San Fermin by Dorobe

San Fermin is a plain and simple hotel. I would absolutely never recommend this hotel for anyone looking for a relaxing stay in Benalmedena unless you’re a very heavy sleeper and unbothered by rowdy groups of men on stag parties. We stayed for 6 nights and I only slept through the night once. I am an incredibly heavy sleeper. I can sleep in cinemas, planes, cars etc, but this hotel had me waking up almost every night from paper thin walls and rowdy guests shouting in the corridors. We were lucky enough to have an Irish group of party goers on our floor for the first few nights (I only point out their ethnicity because of how clearly I could hear their voices from my room). They came in at 4am about 3/4 nights in a row, slamming doors, having conversations in the corridors, singing. As a result my quality of sleep was terrible. Last night (our final night at San Fermín) a man attempted to break into my room after relentlessly knocking on my door at 2am asking to be let in. Frozen in fear, I didn’t say anything (I was in the room by myself(20 yr old female), my parents in a room further down the corridor) until he said “you’ve made me do this” and started trying to release the door latch with a card. I shouted that he’d got the wrong room and he didn’t respond but kept knocking on a door (couldn’t tell if it was mine or the one next to me) and eventually he got in the lift and came back with a card and got into the right room by the sounds of things. He was obviously drunk and had got the wrong room, but I was still incredibly shaken up and very tired again as a result. Other than the terrible sleep though, the pool area is actually quite nice. The lifeguard is incredibly attentive, funny and friendly. She’s always up to help you with anything (towels, empty glasses, safety concerns, etc) and she made sure that the rowdy stag groups were behaving appropriately even when they argued back at her about the hotels rules on ball games and drinks on the poolside. Massive shout out to the lifeguard. The bar by the pool is very hit or miss, during the day the queues are pretty bad, often waiting anywhere from 5-20 minutes to order due to only having 1-2 members of staff for taking orders and running food to tables. The drinks are cheap though, and food can cost anywhere from €10-€16 depending on what you get. Although, I ordered a frappuccino once and they literally gave me an iced coffee filled halfway with caramel syrup. You could genuinely see the separation of syrup at the bottom of the glass. Fair to say i didn’t drink it but I daren’t go ask them to fix it because the queue was so big. The food is decent though, nothing traditional or mind blowing but enough if you’re feeling lazy like we were on some days. They do stuff like burgers, toasties, sandwiches, chips, and The breakfast is nice too, no notes really just a very standard continental with a full english available and omelettes on request. The cleaning services are okay, just a standard bed sheet and towel change every day. Although one day i did have to go to reception and ask for bath towels since the cleaner had taken all my towels and not replaced them. The room itself is nice, with probably the best rain shower ever and nice shampoo & body wash. The room has a kettle with coffee and tea, plus a mini fridge and a safe. the bed was comfy and the wardrobe was big. The ac was perfect too. The balcony was a little underwhelming but i was facing the backside of some apartments so i didn’t sit out there. I absolutely recommend the Retro Bar just up the hill of the hotel entrance. It’s run by an incredibly kind and funny couple called Jose and Veronica. A brilliant laugh if you’re looking for a change of scenery. They support a local dog sanctuary with their own little dog standing guard at the door for visitors to say hello to. The drinks are good, cheap and the owners are people that I will greatly miss. They play the football when it’s on too, in case you’re visiting whilst the world cup is on. It’s also hard to go wrong with most of the restaurants in the area. There’s a bit of something for everyone, ranging from Irish bars serving burgers and chips to some really nice traditional Spanish restaurants. It seems as though the hotel is struggling to find its target audience. It’s certainly not somewhere I’d ever recommend this place for families with small children regardless of their tiny kids pool. This is because you can’t have inflatables or balls around the pool. It’s nice for older people who enjoy day drinking and smoking and Irish bars, or stag/hen parties or just parties in general. It would make more sense if the hotel just chose either family friendly or not family friendly and outlined this clearly in their policies. Overall I’d say bring your earplugs and a baseball bat if you’re staying here, but if it’s not too late then maybe look somewhere else if you’re wanting a quiet and relaxing holiday. If you’re looking to wind down after a hectic three years at university like I was, then avoid. But if you’re loud, rowdy and travelling in with a group of party goers then sure, book to stay at San Fermin.

