Melia Tortuga Beach Resort & Spa

Recommend Tui trips, hotel entertainment and classes and breakfast. Restaurant meals good but not any variety for week. Cape Verde is lovely, interesting and lovely people , great climate with refreshing breeze

Only 1 week stay. Rooms large and clean, food was ok and drinks too. Service good cant grumble at all. Staff pleasant and helpful-especially when I used google translate and learned a few phrases. Although I am afraid of my anglicised accent. Tried the beach when the pool side was busy but you are a long way from the sea. Some use the Sensimar next door and only get kicked off politely every 2 to 3 days despite the towels being so obviously different colours. But after 12 noon the music starts at the Bikini Beach Club off to the right. Its under 2 hundred yards but its louder than any concert I ever went to. And even if you swim 20 feet under the water it still booms and you just cant think straight. It can go on relentlessly till 6pm - so beach - forget it. Not enjoyable once they crank it up for thier 20 or 30 guests. Early morning to may be 1pm at the outside. I just went back to the pool and tried to swamp it out with the MP3 - need to load up Status Quo Railroad (yes I am getting old) or similar if you want to "attempt" to ignore the concussive bump and every now and then some really foul language lyrics which will definitely get censored if I try to write it now. The letter F looms large in at least 3 "tunes".

Before going to Cape Verde we were told to go for 7 days maximum as there is not a lot to do or see, at least in comparison to similar locations. As we were seeking a totally restful break this suited us perfectly and our holiday was therefore exactly what it said on the tin. The resort is on the Sal island in CV and was 10 minutes from the airport in the Santa maria area. There were a few trips on offer but we declined as they were all things we'd done in locations previously and we did feel they were overpriced. We were All Inclusive (Premium drinks were available at a cost but we were fine with the AI options for food and drink) and overall I think the holiday was overpriced. However, I do appreciate that post Thomas Cook prices have risen quite sharply plus there is a premium on winter sun. The temperature was excellent (26-29) but it never felt too hot or humid. Mind you mosquitos and such like were out on force and we got loads of bites. A breeze helped the humidity and whilst it was a bit cloudy at times every day it wasn't a detractor. Sunset was between 5 and half past each day and was very pleasant with a couple of nights with excellent sunsets looking out from the Grill Bar across the beach to sea. There are 4 restuarants being the main buffet (Spices) with Aqua (Asian) and Italian at the pool area and the Grill (BBQ type) at the Beach. The buffet was as you'd expect in terms of the fare with the quality being very good albeit the choice was less than we've seen elsewhere. The 3 "speciality" restaurants were all good and we enjoyed them with the Italian being our favourite I think. However, you need to book them - doing so at the 2 slots available each day - and at high season they fill up very quickly so if you want to use them, and they are part of the AI package, you need to do this from day 1 of your stay. The service was pleasant throughout with a younger lad, who worked in all the restaurants and was presumably a food manager, being the best as he had an excellent manner - very helpful and professional and always engaged with the customers and smiled. However, most of the other staff tended not to smile that much and were rarely proactive in chatting to customers but were always polite when spoken to. Our gut feel was that the staff were just very very busy and we felt there wasn't enough staff with what there was being spread across the various parts of the resort - maybe it was low season numbers that were then lacking in high season as the staff were just too busy. From the service perspective we were disappointed in our room not being ready when we arrived around 4pm but we were not alone as various other guests arriving also had to wait which shouldn't have been the case that late in the day as check-out is 11am. This may be due to the strange way that apartments are cleaned whereby staff call for the dirty towels from 9am onwards but then bring clean ones later and clean the room later on. That said the maids did a very good job. Our room was amazing in that we had a family room whereby there are 2 bedrooms meaning, as there was just 2 of us, we had so much room and cupboard space - no debate over the number of hangars each this time. The room itself was excellent being very spacious and bright with 2 bathrooms (bath and showers) and a big kitchen with appliances should you want to use that. There are 4-5 pools of different sizes for kids and adults albeit we didn't actually use any of them this time as we went to the beach area each day. There are a lot of seats but you do need to be up sharp to get ones during high season. The pool bar also has an area for food (snacks) during the day if you mis-time using the buffet or the restaurants - which serve breakfast and lunch as well as dinner - but the choice is not much to write home about. There are a few bars including the "nightclub" one from around 10pm and one available in the evening beside where the nightly entertainment occurs. The nightclub room was fine but very quiet when we were there with the DJ's choice of music being questionable for the age group of the guests. We used the main bar at reception which was good but mainly the bar at the beach which again was good though could have a much more effective way of managing the "wait time" at the bar as there was little order as to who got served and it was always busy. Equally, the operation did not seem effective with staff often disappearing to get items elsewhere and so it taking longer to get served than it should have done. Also, the plastic glasses were frequently dirty. Wi-fi was available in the main building/reception and at the pool and bar/food areas but not in the rooms unless the room was around one of those areas. It worked fine even though it wasn't the strongest signal but it worked well for us. A premium service is needed if looking to stream anything for example. Overall, we enjoyed our stay and got the quiet, relaxing holiday we wanted. The hotel was fine/good overall but with a bit more organisation and effectiveness could easily be better without needing that much effort. It is not a 5 star resort by any manner of means, at least not by Uk standards and/or what we've experienced elsewhere. I'd suggest it is 3.5 but as I said it wouldn't take much to lift that in that we were left frustrated at a few small things that were negatives, which could easily be addressed and improved.