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Melia Dunas Beach Resort & Spa - All Inclusive

Santa Maria

Had a great holiday. Daughter loved the kids pool with pirate boat and slides we spent the whole holiday here. 
Staff member Dilza who works at the buffet check in was fabulous with our daughter and even brought her a birthday present as our daughter turned 4 out there.

Great holiday

If you want to have some holidays to rest , melia dunas is a good choice . It’s calm not a lot of animation , the restaurants are very good , nothing to point out. The staff is very good too, but I need to thank especially a lot to Dilza, she is really lovely and always ready to help .

Fantastic

This is our last day here at this resort and we are looking forward to returning home. 
We arrived on Monday after a 2-hour queue to get through immigration (not the hotels fault, but it was absolute carnage with no control whatsoever). Checking into the hotel was another saga. We had booked The Level (which we always do when staying at Melia hotels), however this hotel does not have a separate check in area for Level customers. Another queue to check in and when getting to the front, we were greeted with miserable staff (something that we later discovered was standard through the whole resort). After checking in, we were sent to a separate desk where we queued yet again to collect our one room key (yes, just the one, they don't have enough room keys to provide any additional). It was evident on check-in that there is a severe language barrier. Appreciate that we are in a different country, however working in hospitality you would expect there to be a member of staff for each area that can speak another language. Next door in Llana, the staff members wear flags on their name tags to show which languages they speak, this is not the same at Dunas.

We went to our room which stank of smoke and although the room is spacious, it is extremely tired. The mini bar wasn't filled up, there was no amenities in the bathroom (sanitary bags, tissues - holders were empty). We were in the main building and whenever there is a mealtime, the smell of food fills the corridors through the vents.

The capsule coffee machine that sits on top of the mini fridge does not have a plug socket, so you end up having to move the machine to sit it on the floor each time you want to make yourself a coffee, or alternatively, unplug the fridge. In addition, the shampoo, conditioner, shower gel seems to be watered down, so if you are venturing over, I would suggest to bring your own shampoo etc.

On our 1st day, we were sold the VIP option by Stephen which is an extra 50 euros per day per person (minimum of 3 days) but allows you access to some restaurants at the sister hotel as well as some restaurants that you would have to pay extra for (Nami, Sissi and the Beach Club). However, if you want to go to Nami, this is a restricted menu, and you cannot have the teppanyaki. You also have to pay for drinks whilst there. The beach club you can order steak or lobster but this has to be ordered a min 24 hours in advance. You can also have a 30-minute massage included with this. Stephen confirmed that he would organise everything, our meal bookings etc and massage bookings - 2 days later nothing at all booked. We whatsapp’d Stephen with our preferred itinerary and that we would like to order the Lobster for one night and steak the next, but still nothing was booked, he simply kept saying he would do it tomorrow. In the end, after countless repeated visits to concierge, we asked Stephen’s manager to cancel the VIP and we requested a refund as we thought that if we wanted to go to these restaurants, we would just pay and book ourselves. 5 days later, we are still waiting for our refund.

We went to the buffet on the 1st day as we were tired - there was nothing edible at all (there were pasta options; pesto, tomato sauce and meatballs, however no sauce was actually visible and these were therefore just bland), so we left and retreated to our room in the hope that breakfast in the Level restaurant would be better.
Breakfast at Atlantis - plenty of fruit, pastries etc and the service here was great. Coffee was not good here, but you can get proper coffee from Machiatto (the coffee shop, and also the bar). Strangely however, the bar and Machiatto only serve from 10am and therefore you are unable to obtain a decent coffee before 10am. 

A La Carte restaurants, we ate in Rancho and Aqua as well as Bikini Beach (which we paid for), and also Casa Nostra (at Llana, the Tui Blue/Melia next door). Concierge booked us into Casa Nostra after we raised some issues, however, we later discovered (after speaking with the reception team at Llana), that as we had The Level bands, we could use this restaurant free of charge as part of our package anyway and can also use their Level Pool.

At Llana they serve wine from the bottle (a Portuguese wine, which is more palatable than the wine on tap at Dunas). Although we asked for an alternative wine at the Al A Carte restaurants at Dunas, we were always told that we could only have the wine on tap, until we learned from Llana that Dunas do stock the Portuguese wine, and we had to be quite firm in asking for this instead.

Rancho was not a restaurant we would return to – very poorly managed. As we arrived we were presented with a plate of what looked like croquettes, however when we asked the waitress what we had been given, she couldn't tell us and had to get a supervisor over to let us know what it was. It was infact a ham and cheese croquette. We were not asked in any of the restaurants if we had any allergies, so presenting someone with a dish without being able to tell the customer what is, leaves the manager open to being sued.
Aqua – the tuna bruschetta is infact cheese on toast with some tuna underneath, but the 
Aqua and Casa Nostra were the best restaurants (other than Bikini Beach), however the bar had been set extremely low.

The level pool at Dunas– Maria and Leonardo are fantastic and the best members of staff we have come across. Their service is outstanding, constantly asking if you would like drinks and they even bring fresh fruit skewers to the pool. They simply can’t do enough.

