We visited the Meridien Ra for ten days from April 1st. I can honestly say it would be difficult to find a more friendly staff who made our stay a real delight. The hotel has quite a history, which is not immediately apparent, but as you look around the many photographs of its past ( alot of which are on the admin / garage floor, hence are easily missed ) you realise that the main restored building was once a childrens sanatorium. The restoration must have been a difficult task judging by the buildings state in the photographs. Our room was on the fomer gallery of the chapel, the interior of which is now very impressive and accoustically stunning ( try to resist singing as you leave your room in the morning! ) My only quibble is that the same sound quality means that noise travels up from the bar area if you want an early night.
Food quality, presentation and service were first class, the themed buffet nights over Easter, (Mediterranean, Catalan and Spanish) were impressive and needed a dedicated appetite! I can see the drawback of staying when the hotel is quiet as the choice of restaurants is much reduced. I did not find the food expensive, the buffet total for two including wine came to 96 euros ( approx. £62 ). Most of the wines are local Penedes or other Spanish between 13 and 25 euros.
The "wellness" centre is highly recommended with numerous water therapies and a spacious sun deck. The hotel has its own private beach for which chairs etc are provided. It seems a very child friendly hotel although the space available means that they never intrude if you want peace and quiet. In saying all this don't forget that our stay was at Easter, hotel staff say that in summer the hotel is very busy, as is the local resort of Calafell just a quarter of a mile along the front.

Short version:

3 star hotel, 4 star spa, 5 star prices. Helpful and friendly staff but not aware of the quality levels/facilities expected of a 5 star hotel.

Long!!!

We stayed here in March 2007. The location was excellent - right on the beach. The hotel was fully booked when we arrived - we did not book online as we wanted to check it out before booking after reading all the dire reviews on tripadvisor!

The entrance was very spacious and impressive in its own way. We did not enter the spa to check availability before booking in to the hotel. They found us the last room. And we check it out. It was ok and for the price was very reasonable - 200 euros. Which is cheaper than prices marked on the web.

We think it was for disabled people as there were wide open spaces and handle bars everywhere. The shower had an open side entrance with curtain! So it must have been for disabled people as shower curtains are a no no in a 5 star hotel.

However the room had decent sea views - even when lying in bed. Angled views but good enough.

The weather was excellent and sunny. The outside pool was closed. The decent restaurant was being renovated to get a Michelin star or something like that. So eating was limited to the buffet or small, end restaurant.

Anyway, we should have checked the Spa availability first as once checked in and at the spa we realised that all treatments were fully booked for the day. But they had told us we could stay late the next day and do the treatments then. So ok.

We enter the spa and find a very crowded spa which is about average in quality. Some of the pool area treatments (bubble pools etc.) were not working properly. All the beds taken and an air of not much exclusivity. It seems that everyone from the hotel was there, all the external members and anyone else who wanted to rock up. Not very impressed. But it was ok. Nothing special.

Our room was NH hotel style. Very boring and plain. The fridge didn't work as usual and the TV was tiny and old fashioned. Ready for dinner we went to the restaurant for an a la carte meal. It was okay. Pretty good in fact but with limited selection and a 3/4 star hotel style. And expensive.

We then went to the piano bar. We were pretty tired but wanted to try everything here. Ordered a Caipirinha. What? A Caipirinha. What? Five times. It's a cocktail. Oh, yes. (I speak Spanish perfectly well and never have trouble ordering this drink in other bars here) 20 mins later a "Caipirinha" arrives with three tiny pieces of lime in it and the rest made up of lemon juice from a bottle. They charged 12 euros for that! Don't order that drink there!

We were exhausted and went to bed. The spa does that to you.

Next day we did our treatments which were all done excellently.

Going back to the room we couldn’t get in as the key had deprogrammed itself. Luckily a porter was a way down the corridor and I asked him to get me a new one. I am in my dressing gown and slippers from the spa at this point so don't want to traipse around the lobby area looking for another key. He was very nice and helpful. He was called Yuri. In fact all the staff were very nice and helpful.

We had lunch on the terrace in front of the sea. We were in our gowns and didn’t want to go and eat lunch with everyone dressed normally. So we thought we’d order a sandwich on the terrace which is left of the restaurant area and slightly more hidden from view.

A small group of people were having lunch there. We order something off the a la carte menu as there was no bar/terrace menu. Admittedly the waiter served us etc. even though you cannot actually do this! There is no terrace service! But he was helpful and accommodating.

