Zoraida Garden

“Amazing family holiday!!”

Well, where to start?! We had an amazing holiday here late June for 10 nights. There was 8 of us in our party including 4 teenagers. It is a beautiful hotel and is the only resort in Almeria. Staff are so friendly, despite there being a language barrier. Just go with an open mind and give Spanish … more

Well, where to start?! We had an amazing holiday here late June for 10 nights. There was 8 of us in our party including 4 teenagers. It is a beautiful hotel and is the only resort in Almeria. Staff are so friendly, despite there being a language barrier. Just go with an open mind and give Spanish a go when you order a drink at the bar or say hello to the housekeepers. (These are super friendly too, always ready with a Hola and smile in the morning) Our room was cleaned every day and the public areas were always clean and polished. Hats off to all the staff. It didn’t bother us being the minority (British) in the hotel. In fact, we loved the fact it isn’t touristy and hope it stays that way for when we return. The promenade is lovely for a stroll in the evenings. Then you can come back to the entertainment at 10pm which consists of live music or entertainment. The bands were very good. We had blue bands which means you don’t get priority to book the restaurants in the evening but from 1st July you can eat during the day at any of the restaurants. Definitely try the Mediterranean buffet in the day - this place was lovely to eat in. It had air con inside so was a cool break from the sun. They had paella, grilled meats, seafood and all the trimmings available each day. Food - the buffet always had plenty of choice from grilled meats, to salads and fish. We really enjoyed meal times - we found going earlier in the evening it was less busy. So go between 8-9. We were amazed at the amount of sunbeds available each day…we never struggled for a bed but we were happy to sit further away from the pools. If you have younger children you may have to go save beds nearer the pool. There’s Aquagym or Zumba most days which was fun. There’s a foam party too which looked awesome for younger children. The choice of spirits and drinks at the bar was enough for us…we didn’t pay to upgrade our bands so we had the unnamed alcohol beverages but that really didn’t bother us. Plenty of choice and the staff were very generous with their portions! This was our first All Inclusive holiday and we didn’t know what to expect but wow, we will definitely do this again and would love to come back here next year. Thank you so much for a lovely stay.

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“Great family Spanish holiday”

We had a great family holiday, with our 7 and 10 year olds. Cleanliness - the hotel was very clean, the toilets by the swimming pool were constantly cleaned throughout the day, and our room was cleaned every day. Pools - both the main pool and water slide pool brought hours of fun. We always fou… more

We had a great family holiday, with our 7 and 10 year olds. Cleanliness - the hotel was very clean, the toilets by the swimming pool were constantly cleaned throughout the day, and our room was cleaned every day. Pools - both the main pool and water slide pool brought hours of fun. We always found sun beds for all the family, whilst not always right by the pool it was sometimes nicer to be tucked away for relaxing quietly. Food - restaurant was great, always had a great selection of food to chose from, even for a fussy child, so I don’t understand the negative reviews people have given for this. As soon as we sat down at a table the staff would come and get our drink order. The kids could not get enough of the chocolate fountain, they loved it! Nearly as much as being able to get themselves an ice cream or slushy each day. Entertaining - wasn’t always necessarily to our taste, but we enjoyed sitting by the bar playing cards with it going on in the background. And it was much better than previous resorts. I personally enjoyed the water aerobics each day, and my daughter enjoyed the foam party. Staff - all seemed very friendly, and tried to help the best they could even if it took a while to understand. We tried to get a bus to get to the aquarium but despite supposedly taking cards (there was a contactless machine on board as well) we were told by a driver it was cash only, the bus took ages to arrive as well, we ended up asking reception to order a taxi and one swiftly arrived outside. What great service! Room - there were two doubles right next to each other, which meant we had to share a bed with the kids. Whilst not lots of space we made it work, and at the end of the day we were only in the room to sleep. The air con system is quite noisy, but if you switch to the minimum setting, which is plenty at night, you could sleep through it. We visited the beach a couple of times, it was good for the children to ride the waves with their inflatables, which aren’t allowed in the hotel pools. Mini Hollywood is also worth a visit.

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“Very Average Hotel”

My girlfriend and our kids stayed at the Evenia Zoradia Resort in mid July 2024 for a week, having booked through OnTheBeach. The Evenia Zoradia Resort comprises 2 hotels - The Evenia Zoradia Garden Hotel and the Evenia Zoradia Park Hotel. Both are supposedly rated as 4* properties, but with no s… more

