New Velsuites Paya del Ingles I

We’ve stayed at the New Velsuites four times since the renovation just before the pandemic, and we do like coming back. We’ve been in bungalow IV twice, which is our favourite, plus II and III once each. The four units are laid out almost the same. IV feels more private at the far end and gets more shade. That helps at the start and end of the season, though the two huge palm trees might mean too much shade from November to February. We’ve visited in May, June-July, October and November. We like exploring the island in any season, and these bungalows are decent value compared with hotels for the space, facilities and how new they are. There’s another individual bungalow farther along the road that looked great, but we couldn’t find its name or rental company. The arrival instructions are the same each time and say check-in is from 3 pm, but on two visits nobody came to greet us for almost an hour after that. We had a hire car, so we went for coffee and came back. On another stay, we met three men outside the gate who’d been waiting 90 minutes. We let them in and, since we’d figured out how the rental company creates the four-digit entry code, we could suggest what their door code might be. We guessed right. My bigger concern is the cleaning. This has been an issue on all four stays. I suspect the cleaner isn’t given enough time. The floor is disgracefully dirty, try wearing white socks for half an hour and you’ll see. The towels have been stained too. On our first visit we boil-washed them in the washing machine, but they took ages to air dry and went stiff as cardboard. After that, we bought our own towels, including some to lie on, and brought them on later visits. The bungalows are well equipped, with strong free WiFi, a washing machine, iron, small tabletop ironing board, cleaning supplies, crockery and bedding. Some glassware comes in odd numbers, suggesting things have broken and been replaced, so keep an eye on the €350-500 damage deposit payable on arrival. The bedding feels as cheap as possible, and the duvets are so thin and light that we were cold even in midsummer. The deposit is the part to watch most. Staff take it by credit or debit card when you arrive, but nobody shows you around or explains anything, and they don’t point out any existing damage. At bungalow II, we raised the blackout blinds and found a cracked pane in the bedroom’s floor-to-ceiling sliding door. We reported it, but it’s hard to prove it was already broken when you arrived. It took days for the rental company to accept that we hadn’t caused it. The late arrivals, poor cleaning and lack of a proper walkthrough may have put us off. We’re planning a 10-14 day trip to GC early in the New Year and are considering staying somewhere else.