Great pool - not too cold like many of them, very big with loads of room to swim lengths and big area for sunbathing - can always find sun loungers. Decent size bedroom with modern walk in shower, balcony and fridge. Comfy beds. Great restaurant -good choice of food and always fresh meat and fish grilled to order. Fresh fruit in abundance. Service impeccable-couple of tiny issues and sorted within minutes. Reception staff friendly and helpful. The hotel was so good, we didn’t really leave it that often and that is not like us on holiday as we always like to go out after dinner but we’re happy to stay outside the hotel bar -nice seating area and drinks were well priced. Parking is €10 per day and it is on a steep hill -fine walking down but up is steep, but absolutely didn’t put us off. Would highly recommend and not hesitate to stay again

I'll start with the location. My fault for not fully researching where the hotel is. Completely unsuitable for anyone with mobility issues as we found to our cost. The walk back from the resort is a killer ( lesson learned by me ) Secondly, I would NEVER have booked this hotel had I known about it's popularity with Stag Parties. There were three groups , each 20 strong, of loud ,annoying drunken English blokes. No concern for any other clientele and foul language aplenty as they ruined the main pool for other users. Despite the Lifeguard doing her best and being insistent, their boorish behavior went unabated. Hotel is very noisy and led to many nights of broken sleep. Doors slamming. paper thin walls and chairs scraping across floors/balconies. Immediate area very noisy one particular night with boy racers treating the neighborhood like a race circuit. As other reviews mention, the bar is painfully understaffed. Staff work hard but struggle to cope with the demand at peak periods....they all seem to be required to cover many roles and generally speaking, the single bar set up is inadequate for a hotel of this size. The food ( I stayed 1/2 board) was OK. Some nights were better than others but although I've had a lot better in other 3 star establishments, I've also had a lot worse. Restaurant staff, by and large, were OK. Show Cooking Chef bereft of any customer service skills ( witnessed one poor chap get an omelette literally thrown at him !) and I definitely do not agree with being charged for a bottle of water with your evening meal. Hotel is clean and the grounds/pool are well maintained.Maid Service is very good. Room was adequate....8th floor with views across the pool and coastline. Had an issue on arrival with the fridge not working. I need a fridge to safely store Insulin. Reported to reception and they had an engineer attend very swiftly. However, the engineer was unable to fix the problem but Carolina arranged a replacement fridge within a matter of hours so all kudos to her for that. Room has a great walk in shower. The Hotel lacks a bit of atmosphere during the evening and because of the location, there isn't any ideal nearby bar to pop to for a change of scenery. Generally, the immediate vicinity is a bit grubby and not somewhere you can go for a pleasant after dinner stroll. I wouldn't return to The San Fermin, sadly it was just wasn't for me and fell short of my expectations of it.

My second time to stay there so I liked it enough to return, but not sure I would stay again. Location is great - a 2 minute walk to beach, restaurants. A few shops nearby to get water etc. Pool is lovely and not too cold. Plenty of sun loungers and space so you aren't sitting too close to people. There could be more options for those who like to sit in the shade though - better/more umbrellas. I travelled solo so had a single occupancy room which was perfect size for me - balcony a bit small but my room looked out at buildings so I didn't spend much time out there. Lots of reviews saying how friendly the staff are - I did not find them very friendly to me at all, apart from one woman in the restaurant and the lifeguard. They were not rude, but they were not friendly. From those other reviews, I'm starting to wonder what I done!! Breakfast - I think its fine. I never left hungry! But I would suggest supplying eggcups. I got given out to by the chef for picking up the hard boiled eggs with my fingers (I assume as they were hot and I should have used the thongs - which were also left under the heat and were hot!) - but as there are no egg cups, I had to just deshell the hot eggs at the table, so I'm not sure what her point was. The Wifi was terrible. Intermittent, would just go off and on. Should be looked at. I don't use the phone much on holidays but sometimes you need reliable wifi. My room was made up each day. I would expect the floor to be swept out at least a few times a week, which is was not - by the end of the week, the floor was really dirty as it is impossible to remove all of the sand from you/your clothing before going into the room. I'd rather the floor be swept out than my bed made to be honest. Like a previous reviewer stated - its a solid hotel. Good pool and pool area, great location, breakfast was ok. I may well return again, but I will be considering other hotels next time.

Booked this trip with my 13yr old daughter for so quality time together. This hotel is NOT child friendly. No inflatables aloud in the fool, predominately older couples, no other kids there, no entertainment