My girlfriend and our kids stayed at the Evenia Zoradia Resort in mid July 2024 for a week, having booked through OnTheBeach. The Evenia Zoradia Resort comprises 2 hotels - The Evenia Zoradia Garden Hotel and the Evenia Zoradia Park Hotel. Both are supposedly rated as 4* properties, but with no standardised official star rating systems used throughout the world (the UK has an AA rating system, the US uses a diamond rating system, some European countries use their own rating system, some European countries don't participate at all, and then you also have the tour companies offering their own classifications, etc.), it's never going to be possible to compare apples with apples. When we booked with OnTheBeach, the booking confirmation and all subsequent documentation only mentioned "Evenia Zoradia Resort" - There was no mention of which hotel we would be staying in, but having taken the time to read lots of reviews before booking and studying various photo's, it didn't occur to us that there might be differences. When we arrived, having tried to check into the Evenia Zoradia Garden Hotel which had a nice marbled lobby, we were told that we were actually staying in the Evenia Zoradia Park Hotel. First impressions of the Evenia Zoradia Park Hotel were not good - Apart from looking a bit shabby - think 1980's wood panelling all over the place, a multitude of different lino effects in various areas rather than one consistent theme, worn carpets in the hallways, poor lighting and a basic room that they tried to jazz up with an orange desk, a lime green in-room sink and a multi-coloured hexagon effect headboard. Our room (157) overlooked the reception carpark roof so the view was awful (but not important in the scheme of things as we weren't in the room much) and it had occasional sewage smells coming from the drains - These did however disappear quite quickly once the old and very noisy air conditioning unit was turned on. Room cleanliness on the whole was OK, but it wasn't spotless - There were the odd hairs (say no more) here and there in the bathroom when we arrived and the floors weren't mopped down properly every day. The resort complex is very big - Much bigger than we were expecting and must have been at full capacity - There were mainly large groups of Spanish families with a few other nationalities (i.e. English, French, etc.) thrown in. For us this wasn't a problem as we like to experience different cultures and cuisines, but for those of you that are looking for an English resort, this is not it. There are 2 main pool areas - One with kids slides (which look much bigger on the photo's) and a big main pool where various "animation team" activities take place throughout the day (yoga, pool carpet runs, water volleyball, etc.). There are lots of sun loungers to use with umbrella's which is really good. The resort grounds themselves are for the most part tired. Paint was falling off things like the pool bridges, the paths looked old but functional, there was a mix of grass areas with bear patches, some very old astro-turf which needed replacing and some new astro-turf which looked nice. The hotel buildings were a drab cream colour, which with a lick of paint (similar to a multi-coloured hotel across the road) could be made to look really smart. There were lots of bins around the resort which were frequently emptied, but there was lots of rubbish strewn in amongst the sun loungers which was not actively cleared away. Whilst this should ultimately be the guests responsibility, other hotels we've stayed at had staff constantly going round collecting the cups, wrappers, ice cream sticks, etc. throughout the day to keep the grounds looking nice. We frequently walked round early in the morning after breakfast to see rubbish still around from the night before. There are a variety of different pool bars and themed restaurants across the resort including Italian, Asian, Mediterranean food. Lots of people have commented on the different all inclusive standards - Those with an orange wrist band get to use all the restaurants all day / evening with access to branded drinks, those with blue wrist bands only get to use the restaurants during the day and can only use the buffet restaurant in the evening. Only local drinks are included with the blue wrist bands which seemed to have been allocated to the UK guests whilst Spanish ones have the orange ones. It's not ideal that there different all inclusive tiers but quite frankly it made no real difference to us. From a drink's perspective, I'm just as happy drinking (for example) a local rum as apposed to a branded rum. From a food perspective, everyone has access to all the restaurants during the day so it's only in the evenings when it could become a problem. The biggest issue we had was with the food itself. I have never been to a hotel that offers so little in terms of selection, quality and what there was bears no resemblance to the theming it's trying to represent - All the restaurants essentially seem to serve the same food with a very limited selection of themed dishes (I can't vouch for the evening meals as we weren't able to sample these !!!). Another very odd thing is that the themed restaurants served random non themed dishes, for example in the Asian restaurant they had Spanish Omelette as a dish... Why not keep the themed restaurants themed and have other dishes served in the buffet restaurant ? The style and decor of the restaurants (with the exception of the Asian one which was quite nice) are also run down with broken floor tiles, dirty floors, etc. All of the could do with a refurb and felt more like jazzed up pool bars rather than restaurants if that makes sense. Hotel catering & facilities management really should look into improving the restaurant offerings, and perhaps considering it's Spain, setting up a nice Tapas bar / restaurant so international guests can experience local specialities ! Given that we thought the food was average at best (and we are not fussy eaters) we decided to eat out for over half the holiday. The evening entertainment was heavily Spanish focussed but good. It wouldn't hurt for the entertainment staff to include more translation effort for other international guests but it wasn't an issue for us. There is a lovely beach across the road, but there is not much else to do in the immediate vicinity. Hire a car and go exploring ! Mini Hollywood Oasis is well worth a visit. Whilst my initial impression when I first arrived (very tired from a long journey) was one of complete and other disappointment, I did find that by the end of the week my views had improved a bit. But not by much. Even though I'd done a fair amount of research before booking, clearly I should have done more, and judging by the more negative reviews we've been reading over the past 6 months, it does seem as if the hotel management are not really taking note. Hotel management read this :- Improve the room decor, improve the building decor, improve the ground decor, improve the restaurant decor, improve the food quantity, improve the food quality, improve the food selection, make an effort to clear rubbish away from the sun loungers, stop offering tiered All Inclusive standards, replace the old air conditioning units and you'll go a long way to improving the hotel facilities. Given that we paid a lot of money for the last week of the UK mid season holiday period - you know the week before the summer holiday prices get seriously crazy ! - and given that this was much more expensive than other destinations we looked at such as Greece, Portugal, Canaries, etc., all of which were offering much better hotels (my girlfriend specifically wanted to visit mainland Spain so I was overruled on the location !), I wouldn't come back here.

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