H10 Rubicón Palace

I traveled with my best friend, so we booked at this hotel to have a care-for-nothing all inclusive experience, which totally happened, although our bed preference wasn't met and we got a double bed instead of a twin bed. We were received with kindness and caring attention. The hotel's interior design is quite nice, the gardens and swimming pool are elegant and cozy. The room was as expected based on the pictures, the bathroom was well equipped. The housekeeping cleaned our room very nicely every day. The hotel has one big and one small buffet restaurant where the variety and quality of the food was great and since my friend is a vegetarian, it was important that we find enough options also for her which we did. We didn't really take part in the on site activities since most of the time we were on trips on the island during the day but the animation and separate area for the kids looked great for families. I dived with the on-site diving school, they are very friendly and professional, I enjoyed it a lot.

Besides that we had a relaxing holiday, there are a few negative points to mention. Our first bad experience was in the Asian a la carte restaurant. The menu had no vegetarian main dishes, the choices are very few and the quality of the food was terrible, we stood up from our starters and went to the buffet restaurant to have dinner. We would expect an Asian restaurant to use authentic ingredients, fusion doesn't mean cooking Asian food with European ingredients. Using for example lemon juice instead of lime leaves in a curry is unacceptable in our opinion at a five star resort. After this we didn't try the other a la carte restaurants. The second disappointment was the spa. We are quite the spa lovers and have been to many of them but I was never asked to wear a swimming hat in a jacuzzi. Also all the pools and jacuzzi was with salt water which is very painful if you have just a small injury on your skin. We would expect comfort and a relaxing environment but salt water doesn't give you that. In the sea you obviously expect it but not in a spa. Also the saunas and the resting room are worn down and could use a renovation. The massages and treatments are fairly executed but overpriced for the quality they offer. My last, and I think most important remark is on the sustainable operation of the hotel. There are several practices which I find non-acceptable in the age we live in. The hotel provides free water in 0,5l plastic bottles. For a hotel with place for 1000 people who drink 2-3 bottles per day in average this means a huge amount of plastic waste. Instead please consider placing drinking fountains and give a reusable bottle to the guest at arrival in case they don't have one. Also we've seen a huge amount of perfectly good food being thrown away after all three meals. I am sure there are already many ways to reduce the amount of food instead of throwing it to the bin.