In early October 2019, I had six nights on Tenerife with my wife. We chose the Melia Adults Only Hotel Hacienda del Conde in Buenavista del Norte, where we stayed before already two years ago. The five star hotel is quite close to the Westernmost point of the island.

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – Location

The hotel is located at the edge of the village of Buenavista del Norte, quite at the West of the island. The town itself provides all basic needs like supermarkets, restaurants, bars, pharmacies and a weekly market, but is not too touristic. The hotel is built like a finca and consists of several buildings, which are typically built along the hill. Thus, there are eight levels from the topmost to the bottom rooms, the reception is at level 6.

The hotel is cooperating with the golf course, which is right next to the accomodation (see Sports). Its connection to Tenerife North Airport is not too bad and takes some hour of car transfer. You will find not too much longer travel times to Tenerife South Airport with some car navigation systems. However, you need to cross the Teno mountain ridge when you want to go to the Teide National Park or the touristic regions in the South somehow. Thus, your effective travel time can be signficantly longer.  Touristic attractions nearby are the Punta del Teno lighttower, which is marking the Westernmost point of the island, or the two villages of Masca and Garachico.

 

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – Room

While I can go for a comparably low category at Hilton or Accor Hotels and hope to get some upgrade by status, I am not staying in Melia places too often. Based on our last stay at Hacienda Del Conde, we wanted to have a special room category and we booked it: the six night stay, half-board, flexible booking of a Sea View Junior Suite with whirlpool was roughly 1,700 EUR. However, I could apply some discounts which lead to this reduced price. There are two rooms of that category in the hotel, they are right next to each other on the sixth floor, very centrally located.

The room is lovely in size, with a separate dressing room, living area and sleeping room. The design is nice. The minibar is not included in the price. One of the most bothering characteristics of the room is, though, that it does not feature a workdesk. There is a table at the balcony, but it does not have a power plug around. Power plugs are sparse in some areas in general.

 

Room with Bathtub, Shower – and Whirlpool!

The bathroom is lovely, featuring separate places for the shower and the toilet as well as a large bathtub. You also have two sinks, which is very comfortable. We did have an issue with towels, though: while we had beach towels at the first day, they took them away with room service after we used them but did not replace them. The first time we claimed that we received new ones, the second time, it did not work out at all. It felt to have been fixed after the third complaint here, though. There were also minor issues with similar items like that the number of facecloths provided altered down to one after one service. The amenities were by Rituals and other posh companies.

The key amenity of the room, though, was definitely the whirlpool, which was on the terrace. The other room with Whirlpool might have had even better privacy than ours, but in general only very few other guest rooms could look into that area, so that it was sheer lovely. The huge terrace also featured another table with seats as well as two sunbeds – amazing!

The Level Amenities

The higher class rooms at Melia also offer the so-called The Level amenities. Hope I am able to list them all, but they were rouhly

• Late check-out, if available
• A lovely The Level lounge providing free snacks and drinks all day and even cocktails during two hours of the day (see below)
• A separate area near the pool with a free soft drink service (during our past stay, there was an open bar, but there seemed to have been too much abuse of it)
• The option to have breakfast in the restaurant instead of buffet breakfast (see below)
• A free spa treatment

 

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – Breakfast / Food

The ordinary way to have breakfast at the Melia Hacienda Del Conde is the buffet restaurant Buenavista, which is located on the 5th level, close to the upper pool. The breakfast buffet is quite nice, there is also some variety from day to day. Some of that variety was also a bit confusing. For example, we had the famous Spanish churros three times out of six – however, the corresponding thick signature Spanish hot chocolate was available every day. The live cooking station was used to prepare some egg dishes and pancakes.

The same restaurant also hosted the dinner buffet, which was included in our half board. There seemed to have been some sort of themed buffets. However, the branding was very limited. Just a very limited part of the selection changed from “Italian” to “Asian” or whatever was served currently. There was always fresh preparation of selected meat and fish at the live cooking, which was the best part of the buffet to me. Overall, the quality of dishes was good, but not better. Overall, I would have loved to taste more Canary Island food like the gofio cereal for breakfast.

The hotel also featured a wine bar, which was open during the evening hour and a hotel bar close to the reception.

Additional The Level Options

Though they had to reduce the open bar to a complimentary pool service (whcih is quite confusing, you sign a bill, which is finally never charged…), the Level service was very nice during sunbathing. The lounge was even better, especially during Happy Hour times. The room was really cozy and had a nice and quiet atmosphere, which was very relaxing. During certain times, the lounge also hosted a separate reception and service desk for this room category guests.

One morning, we also enjoyed the served breakfast at the Salazar restaurant, which was also a dining option (10 per cent reduction for half board guests). The quality of the dishes was significantly better there and the atmosphere very nice. Window seats offered a lovely view over the hotel, the golf course and the ocean. There was a small additional self-service buffet. Unfortunately, the service was just too lame, which reduced the enjoyment. Nevertheless, it was a very nice option.

 

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – Sports

There is not only the cooperation to the golf course which keeps you active at Melia Hacienda Del Conde. First of all, there are two major hotel pools. The upper one on the fifth floor having an infinity pool design might be a bit more posh – on the negative side, though, you likely do not dare to use it during dining times, when you swim close to the people having lunch. The lower pool is larger and very nice as well. Around the pool, there are a lot of places to relax in the sun.

In addition, the hotel offers a cozy gym. A few times a week, there are even courses there like Pilates. There also seems to be a bike rental on ground of the hotel, but I did not check it out completely.

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – Services

The staff at the hotel was very friendly. The reception and the LEVEL reception was very friendly, though they did not handle all requests pleasingly (see above). In some cases, I would have loved to feel more structure and enthusiasm. I am not a “wipe the corner with a white towel” person, but sometimes you for example saw that wiping the room wet daily is a nice thing, but sometimes is just not effective against dirt. One evening, when I had to sign the drink receipt at dinner, the waitress kept staying right next to me, which I felt to be very annoying.

The WiFi in the room had reasonable quality, not more. I am not sure if you can nowadays really assume that people do not want to have best internet connection, even when on vacation. The hotel is negotiating Europcar car rentals. The access road is quite, but alternatively the hotel also offers a garage.

 

Melia Hacienda Del Conde – My View

The hotel has a lot which would make it a perfect stay. Finally, there are too many minor things which prevent that I assign this rating. With slightly better organisation, the place will easily be a great one. The location is perfect for a relaxing time on Tenerife, maybe playing some golf or exploring the nearby mountain area. If you want to explore the Teide, go frequently to the attractions around Costa Adeje or are interested in some spots at Tenerife’s East, you will choose another place anyway.

Nevertheless, thanks a lot for a good stay. I will definitely consider this place for future bookings and likely come back again.

 

All Hotel Reviews

Here are all postings about hotels and other accomondation:

 

Flyctory.com about Tenerife

Here are all postings about the Canary Island of Tenerife: