TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

We had the best time at Ocean El Faro. When we got there we decided to upgrade to privilege and I’m so glad we did because our butler, Deiby, was essential to our time there! He made sure we had reservations to the restaurants, gave us recommendations, and even arranged for a car to take us to our next location. The pools are beautiful, staff is great, food is fine.

Fantastic man very friendly always happy a pleasure to be a round 5* xx Emmanuel will miss him when we go home

Nine days in here, every one of them was a great experience, staff are great, rooms are clean, entertainment team at the pool was great, Roberto was awesome! All great experience overall

DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL!! On arrival the safe wasn’t working so I locked my money in my suitcase with a padlock only to find 3 days later when I came for my money that I couldn’t unlock my case as the zip had been tampered with and unlocked by sticking a pen in then re zipped to seem like it hadn’t been touch. My wallet of holiday spending money was ALL GONE. I am a 23 year old female student that had saved up a long time to go on this holiday with my family only to have every dollar of my $700 stolen from my locked suitcase in my locked hotel room. I immediately spoke to the reception help desk staff (no help at all). I went to the police station to file a report and also reported this to the TUI desk. The hotel did not reimburse me or do an investigation into who stole my money. TUI was kind enough to give me a £100 voucher to spend with them on a next holiday but this doesn’t make up for the $700 I had worked over a year to save up! As I stripped and searched every inch of the room I also discovered the mattress was covered in stains and had around 8 bugs crawling over the mattress. During this time another woman had her phone stolen and hotel staff said there’s “nothing they can do” until the woman told them she had tracking on her stolen phone and suddenly staff magically found her phone with a housekeeper. Another guest also had his watch and sunglasses stolen from his room and nothing could be done to help him. Then another guest had some of their money stolen from their room too! Seems to me like this is a beautiful hotel to look at but you will NEVER be at peace here as you’re always worrying about your belongings and will have to take your belongings with you everywhere, to the pool, to the beach, to the toilet, to the bar, to lunch etc etc.. The pool looked stunning but up close it was clear it wasn’t being cleaned properly as you could see a thick layer of suncream and probably was lots of people’s dead skin just floating on top. The beach isn’t very safe as on the left hand side of the beach a group of drug dealers gather and come into the hotels beach to try and sell drugs to guests, the security guard who is supposed to be keeping these people off hotel grounds seemed to laugh and joke with them and not clear them away from the hotel grounds. However apart from having all my money stolen by staff, other guests having their belongings stolen, the staff being no help in this case, the drug dealers coming into the hotels beach to grounds beach and the pool not being cleaned properly. I will be honest and say the room was clean and gorgeous, the food was good and the passionfuit margaritas were delightful. I wanted to put this message out there to make people aware who are going that from my experience and many others… please please please keep your belongings and all money on you at ALL TIMES! Thieves are everywhere around us but rife in this hotel.

The hotel itself is beautiful, the staff are genuinely amazing, and the majority of the resort is very clean and well maintained. There are some really nice touches around the hotel that we loved, including the bowling alley and the egg chairs on the balconies. Our room was also spacious and the bed was very comfortable, which made it easy to relax. A special shout-out has to go to the cleaning team. Our room was kept lovely and clean throughout our stay, and the facilities across the resort were very well maintained. They clearly work incredibly hard and deserve recognition. One of the first things that did disappoint us was check-in. There was a fairly long queue when we arrived, but only two members of staff were dealing with check-ins. As a result, the process took a very long time. After travelling, the last thing you really want is to spend ages standing in a queue before getting to your room. The rooms could do with some TLC. The showers in particular need attention, and both the front and back doors in our room desperately needed some WD-40. The back door was especially difficult to open — we genuinely had to put our whole body weight into it to get it open. Food & Restaurants One of the biggest positives for us was the food. There is a great variety of options, from the main buffet and quick bites to the coffee shop and a selection of themed à la carte restaurants. Once you actually manage to get into the restaurants, most of them are lovely. Teppanyaki was definitely our favourite — not only was the food great, but the whole experience was fantastic. Unfortunately, the restaurant booking system was a nightmare and an absolute joke. We were initially told by a waitress outside the Mexican restaurant, as well as Guest Services, that we needed to book through the app between 7:00 and 7:30am. In reality, the availability seemed to disappear within seconds, making it incredibly difficult to secure anything. We were then told to speak to our TUI representative, who advised us to go through our concierge — something we hadn’t even realised we had. Our concierge was eventually able to book a restaurant for us, but unfortunately this led to another disappointing experience. When we arrived at the Steakhouse, our booking wasn’t even on the paperwork at the front desk, despite it having been booked by the concierge. The way the member of staff at the front desk spoke to us was rude and, in our opinion, very unprofessional, however she did find us a table. We were then rushed through dinner and unfortunately the meal itself wasn’t great. The fries appeared to have been reheated and were not warm at all despite only just opening. It honestly felt as though they just wanted us out of there. The one positive was our waiter, who was absolutely lovely and did his best to make the experience better. The ice cream parlour was also a nice idea, although we would have loved to see it open from lunchtime rather than 5-11pm. It would also be great if it was a self-serve option, with tubs, so guests could help themselves. Pool The biggest issue for us, however, was the main pool. Unfortunately, this is the main reason we wouldn’t currently return to the resort. The pool really needs some TLC. There are lots of missing tiles from both the floor and the rim, and at times the pool area looked dirty, with flies, hair, rubbish and suncream in the water. I completely understand that some of this is inevitable after a full day of guests using the pool, but we noticed these things as early as 8am, which was disappointing. For such a beautiful resort, we feel the main pool needs some significant attention and investment. The Staff Despite the issues mentioned above, we really want to highlight how many amazing staff members there are at this resort. A huge shout-out to the entertainment team and bar staff. They work incredibly hard and were friendly, attentive and amazing throughout our entire trip. They really helped make the holiday enjoyable. The cleaning team also deserve recognition for keeping our room clean and the facilities looking good throughout our stay. Overall It’s a shame because there is so much that we loved about Ocean El Faro. The resort has a lot going for it — beautiful surroundings, spacious and comfortable rooms, great food variety, fantastic entertainment and some genuinely brilliant staff. However, there are areas that need attention, particularly the main pool, room maintenance, check-in process and restaurant booking system. The experience at the steakhouse was also particularly disappointing and could have been handled much better. With some investment and better organisation, I think this could be an absolutely fantastic resort. Overall, we had a good holiday and there were many things we enjoyed, but unfortunately, until the main pool and some of these service issues are addressed, we wouldn’t currently return.