Fairmont La Hacienda
Honest Review

I wanted to share my experience of stay in Fairmont La Hacienda Costa del Sol from August 10-17, 2025. Below I am listing the facts of our stay as a warning to potential guests. My aim is to inform them not to spend their money on service which is not worth it – not a five star but rather unpleasant service, which results in frustration of the best days of your holidays with your family.

HEADLINE: If coming to Costa del Sol and wanting to stay in a five star property, stay anywhere else than Fairmont La Hacienda.

 OR: What does 25 000,- EUR gets you in Fairmont La Hacienda. 

  • Check-in. We arrived a little early at around 2pm and were not allowed to check. Even at 3 pm, which is the official check in time, the villa was not ready. We were told that it would not be ready for another more than an hour. We went to the beach (will cover the quality or lack thereof of it later), hoping that somebody will contact us when the room is ready. The hotel had my phone number, so even if they could not locate me, they could have called. At 7pm we decided to go back to the villa and found it locked without any information for us where to find the key. I had to call three times to get somebody to come to open the villa and give us the keys. None of the people that I talked to had the information that we have not been checked into the room and “had to go find out what is happening”. My 3 small kids and pregnant wife waiting on the pavement the whole time that I was trying to get somebody to open the villa for us.

  • The private pool went totally green and grown with algae on day 5 of our stay. To be honest, we did our best to stay outside of the hotel due to poor service quality, hence were not using the pool on a daily basis so day 5 was when it became so green that we noticed.

  • The welcome cheese platter was left in the villa for several days, even though it was already getting moldy.

  • The room service order took 1 hour 20 minutes to be delivered. When complaining about it, the hotel staff told me that 1 to 1,5 hour is the SLA (spaghetti Bolognese, Caesar salad, ham and cheese platter).

  • The room service dishes were not cleaned the next day and stayed in the villa for a couple of days.

  • The air conditioning was not working in the bedrooms – the hotel claimed that it was fixed on day 3 of our stay. The performance of it was very doubtful – very little air coming from the vents. We had to resort to setting the temperature in the living room to 18 degrees centigrade to make sure that the temperature in the bedrooms was bearable.

  • The outside shower was not functioning at all.

  • The beach is not private, which is normal in Europe. However, the services provided by Fairmont to their guests in their sunbed section are sub par. The hotel has several sunbeds on the beach. There is one person from Fairmont manning the beach, who provides you with little information which sunbeds are taken – hence you have to go and ask and beg yourself to see what is available. I will also mention the fact that the sunbeds are stained, despite the fact that the resort only opened in February. I assume that this is due to the fact that the property is in general poorly maintained. A towel and stained sunbed is the extent of the services from Fairmont on the beach.

  • I asked to see the GM on day 1, then again on day 3 and then again on day 4, when I even left a written note for him asking for a meeting. The meeting took place on the day of our departure – day 7.

  • The GM confirmed that the property was not ready for normal operation – it had opened in February and was still dealing with teething issues. The hotel is understaffed and not able to provide appropriate service. At the same time, the management booked a large group of guests and took the occupancy to 80% in this poo state of affairs.

  • By the way, Juan Miguel Losado, the GM responsible for opening resigned two weeks ago (information from the temporary GM who met me). I can clearly see why – the hotel is unmitigated disaster.

  • The temporary GM did provide 4 000,- EUR of credit, which is by far insufficient to compensate for the poor guest experience which seriously influenced the enjoyment of our vacation.

 

Summarizing the above – having paid 25 000,- EUR for one week in the private villa and receiving the above mentioned service? As I have mentioned in the headline: do yourself a service, stay anywhere else.

 

 

A swimming pool with greenish water - visible algae infestation. Health hazard.
Rotting cheese slices - dishes not removed for several days. Poor service.
Room service dishes not removed - poor service.