Although the Level is better for the room and premium spirit options, there is only white/red/rose wine on tap (no options for different wines unless you go the one of the bars and ask them to get you a bottle of the alternative Portuguese wine). It would be nice to have a premium option (even if you have to pay for it). 

The mini bar is only replenished once during your stay, which seems odd to me as everyone is on All Inclusive in this hotel, and the mini bar only stocks soft drinks and beers, which you can get as many as you like from the bar itself (or pick up from the Level Bar). Again, just a lack of attention to detail.
We are here to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and my husband emailed through around 1 month before we left the UK to let them know and ask if they could arrange something special. He emailed twice but no response. After raising a complaint, the concierge did provide us a bottle of cava and some fruit/cakes to the room (the same cava that is available from any bar in the hotel).

We had a 30-minute spa treatment each as part of our package booked through The Resort Group. Concierge had confirmed that we were booked in for midday on our penultimate day, however on arrival at the spa they were unaware of this booking and even told us that even if they could fit us in, we would have to pay. We again whatsapp’d concierge who confirmed that he would sort this for us. 24 hours later and 2 hours prior to our departure, we have received nothing. This again shows such a lack of customer care.

We gave the concierge countless opportunities to rectify the situation and make our stay palatable, however time and time again, they just didn’t respond to messages, or address the issues and we are now leaving the resort.

The restaurants are not up to scratch cleanliness wise, drink marks on tables that never get cleaned up, dead flies by the windows etc. In fact, there was a tissue left on the stairs in main reception for 2 days before the steps were cleaned and it was taken away. There just seems to be a lack of attention to detail and management/leadership. Very few staff members take care in their work.
If it's a 3 star All-inclusive restaurant that you want with chips for lunch and the same for dinner with cocktails on tap, this is the place for you. If you want more premium food and a selection of wines, this is not the place.
Having stayed in Melia's all around the world, this does not match up to the usual standard you would expect from the Melia chain and is more a Tui 3 star hotel. Even the Guest Relations Manager agreed that this hotel does not match up to the standards one would expect from Melia. 

There is a lack of Management presence across the site and this allows the staff to drop their guard and their service. Even when requesting to speak to a manager, they are reluctant to come to reception to speak with you.

We would not return to this hotel, even if we were presented with a free holiday voucher.

You can certainly see why carriers such as BA do not fly to this destination.

Honest Review

This was our first visit to Cape Verde (Sal).  Our tour operator was TUI.  The hotel where we stayed, the Melia Dunas is in a  lovely location right next to a fabulous beach.  The hotel rooms were nice, clean and the staff friendly.  The pool is also lovely.  Unfortunately the food in the restaurants was really disappointing, the main restaurant being “Spices”. The best place for lunch was barbeque at the level (this was my favourite place to eat in the complex). We went to the Italian restaurant one lunchtime and they had run out of pizza! Meals at the A La Carte restaurants Aqua (Italian) and Sahel (traditional Cape Verdean) were a little better, but not much! Unfortunately we all ended up with upset stomachs.
Away from the hotel, we did the Sal island buggy tour which we all really enjoyed.  The trip to see the sharks was also nice.
We did manage to get one good meal, in Santa Maria at the hotel Odjo d ‘Agua.  This place is right on the beach.
In summary, nice place but quality of food spoilt the holiday.  Given that we all ended up ill, I won’t be going back.

Melia Dunas, Sal, Cape Verde

We enjoyed our Easter Vacation on Cape Verde, and enjoyed very much our stay at Melia Dunas Beach Resort & Spa. We had a nice and spacious room with bath tub and plenty of warm water in the shower. We enjoyed lovely food at a great variety of restaurants, everything included in our all inclusive package. The weather is very enjoyable, even with some clouds, it was very good temperature. We could also swim in the sea with agreeable temperature.

Beautiful beach front hotel

Perfect hotell for our family visit. Good accomodation and a wide variety of food selections was really good. We had our best night of the entire trip at Atlantis restauraunt much thanks to the professional and welcoming host Dilza! 

Great family hotell!

I have stayed in room 325 room spacious really nice . On arrival safe did not work this was fixed immediately.
The restaurants are nice the buffet has excellent choices.
The staff are all lovely helpful and fun .
The only little thin I can say I found the shower in my room very slippery had to be very careful.
Whilst here sadly only for a week I have been into town horse riding twice and out on cattermarran trip all were very enjoyable.
I will be looking to return here hopefully for 2 weeks.

Lovely place to stay

Overall a nice and big hotel, but we were disappointed with the food. Kind staff who did everything to make our experience good. Many pools and lot of space by the sunbeds, witch was nice. There was a lot of intertainment. 

1 week at Melina Dunas

Just on our last day at Melia Dunas and have really enjoyed our stay. Our 2 bedroom apartment was lovely, really spacious and very clean. Facilities around the hotel are fantastic from the piano bar all the way down to the beach bar, you’re never short of somewhere to eat or drink. The buffet breakfasts and lunches are good with lots of choice and the a la cartes are good too. It was our first time here but wouldn’t hesitate to book again.

Melia Dunas Beach Resort & Spa - All Inclusive

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