External Review's Review of DEMO HOTEL MUSGRAVE

TRIPADVISOR - James - 23 Feb 2019 - - - Great resort let down by poor service - - - The resort itself is beautiful with tidy, well-kept grounds and clean rooms. There are fantastic facilities and activities on offer, especially the amount of watersports, tennis court, gym and trips to Gran Zil island, as well as the catamaran trip which we couldn’t recommend enough (Johnson and Steeve were excellent). There is always lots to do if you don’t fancy spending the entire day by the beach. Sadly there were still quite a few issues which we think should be addressed by management which we’ve highlighted below. Family focussed  - The resort is advertised as suitable for all but was much more family oriented than expected.  - Adult only pool used consistently by families and staff did nothing about this.  Entertainment children focussed, basically just a kids disco every night, music really loud when eating in restaurant. Booking Miscommunications  - Overly complicated restaurant booking process and on some occasions they didn’t have our reservation – might be easier if bookings were made directly with the restaurants.  - We extended for 2 nights a few weeks before the holiday however this seemed to take a long time to be processed. We confirmed twice with reception but were still locked out of our room 2 days early. Green Attitude  - There is a sign stating that Zilwa is ‘Green’, and that new towels will be given only if they aren’t hung up. We hung our towels up to use them again the following day, but everyday they were replaced with clean towels. What’s the point in having a green policy if it isn’t followed?  - Similar issue with staff trying to take away plates in the restaurants (happened everyday!). We said we wanted to reuse our plate for a second helping, they really didn’t like this and were adamant on giving us clean plates (which we declined)! We’d recommend Zilwa as a family resort, but not for a couple or honeymoon stay. Finally, a few tips (i) take your own tennis balls or they charge you £16, (ii) take lots of mosquito repellent, (iii) make sure to wear reef shoes in the sea. Also, the spa could consider using mosquito repellent candles around the still pool, there were so many mosquitoes and I left my massage with at least 10 extra bites! Although we enjoyed our 10 day stay at Zilwa, we won’t be visiting again – hopefully Management will address the above points.

Poor service  - Check-in – took 30 minutes for someone to greet us.  - We were on holiday to celebrate our anniversary and they said that they would ‘make a note of this special occasion’ - however nothing further happened. There isn’t any point asking your guests if they are here for a special occasion if you aren’t going to act on it (not to sound too presumptuous).  - Main bar & Karay – very slow and poor service, staff often stood talking and at times we felt invisible waiting up to 15 minutes to be served.  - Siaw - Head waiter didn’t show us to our table, simply greeted us rudely and said a table number, we then waited around 10 minutes before deciding ourselves we needed to approach a member of staff for a menu! The service was slow and disorganised the rest of the evening.  - Lor Disab – took 50 minutes for our starters to arrive and when they came the order was wrong!  - Booked the 90 minute Zilwa couples massage – although the massage was good, the masseurs whispered and gossiped throughout the whole 90 minutes which was unfair and not a relaxing experience at all.

For an all-inclusive resort the food was very good quality. We especially liked the different themed buffet nights and had lovely meals at Kot Nou, Tadka and Lor Disab. Kot Nou particularly stood out as the service was excellent as well as the food, the chef came out to check everything was ok which was a nice touch. There were also a wide selection of drinks on offer with the all-inclusive package.