5/10
Sympathetic but unrealistic teen soap.
17 February 2022
I really doubt if the hotel in this series will make it till a possible next season, with a staff as incompetent as this! There are only some eight members, and we hardly see them work, they seem to fill their working hours mostly with hanging out on the beach, making love, surfing, boozing, using (and dealing!) drugs and partying, while hotel-chief Maresia reacts to all this more like the pastor of a slightly erring but otherwise cherished flock, than as an in any way strict manager.

The makers thought of bringing in as much social and psychological issues in the story as was reasonably possible in 8 episodes, so we get a gay guy coming out, several spurned loves, a girl desperately wanting to lose her virginity, a kleptomaniac, some drug-dealing, a man who's confronted with a surprise daughter, a single mother with an abusive ex, etcetera etcetera. Little problems are blown up sky high, others are whisked away in seconds. It's all a bit too much, the different storylines remain mostly very superficial and lack urgency. And I sorely missed some humor, it was all so dead serious!

Sure, we're on a beautiful tropical island, and most characters are nice to look at, so visually it has much in favor. But the acting is in general below par. Only beautiful and spicy Giovanna Lancellotti stands out, and I have a soft spot for hunky Jorge López, who by the way did a far better job in that other Netflix series Elite. Others were either non-descript or downright annoying, like the Yasmin-character.

I would say: sympathetic, but that's about it. It never surpasses the level of a soap opera, aimed at teens.
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