Amadria Park Jakov

"We stayed at Hotel Jakov, so my review mainly concerns this particular hotel — things may be different at other hotels within the resort. The food. The restaurants are quite expensive, yet the quality of the food simply does not match the prices. For around €29, you can end up with a piece of completely tasteless chicken and some French fries. There are a few decent dishes in some of the restaurants, but overall our impression was the same everywhere: expensive and not tasty. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an issue with just one restaurant, we experienced it throughout the resort. Breakfast at the hotel was also disappointing. There was a lot of fried and overcooked food, sausages, processed meats, and sweets. There were hardly any healthier, good-quality alternatives. It felt as though the main goal was simply to fill people up rather than offer tasty, fresh, and varied food. The breakfast restaurant itself also felt rather untidy. What surprised me the most, however, was the smoking. The hotel is marketed as family-friendly, yet it is almost impossible to find a place where nobody is smoking nearby. People smoke everywhere. There isn’t even a designated smoke-free area where families with children can relax without cigarette smoke. For a family hotel, I find this very strange and disappointing. It really makes you question how child-friendly this place actually is. On the positive side, the sea is beautiful, with very clear and clean water. I would also like to mention the friendly parking staff and housekeeping team, who were very pleasant."

"Firstly, I genuinely cannot recommend this hotel enough, especially for families. There was so much for the kids to do, the hotel was modern, clean and felt very safe within the resort, all of the staff we encountered were incredibly helpful. I found it quite difficult to find detailed information about the hotel before we went, so I wanted to share some of the things I had questions about, along with our experience. Food & Drink The prices within the resort are definitely higher than in Šibenik, but once you take into account the cost of taxis into town and back, we found that it worked out at roughly the same overall. In my opinion, the prices at the hotel were actually very reasonable for a resort. We didn't have the buffet breakfast at the hotel. Instead, we walked down to the Gourmet Market and bakery, where there was a really good selection of fresh pastries, food and drinks at good prices. We ate at Trattoria twice, and both times it was really good. For five adults and one child, main meal, dessert and drinks came to around €160. We also had dinner at Bongos, and one evening, because of a storm, we had the hotel buffet. The buffet had a good selection, and the desserts were amazing. On our final night, we ate at Dalmatia Ethno Village, which was a lovely way to finish the holiday. The food was amazing and the setting was magical. The kids shared the tenderloin steak and we all had the lamb, for dessert creme brulee. It was a more expensive meal, for 6 of us it was 300 euro including tip for drinks, main meal and dessert. Again reasonable for the type of setting and quality of food. Most days we had lunch around the pool. This usually cost between €40–€70 for 4 of us, depending on what we ordered. The portions were huge, so we often found that we didn't need to order as much as we thought we would. Things for the Kids There is so much for children to do at Hotel Jakov and the wider resort. The kids went paddleboarding twice, which was €15 for 30 minutes There is a lovely safe bay for them to practise. They also did the water activity park twice, which was €17 for one hour. You dont need to book either activity just head down to the beach. One of our favourite things to do in the evening was walking along the promenade after dinner, if we didnt have dessert, and get an ice cream from Sweet Treats Then depending on the day and schedule you can watch a film on the giant screen at the beach. We did this twice and it was such a lovely, relaxed thing to do. Aquapark We visited the water park on a cloudy/rainy day and spent around five hours there, including lunch. We ate at Aqua, the restaurant in the water park, and the food was lovely. It was actually a great option for a day when the weather wasn't perfect because there was still plenty to do. There is an adults spa including in the price with sauna, steam and pool area. Šibenik We went into Šibenik twice in the evenings for food. Lots of lovely restaurants to choose from and no hassle from anyone trying to get you to eat in their restaurants. We got an Uber there and a local taxis back, they are available at the port. The taxi costs are worth bearing in mind when comparing restaurant prices in Šibenik with eating at the resort. Once you factor in transport, the difference wasn't that big but its worth it for variety and to wander the cobbled streets exploring. Krka National Park We decided to visit Krka independently rather than booking an organised excursion. We bought the 8am entry tickets online and booked a taxi through the hotel reception for 7:15am. This worked really well. We spent around two hours at Krka, which we felt was enough for us, and then got the 10:30 boat back. Skradin is a lovely little quiet town but with a good variety of restaurants and shops. There are also lots of snack places and souvenir shops at the waterfalls. For the return journey, there wasn't a taxi waiting at the taxi rank, so we booked a local taxi through WhatsApp, we waited 20 minutes in the shade and the kids played in the park. We found local taxis were cheaper than Uber, despite being told otherwise by the rep. We just made sure we knew the price before getting in. Overall I honestly couldn't recommend Hotel Jakov enough. For a family holiday, it had everything we wanted: beautiful surroundings, lots for the children to do, good food choices, a lovely beach and promenade, and easy access to Šibenik and Krka. The resort felt safe, clean and modern, and there was enough going on that we never felt bored—but equally, it was easy to have a completely relaxing day around the pool. If you're considering Hotel Jakov for a family holiday, I'd definitely recommend it."

"We stayed at Hotel Jakov which is part of the Amadria resort near Sibenik. We enjoyed our time but didn’t feel like the cost of the resort delivered a 4/5 star experience. The cost of the resort for a family is quite high. We were half board where we had breakfast and evening meal. The food was ok but nothing special and often they ran out of some food if you went later in the session. They only offer hot drinks in the morning and the only free drinks you get are water or fruit juices. All the deserts were basic mass produced and poor quality - no ice cream!! But if you wanted they had some really nice looking deserts at the bar you could buy for €6/7. One of my main issues is that everything they can charge for is vastly overpriced (€5 for a 250ml coke, €17 for 1 hour on the sea inflatable). There are no easy snack options for lunch (all main meals). The pool is only 1m20cm deep which prevents diving in. The entertainment appeared good for young kids (up to 7/8) but nothing much for older kids or adults apart from the computer game room - I’d much prefer an entertainment/animation team getting the kids involved in games/activities than sitting inside on computer games. No evening entertainment. Nothing was really bad, the rooms were clean and serviced well. We also visited the water park attached to Jakov €35 for an adult. I wouldn’t waste the money, we lasted 2 hours, there is basically nothing there, 2 slides outside, 2 inside and 2 splash parks. To summarise, nothing about this hotel was really bad, I just didn’t feel it was value for money in what it does deliver and felt that they were trying to milk every penny out of us with the prices of any extras."