did some maintenance instead of standing around the female life guard all week chatting her up there probably wouldn't have been so many maintenance issues with the hotel.
Entertainment was good on 3 out of seven nights but that was all done by 10.30pm and the daytime music must have been one cd with approximately 20 songs which were replayed all week.
We felt that out of all the staff at the hotel Managers, Receptionists, Bar Staff, Restaurant Staff, Entertainment Staff and Maintenace, the only one's that actually really did any proper work were the Chamber Maids they worked very hard and did a superb job of what was a total muck hole. Everybody else should have the sack and perhaps some window cleaners for the main hotel lobby wouldn't go a miss.

3 readers found this review helpful

I returned a few days ago from the Puerto Azul hotel in Gran Canaria and decided to write a review to break the cycle of moany people who expect too much for there money and have nothing better to do than moan. If you want 5 star then book a 5 star hotel!!!
I was extremely nervous about the holiday due in part to the reviews I'd read about the hotel and secondly because it was my first holiday abroad with my 1 year old child. I needn't have been nervous as my family had a wonderful 2 weeks there.
The accomadation we stayed in consisted of a small living area with kitchenette, breakfast bar, fridge, sofa bed and television. A separate bedroom, with two large singles or, when put together, a superking sized bed. The bedroom easily accomadated a travel cot and various pieces of furniture and baby equiptment. There was no air conditioning in the room but there was a fan (free of charge) and the large window meant we were more often slightly chilly than hot. The bathroom was quite large with bath and shower. Plug socket for a hairdryer or straighteners, large sink and mirror. Finally there was a balcony that was, again, large with garden table and chairs, the view from which was beautiful as we were surrounded by sea.
The hotel itself was immaculate. There is marble everywhere, wicker furniture inside and plenty of garden furniture and sunbeds outside around the pool. The poolside area is cleaned twice per day, early morning and again at night. The rooms are cleaned daily and the towels and bedding changed daily or at worse every other day.
The food was buffet style and not to everyones taste but we always found something we liked. Breakfast consisted of fruit (dried, tinned or fresh), cereal (i recommend the sugar puffs which are exactly like the english version.), streaky bacon, frankfurter sausages or regular sausages, usually two types of egg (either fried and boiled, or fried and scrambled), beans, toast, butter and jam, fresh rolls.
Lunch and dinner usually consisted of a soup with fresh rolls, a salad bar, some kind of pasta in either tomato or cheese sause, a meat in sauce such as stroganoff or sweet and sour chicken, a fish in a suace, three choices of vegetables, various potatoes such as croquettes, jacket or boiled. Some days there was pork off the bone or pork chop, ham fritter, calamari rings or burgers, lasagne or spagetti bol. For desert there was fruit, 5 sorts of ice-cream, jelly, chocolate mousse or creme brulee. There were also usually three small cakes to choose from although we didn't try any of them. If all else fails there was plenty of chips!
Food at the pool bar included ham and cheese toasties, burgers, hotdogs and chips. There was also a menu to choose from at an extra charge.
The pool was beautitul, in a lagoon style with a separate heated pool and childrens pool. As previously mentioned there were plenty of sunbeds although people do reserve them with towels.
The entertainment was Ok, with a different show each night. To mention just a few, there was a snake show, bird of prey show, singers, the Black Brothers acrobat show, A juggling show, Russian dancers etc. This was usually followed by kareoke (in english)
Most of the guests were english although there was a nice mixture of some spanish and a few Dutch and French guests although most, including all the staff, speak very good english.
The all inclusive drinks package was better than most places I've been before, although most are local drinks you can choose from a large list including San Miguel, cocktails, bottled water, local forms of baileys, southern comfort, peach schnapps. 7up, coke, fanta, irish coffees and hot chocolate.
The facilities there include minigolf (deposit only), 6 pool tables (1 euro- although friends of ours were putting plastic cups in the pockets so they could keep playing free of charge.) Massage chairs (2 euros but worth it!) Football and tennis courts, aquagym and kids club.
Overall we had a brilliant and relaxing time and made many friends (english, welsh and dutch), we visited the two local beaches and the market and would definately go back to the resort and the hotel.