My wife had a shrimp and pasta salad while I had what was called roast beef rolls with onions and salad. Well, one roll arrived about 5cm long and 1.5 cm wide - with one piece of roast beef cut so thin it was like crepe paper! Even though it said rolls on the menu – only one arrived. With a sprinkling of leaves and mayo. That cost 18 euros! When the actual cost would be less than 75 cents. Good thing I was not hungry.

We had a checkout at 5pm. I call ten mins before checkout to get a porter for the luggage – no answer from reception for 5 mins. So in the end we carry our own stuff down. It’s quite a long way as the spaces in this hotel are big.

Checkout is okay. I comment that they had only given me one Le Meridien points membership card (we had joined on checking in and they had slipped my card under the door). Not one for my wife. They start looking for it. Eventually they say that they will send it to me. Yuri gave us 2 bottles of mineral water for the trip home and helped us with our luggage. He was trying to practice his English and was a good guy.

On the whole a 3 star hotel and a 4 star spa with an excellent beach location. Like the others said – with 5 star prices!

One more thing. Parking is charged at 19 euros a day. Even though they have tonnes of space available in the square in front of reception. My advice is park on the street outside. There is plenty of space and it’s free! Plus you never know how hard/time consuming it might be trying to get your car out with/without valet parking.

Also, the town is pretty downmarket and there is an absence of quality dining or bars. Plus the beach here must be terrible in summer. As the town was very busy even in March. But that was due to the weather which was very good, I suppose.

This is a three star hotel with five star prices.

The outdoor pool was closed (despite having told us it would be open) and the two restaurants were closed without pre-warning and we could only eat in the 'Tapas bar' which served pre-prepared/frozen food with no flavour. The hotel is situated at the end of a strip of uninspiring, downmarket restaurants so you have little choice outside of the hotel, save driving to Tarragona, Sitges or Barcelona - all 20-40 minutes away.

The staff were mostly grumpy and unhelpful and certainly not trained up to offer a five star service. We were offered a three bed bedroom so we could be more comfortable with our 2 year old daughter - this turned out to be a double bedroom with a glorified sofa bed, for which we were charged an extra E80 per night! The design of the hotel is minimalist to the point of ridiculous and lacks flair and style. We tried to talk at the front desk to the management about our experience but inspite of saying they would 'look into it and get back to us', they never did.

The only positive features were the Spa (which is not owned by the hotel anyway) which worked well and offered a five star service, and the superb buffet breakfast. I'd recommend visiting the spa on a day trip and staying somewhere else!

Here is a summary, if you do not have time to read this:
In summary most of the hotel facilities were closed, the management did not care less, the only restaurant served bar snacks and no one tried to make your stay a pleasurable one.

We have just returned from a 3 night stay at the Hotel Ra close to
Tarragona in Spain. It all started off quite well. The hotel is part of the Small Luxury Hotels group, a good omen, most would say. The hotel was easy to book through the SLH website. It boasted 4/5 restaurants, a spa, a pool, a sea view, access to the beach, modern minimalist design and many other things.

On arrival the hotel prompted a good first impression. Check in was swift and we were lead to our room with a glass of cava.

This is were everything went wrong.

1. Most of the hotel is so 'modern' in design. The rooms look like office blocks, the corridors would not be amiss in an underground car park There is more than a liberal sprinkling of uncovered concrete.
2. Most rooms, ours included have an angled sea view, this incorporates more 'office block' than sea.
3. We wanted to eat dinner. Despite the hotel being fully open and charging high season prices, we were informed that only one of the 4/5 restaurants was open. The menu was even less impressive - bar snacks of paninis and tapas, no main course in sight. The waiter was apologetic. We left hungry despite spending E90 on food.
4. The next morning we wanted to go swimming. The pool was shut. There were no signs indicating this. We were advised that it had been closed due to bad weather - it was 29C and sunny.
5. We spoke to the hotel manager, no changes were made and he was far from apologetic or helpful. He did inform us that most people come to the hotel to use the spa - which incidentally is closed this week for renovation!
6. To top it all, the hotel was hosting a conference on two of the days. Not exactly a small luxury hotel?
7. Oh, and by the way, three day car parking was an equivalent cost to three days car hire.

There was no mention in the hotel or on the website that the facilities were unavailable. This hotel was only booked a few days prior to our stay at which stage it would have been quite clear that these closures were in place.