Our Stay at H10 Playa Meloneras Palace, Gran Canaria

It’s been almost a full year now since our stay at the h10 Playa Meloneras Palace in Gran Canaria, and it’s taken me this long to get around to writing about it because, honestly, every time I even attempted to look at the photos of it, I’d get this almost visceral longing to be back there, almost as if I was homesick for the place. From that very dramatic opening, it’ll come as no surprise to hear that this review will be a positive one (My child still asks when we’re going back to ‘the H10’, almost a year later…), but before we get to that, here’s a little bit about the hotel itself…

The H10 Playa Meloneras Palace is a five-star hotel located in Meloneras, in the South of Gran Canaria. The hotel is right next to the beach, and it has two large swimming pools, plus a children’s pool, spa, and gym. There are three restaurants and four bars, plus a children’s playground and kids’ club.  

We arrived late at night, just as dinner was ending, but the woman on reception urged us to just drop everything and go eat, which was very welcome, because we’d been traveling all day by that point. We were the only people in the restaurant at that time of night, but the staff were all very welcoming, which was a good sign of what was to come… After we’d eaten, we completed check-in pretty quickly, and made our way to our rooms, which were on one of the top floors (I think the fifth, but I can’t remember now), accessed by this corridor (which I photographed the next morning, needless to say!):

Our room at the H10 Playa Meloneras Palace

Me being me, I totally forgot to take photos of the room itself until we literally about to leave it, so I’m going to have to ask you to excuse the mess in these:

This is a family room, so there’s a double bed for us (I actually think it’s two double beds pushed together…), plus a sofa bed for Max, who was five at the time. This was already set up for us when we arrived, so we didn’t have to do anything; my parents had an identical room next door, only with the sofa bed folded down, and a coffee table in front of it. The bathroom, meanwhile, had a double sink, bath (which I didn’t think to photograph – sorry!) and a separate toilet. All toiletries were provided: shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in the shower, plus things like toothbrushes, shower caps, etc, which were replenished frequently throughout our stay. 

This room is one of the wings of the hotel which has yet to be refurbished, so my only criticism would be that the decor was maybe a little tired. With that said, the room was spotlessly clean, and had everything we needed, right down to a set of scales in the bathroom, so you can see how much weight you’re putting on at the all-you-can-eat buffet every night, so I can definitely live with the decor being slightly dated. (And I believe the hotel is gradually refurbishing most of the rooms anyway, so it may well have changed by the time you read this!)

The Pools

The pools at H10 Playa Meloneras Palace were our favourite part of this hotel, which is why I took so many photos of them. (And if you think I’ve posted a lot, you should’ve seen my camera roll when we got back…). Now, I’ll say here that, until I had Max, I wasn’t much of a “sit by the pool all day” person. I was happy to spend some time there, but I’d always want to get out and explore at some point, too, and it genuinely wouldn’t have occurred to me that it was even possible to spend an entire day – or even most of it – at the pool. But, of course, having kids makes you do a lot of things you didn’t think you would, and I have to admit that holidays have changed pretty significantly for us since Max came along. 

As I said, he was five at the time of this holiday, and although we did do plenty of exploring too (You can see some of the things we recommend seeing in Gran Canaria here…), Max would quite happily never have left the pool area for the entire two weeks of our stay, so we were forced to become Pool People – and, honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. 

The H10 has two main pools which are connected by a ‘lazy river’ running between them. There’s also an infinity pool nearby, a children’s pool (the small, round one in the first photo), and I believe Privilege customers also have access to a top-secret ‘special’ pool of their own, but I wouldn’t know about that because we paupers weren’t allowed near it. 

Most days, we tended to station ourselves close to the children’s pool, purely for Max’s benefit. He did go into the main pools, too (He loved the ‘river’ between them), but, for obvious reasons, most new friends could be found near the kids’ area, so that became our place. Although the hotel was busy, the pool deck never felt too crowded for us, and we didn’t have any problems finding sunbeds (you’re not allowed to reserve them with towels, which makes it a whole lot easier). This area was obviously a bit noisier than some others because of the high concentration of children in it, but I noticed the infinity pool seemed quieter, so if you’re not traveling with children, it shouldn’t be impossible to avoid them, 

((With that said, it is a family hotel, and there’s an animation running pool games, exercise classes, etc, so if you’re looking for absolute tranquility, this probably isn’t the place to find it…)

The Restaurants at H10 Playa Meloneras Palace

We stayed at H10 Playa Meloneras Palace on a half-board basis, which meant we got breakfast and dinner there. We ate all of our meals in the main restaurant (there are a la carte restaurants available too, which you have to book in advance), which we were really happy with, although as I wasn’t planning to write this review when we visited, I’m afraid you’re going to have to take my word for it, because this is the only photo I got of the actual food:

The chocolate fountain would appear every second night, and it alternated between white chocolate and milk chocolate, always with a huge selection of sweets and fruit to dip in it. On other nights they’d have things like sushi or cheese in this section, so even on the nights when the chocolate fountain didn’t appear, we weren’t too disappointed. (OK, Max was. He’s not much of a one for sushi or blue cheese, though, to be fair…)

 

As for the rest of the food, there was plenty to choose from, and most nights there would be a different style of cuisine on offer, along with the usual Canarian potatoes, pizzas, etc. I should probably say here that I’m not much of a ‘foodie’ and don’t have the most discerning taste when it comes to food, but there was always something I fancied eating, and it was all of a decent quality, too, so I was pretty happy with it. I’ll will add that the restaurant could get very busy at times – particularly in the morning – and although there were never any long queues at any of the stations, some diners could be a little pushy/impatient, so you might want to try going at different times if you want to beat the rush. 

The rest of the hotel 

Another thing we loved about this hotel was how large the complex was. As well as the pools and sun decks, there’s also a couple of small shops, the spa and gym. My favourite area was this little seated area around one of the bars, which was the perfect place to sit and watch the sun go down:

There was normally some form of entertainment here in the evenings, either from a DJ or live performer. The main events area, meanwhile, had various types of entertainment every night: we only saw a few of these, but Max thoroughly enjoyed the acrobats, fire eaters, and the kids disco. 

The Beach

Finally, although the beach next to the hotel doesn’t actually belong to the H10, it’s so close it feels almost as if it does. Our favourite time to visit was in the evening, when it was almost deserted: we’d buy a bottle of Cava from the nearby supermarket and drink it as the sun went done: the perfect end to the day!