Disappointing holiday

We were a group of friends who stayed with the hotel Dec 27th to Jan 3rd. we were expecting a lot, since the hotel was recommended by another friend who stayed there before. We were expecting a 5 star experience. The experience was 3 stars max. The hotel is not managed. Everything there seems to be run out of good will and inertia most probably: 1. The reception is not customer oriented at all. Except one lady who is probably kind by her nature, the rest don't know how to smile. They kept us waiting to check in, while solving paperwork! And they seemed disturbed by our insistence to check us in after flying for 8 hours and driving one to get there. 2. The reception was actually useless all across. Except for buying tickets to the parks, which worked well, there were other occasions when we had to insist to get things done: for eg. the hotel was cold as heating was not working and we called from the room a few times to ask for a heater, which didn't come until we went in person to beg. 3. Room service is non-existent, they actually don't even pick up the calls. You can get food if you specifically again beg someone, in person, to take dinner to your child in the room 4. There is no coffee anywhere else except the bar. No coffee in the room and coffee at breakfast is instant coffee and they serve it with milk, even if you ask milk on the side. 5 The staff doesn't understand and doesn't speak English 6. There are no reliable services: we asked for shirts to be ironed they came back as wrinkled as we sent them. They FOLD shirts when they return them ironed. 7. The service at the restaurants is appalling. They forget the order (Papagallo seems to serve only if you have half-board?), they take ages to serve or they forget completely that you are there. Once, I asked for an ice-cream 3 times to 3 different waiters (there were 7 waiters and 3 busy tables) and no one even cared. 8. The breakfast is stale and tasteless 9. They insist to say hello everywhere in the hotel but if you ask them something, like to REFILL the used toiletries in the room, they seem to not understand a word. I had to ask a few times for someone to bring make-up removal disks (which had not been replaced), since I could not have gone to the pharmacy to buy, it was closed. It was 11pm, we had come back from dinner and the room was supposed to have been done. All in all, maybe our expectations were too high, but for 500EUR+ a night you do have expectations. Of certain processes, management, control of quality, etc. Of a relaxed vacation for us at least, knowing that someone cares.