Innside Hotel Porta Maris in Alicante

I would not recommend this hotel.

During our stay we booked and paid for a Premium Sea View room. Shortly after arrival we discovered that the air conditioning was not working properly. A technician came to the room and confirmed the issue himself - he even checked the temperature with a handheld scanner and the room did not go below 24.8°C, despite the AC being set to 16°C for several hours.

Because of this we were moved to another room, which was clearly worse: smaller bed, more noise from guests above, and overall lower comfort. To make matters worse, the bed linen in that room had a visible old blood stain.

At the hotel they initially acknowledged the issues and apologized. However, when we later submitted a complaint, the response completely changed. Suddenly they claimed that the air conditioning was working correctly and that no malfunction had been detected.

This contradiction is extremely disappointing. Instead of taking responsibility, the hotel chose to dismiss the problem and ignore the guest’s experience.

The entire situation took almost two hours to resolve, and since we had to leave for the airport at 3 AM, we barely had time to use the room we were moved to.

Poor problem handling, questionable cleanliness, and very disappointing customer service when trying to resolve the issue afterwards. Unfortunately, based on this experience, I cannot recommend this hotel.

Not as pet-friendly as they claim (more about it below). And as other reviews pointed out, the staff doesn't know how to handle client communication.

The spa area with saunas looks nice, but its 25EUR extra for 1.5h, and you have to wear a shower/swimming cup(?), which you can purchase at the spa reception for 3EUR. We paid for a room with a sea view, but mostly had a view at the balconies of the other Melia (so just partial sea view at best). The room was spacious and clean, large king-size bed, overall very comfy. Breakfast was alright. They had some gluten-free bread, which was great, but otherwise unremarkable - just a regular buffet, more like a Motel One kind of breakfast. Following our conflict about the dog, and with all the things that followed (we couldn't use spa, we had no cleaning, no sea view etc), we really had to insist to speak to the manager, but mostly just got "We are sorry, but these are the rules". It took reminding that it was their fault that we were not properly informed for them to agree to look for a solution to compensate. They upgraded our stay for a suite with a proper sea view (even though just for the last night, as our stay was rather short) . The suite room is really nice, much better equipped, a few extra things in mini-bar. I think if we ever stay here again, I'd go for a suite.

About the dog: We paid extra 50 euro per night for our dog (quiet, old yorkie that sleeps most of the day). When we came back from lunch, we found a note that the dog is not allowed to stay in the room alone, and that housekeepers couldn't clean the room, and a printed contract that we have never seen (photo exactly as they left it for us with highlighted areas), that said that the dogs are not allowed pretty much anywhere on the premises, and the hotel can evict us if we do not comply. Next morning, when we came down for breakfast, the hostess stopped us, and told us that we have to bring the dog into the restaurant (because the dog cannot stay in the room alone), and there is only a small dedicated area where we can eat. Among other things, you are not allowed to wash your dog in the shower (so if your dog likes the beach and water, beware you might be charged 200 EUR for extra cleaning.. Not an issue for us, as our dog hates water and mud, but I really wonder how the dog owners are supposed to handle this).To clarify, our dog did not bark, she is house trained and did not make any mess anywhere, she is too old to jump on furniture, and was sleeping in her bed when housekeepers came to clean.
Needless to say that if we knew all this was the case, we would have never booked this hotel.