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Hi all,
We’re looking at booking Melia Gran Melia Palacio, planning on doing all-inclusive, has anyone had experience of this and the red level? It’s about an extra £110 per night, but can’t really see many benefits of it?RedLevel isn’t the best at Palacio de Isora in Tenerife. Unlike every other Gran Melia RedLevel, there aren’t drinks/snacks available throughout the day other than water, tea and coffee. I’ve stayed in RedLevel and non RedLevel rooms there and not noticed a difference.
There is a RedLevel lounge (useless/empty) and a semi outdoors area for breakfast and for the ‘happy hour’ each day where they serve snacks and drinks. Personally, I wouldn’t value it much.
As for all-inclusive I would also advise against. Dinners have to mostly be taken in the Pangea Food Market which is the buffet restaurant. It is fine but not really the same quality as the a la carte restaurants which themselves are only good enough really. You do get some dinners a la carte, but it’s limited and according to the length of your stay and also limited where you can use it. If you want to do more a la carte or try other restaurants then you get a 30% discount. Additionally you’re limited in what you can order especially with drinks.
It is a long list of exclusions and complexities. Far from being the easy option it feels like a pain. If you eat a normal amount, I struggle to see how you’d spend more just paying for what you’d eat and drink, especially if you venture out of the hotel sometimes.
If you contact the hotel they will send you a two page document which explains the rules. When there are two pages, I would avoid. It’s difficult for me to suggest for you specifically as I’m not sure the price you mention of £110 if it is for an upgrade to RedLevel and all inclusive or just all inclusive. And if it’s per person or for two etc. so you might have to make your own mind up. Although I do know adding all inclusive to a bed and breakfast booking adds €110 (EUR) per person and that wouldn’t be worth it for me personally.
Finally, hopeful this hasn’t been wasted as I assume you must be talking about Palacio de Isora, but just ‘Palacio’ isn’t a good short form because there are two Gran Melia hotels this could be – Palacio de Isora and Palacios de los Duques. Not even sure if the later does all inclusive but the advice on RedLevel is different there and I would probably find it worthwhile!
RedLevel isn’t the best at Palacio de Isora in Tenerife. Unlike every other Gran Melia RedLevel, there aren’t drinks/snacks available throughout the day other than water, tea and coffee. I’ve stayed in RedLevel and non RedLevel rooms there and not noticed a difference.
There is a RedLevel lounge (useless/empty) and a semi outdoors area for breakfast and for the ‘happy hour’ each day where they serve snacks and drinks. Personally, I wouldn’t value it much.
As for all-inclusive I would also advise against. Dinners have to mostly be taken in the Pangea Food Market which is the buffet restaurant. It is fine but not really the same quality as the a la carte restaurants which themselves are only good enough really. You do get some dinners a la carte, but it’s limited and according to the length of your stay and also limited where you can use it. If you want to do more a la carte or try other restaurants then you get a 30% discount. Additionally you’re limited in what you can order especially with drinks.
It is a long list of exclusions and complexities. Far from being the easy option it feels like a pain. If you eat a normal amount, I struggle to see how you’d spend more just paying for what you’d eat and drink, especially if you venture out of the hotel sometimes.
If you contact the hotel they will send you a two page document which explains the rules. When there are two pages, I would avoid. It’s difficult for me to suggest for you specifically as I’m not sure the price you mention of £110 if it is for an upgrade to RedLevel and all inclusive or just all inclusive. And if it’s per person or for two etc. so you might have to make your own mind up. Although I do know adding all inclusive to a bed and breakfast booking adds €110 (EUR) per person and that wouldn’t be worth it for me personally.
Finally, hopeful this hasn’t been wasted as I assume you must be talking about Palacio de Isora, but just ‘Palacio’ isn’t a good short form because there are two Gran Melia hotels this could be – Palacio de Isora and Palacios de los Duques. Not even sure if the later does all inclusive but the advice on RedLevel is different there and I would probably find it worthwhile!
If the OP’s query is about the GM Palacio de Isora in Tenerife, my experience was a bit different than Niall’s. I stayed in Red Level on a half board basis in spring 2023, and we were very pleased. Breakfast was cooked to order in a separate restaurant (with small buffet), with excellent staff who by the third day knew exactly what we wanted. With Red Level there was no limit on the number of times one could go to a la carte restaurants for dinner, and there was priority booking for Red Level. Most importantly, the Red Level concierge would make all the arrangements over WhatsApp or in person, and we were clearly given priority over non-Red Level guests in getting a few a la carte spots when there were no shows. Getting a la carte bookings was still tricky to schedule with a young child, but we were happy with the outcome. The Red Level lounge was nothing special, but had a children’s play area drinks & snacks at happy hour and coffee and juice all day; we certainly appreciated it.
Our feeling was however that all inclusive may not be worthwhile, unless one planned to sit around the facility all day every day eating and drinking; half board worked very well for us.
I think I don’t really disagree with Camflyer. Half board may be worthwhile according to the price. If you would eat a 3 course meal for dinner there each night, the approx €40 extra per person would be cheaper than paying individually. It is also interesting to know they perhaps don’t have the same restaurant restrictions for RedLevel guests – as that does make a decent difference as I’m fairly sure the buffet Pangea is €35 per person to pay there! It would also explain why half board seems to have a greater extra expense vs b&b on the RedLevel rooms. Although I’m not really sure based on what the hotel themselves sent me just a couple of months ago on restrictions. Definitely worth checking!
