Masaplomas, Maspalomas Princess Hotel

Just come back from Gran Canaria 2 days ago, travelled with my parents and stayed at the Maspalomas Princess for 2 weeks. My parents stayed here for 10 days 4 years ago and thought it was fantastic, so they decided to go back again... Oh how it's changed.

From the outside the hotel is pretty jaw dropping. It looks huge and quite posh. There are 2 hotels next to each other; Maspalomas Princess and Tabaiba Princess. Both hotels are identical apart from the Tabaiba is occupied by mainly Germans and the Maspalomas by English.

The rooms are pretty basic - bed and wardrobes/cupboards and a small TV with very few English channels. You have to pay extra for the safe, which is 10 euros, and a fridge is 13 euros per week. The bathroom was a good size with bath and shower. There are several swimming pools outside; some heated, and lots of bars to buy food and drinks. Every day there were activities, such as archery, shooting, table tennis tournaments etc... and the winning players get certificates.

I think the best part about the hotel is the evenings entertainment. Every night there is a mini disco for the kids at 8.30pm with games, and most days before and after there is a live band 'flash union', then at 10pm is the main show which is really good. There are acrobats, magicians, singers from America - truly worth watching.

The hotel is in a fairly remote place, and unless you hire a car, which we did for 1 week you will need to use taxi's, which are always sitting outside the hotel - they are cheap we used a few. If you go to any of the local markets be prepared to be harassed. To them it is always happy hour and they can be pretty forceful, like putting items in your hand and following you up the road asking you how much you want to pay.

The beach is nice. We saw about 200 people walking the same way up the beach and wondered where they were all going. My dad went to investigate, and it turns out they all went to the nudest area of the beach.

The cheapest place to buy alcohol is Carrefour - 1 litre of Malibu is £6. Perfumes are pretty much the same price everywhere; a little cheaper than the UK.

NOW FOR SOME SERIOUS INFORMATION:

About 3 days into our holiday a can of impulse body spray mysteriously went missing from the bathroom, so I decided to lay a trap. I counted 7 mini bags of cola bottles into a bag and left the room for the day, when I came back there were only 6 left, 2 days later, 5 bags left. Then I went into my suitcase and my Jean Paul Gaultier body spray, which I bought at the airport had gone. We reported it to the Thomson office located on -1 floor, and we were shocked to find out it wasn't the first time this had happened this year.

There was dirty footprints on the floor for 2 days. The bath wasn't cleaned and we only had the sheets changed twice in the 2 weeks we we there. We only had one toilet roll between 3 of us for about 4 days, until I took 2 from the cleaners trolley, and then we had to ask at reception for some more. he Thomson reps were really helpful about the theft, but they explained that there was no proof, and so not much could be done. As a gesture of goodwill we were given a late checkout room until 6pm on our last day. The manager agreed to see us and was totally unhelpful. He didn't even apologise that our last week had been ruined because someone was stealing from our room, and he couldn't even understand English.

The food hall had pretty much the same stuff every night; loads of fish, prawns and squid (ergh). There was salad every night, and some nights there was steak or chicken breasts, and you have to buy your drinks on top. Breakfast was better, and you could have as much tea, coffee and orange juice as you wanted, also cooked breakfast, although the eggs were always hard, and the sausages were disgusting, variety of cereal, fruit and pastries, but my favourite was the pancakes, they were divine.

Some last tips - People put towels on sunbeds about 7am in the morning. If you don't get to breakfast and dinner as soon as the diner is opened you may have to queue for a table. The lifts break down frequently and my mum got stuck in one. The walls are thin as paper, and you can hear babies crying and kids screaming most nights, so take ear plugs. Don't go to the Irish bar on the beach. Someone gave a 50 Euro note and wasn't given their change back of 40 something Euros.

To sum it up, the hotel and location is great. The staff are grumpy. The food is repetitive and we had things stolen from our room, so I wouldn't stay at this hotel again.