I think Camflyer used the RedLevel for families lounge if with a child. Also probably with a child RedLevel makes more sense. Just for me when I see that for a couple for a weekend in December, it is €449 deluxe room b&b vs €777 RedLevel half board, that is quite a big price difference.
Thanks both, I appreciate the feedback. I think I may look at the half board option.
Appreciate OP will have booked by now….
We chose to book B&B Adults Only Red Level at this hotel as the melia app was giving a 10 percent discount stacked with a 20 percent voucher. Total cost for 5 nights was circa £1k for 19th Dec to 24th Dec. This also included a €100 F&B credit but the free thermal spa offer is for fully inclusive only. The hotel however gave this to us as a freebie as the website was unclear at the time of booking. These offers were only for red level afaik but taken together it pushed the needle… I think it was only an extra £150 compared to non red-level for a similar room.
The room was just very spacious but the “whirlpool” bath on the terrace was a fad. Used once only. This was overlooked by public areas.
The breakfast was served in a seperate area to the main hotel and was just ok. You can use the main buffet too, which again was OK, but a bit of a farm if you don’t have kids.
The red level lounge served snacks from 11am to 5pm, these were passable. Tea coffee water from 7am to 11pm.
Further at 5pm they put on a free bar and a snacking buffet (lots of small bites but you could easily do a full meal) until 6pm. This was a red level exclusive. This was hit and miss – well all the food was hit and. miss to be honest.
With that said, excellent service throughout. We really enjoyed the adults only, no need to even enter the rest of the hotel. The exclusive pool area was quiet, no scramble for seats etc. Albeit the hotel was not that busy for most of our stay until Xmas eve.
Given the snacks we found it very easy to have a large breakfast and the snack our way to dinner. I would not suggest going full or half board if you enjoy your food. It’s just not good enough to warrant the extra cost when there are many wonderful restaurants elsewhere – albeit we had a car so could travel easily.
Overall I thought this was good value for the price particularly given we had unlimited water coffee snacks etc and for us, the adults only section in a big resort hotel was invaluable.
Have a booking upcoming in August at the GM palacio de isora, travelling with kids age 9 & 5 on a b&b basis, looks like our booking has been ‘upgraded’ to red level. Just wondering for those who’ve been before whether with kids in tow + hire car, whether they’d recommend contacting hotel to move to half board, or whether there are enough local restaurant alternatives? Without the kids, I’d definitely explore local options. But with kids convenience is always a plus. Thanks
It’s a few years since I stayed there, but there were plenty of restaurants in Alcala easily walkable from the hotel. In general, I thought the quality of food in the town was better and cheaper than on the property.
Thanks aseftel, helpful advice. I’ll be posting a review of my stay in a few minutes.
Just back from our trip to GM Palacio de isora. Thought I’d post a review of our trip, sadly I don’t have the panache of froggee. Our trip was for nine nights with two kids in tow.
Arrived at the hotel to find out that they didn’t have our two bed ‘red level’ ocean view master suite available. We were instead offered a two bed resort view suite, with an upgrade from b&b to HB offered. Between booking our initial room and arriving, our booking had been upgraded to red level status, on check in they didn’t want to honour the red level upgrade. Following some further communication next morning, they relented and honoured the red level upgrade.
we didn’t receive / fight for some of the red level benefits I.e. we were charged for parking and what should’ve been a couple of complementary cokes.
The room we’d been moved to was just off the main ‘plaza Atlantica’ and next to the family pool, so conveniently located, but suffered from considerable noise pollution both from evening entertainment till 11pm taking place on the plaza atlantica and also from staff movements. The hotel honouring the red level upgrade, pacified me from complaining about the noise levels, just.
For the positives, the hotel has a great range of free activities for kids 5+. Including free kids clubs throughout the day and evening. There was a charge for kids between 8 months to 4 years. The pools were great and not too busy. A new small splash pool, with a reasonably fast kids slide has been added, alongside the existing pirate pool. The pirate pool is heated.
Red level perks – exclusive areas for sun loungers around the family and infinity pool, saved the 7am towel scramble.
The red level breakfast is served in a different restaurant and had a smaller but generally elevated offering compared to the main buffet breakfast, no queue and a beautiful view of the infinity pool and sea. Red level breakfast had a pancake chef station, who would cook to order pancakes in the shape of your choice, planes, cartoon characters, beach setting etc, our kids loved ordering different designs.
As others have said the red level family lounge had a range of sweet snacks throughout the day, I.e. doughnuts and sweets. Tea / coffee, water and orange juice also available. There is a help yourself ice cream machine, mainly a novelty factor, as the ice cream didn’t taste particularly great. Happy hour between 5-6, standard selection of wine, cava, beer and spirits. And a rotating food selection, sushi one night, pizza slices the next. Quality was ok, but plenty of options. Typically, some members of the entertainment staff would put on some kids activities in the lounge’s separate play room during happy hour, which often kept my daughter amused.
The other main red level benefit we used was for restaurant bookings, the red level concierge can make reservations at the a la carte restaurants up to a week in advance, compared to the standard 48 hours. Demand considerably outstrips supply, and it’s a case of faster finger first everyday the new allocation is released, so again this is a good red level perk.
Overall had a great time, enjoyed the consistent good weather and space in / around the pools. Booked during a melia sale, combining Amex plat gold status 20% off, 5% app discount and the free 2,000 melia points sign up. We paid €3,300 for our nine nights, for what turned out to be a red level, two bed master resort view suite, half board. A further ~€1,200 spent on lunches, drinks, ice creams and one dinner at the on-site teppanyaki restaurant – which had a supplement on top of HB.
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