"This was our first family holiday abroad in many years and we had a really good stay on the whole.
The location is great and only around 25 minutes from the Reus airport, the room was cleaned every day and had everything you need in it, including a safe which is very helpful to hire in order to store passports, money and tech. You are only a short walk from the "Monday" market, local shops & restaurants, the beach & famous Salou sign, as well as a water park (can recommend the more local one!!) and Ferrari Land.
The swimming pool is large and there are loads of things to entertain the children, including the water slides on site and the splash pad including the water drop bucket. There is a daily children's entertainment team, but they do not force children to participate, you are completely free to do as you wish. The downside to the pool was it got quite crowded at times and the flooring outside of it was very slippery, so be careful, especially if you are carrying food and drinks anywhere. Also H&S is clearly not as strict in Spain as it is in England, some very precarious activities such as very young children and grown children/adults running along mats on the swimming pool at the same time, sometimes whilst the mats are shaken or slapped by others, made my Husband and I, and some others, very uncomfortable. We were sure that someone would crack their head open by the end of the week or have a nasty landing injury.
There is a poolside bar with very nice food, chicken and chips and pizza in particular were very good, and helpful staff, however, the queues were always long and waiting time could be extreme at times, so perhaps more staff help is needed during peak season, for both the outdoor and indoor bars.
The restaurant is amazing, so much choice for even the fussiest of eaters, my children and family ate well every day, and were full most evenings. A special shout out to Celine and David who went over and above with their duties, and arranged a Happy Birthday cake and singalong for my Son's 9th Birthday, we were all made up with that! All the catering staff are fantastic and work their socks off! The majority of staff throughout the hotel were very polite and friendly overall.
There is a lovely little "pub style" bar past the main bar, which has a great pool table and a much more intimate setting, if you prefer that type of atmosphere, they also get really good musicians in.
The reason I have given 4 instead of 5/5 is for these reasons:
Day 1 - We arrived late morning and our room was not ready until 2pm, we had to leave all our luggage in a room with a sullen looking gentleman who we didn't know, therefore, ended up taking our passports with us by the swimming pool. We were asked to go downstairs and change into our swimwear whilst we waited for the room and whilst carrying luggage around. At first, we were sent around the houses (partially because of a language barrier), and the lockers didn't work downstairs, not fun when you are tired from travelling and have children with you. It would help if the travel companies linked the flights up with the hotel having rooms ready when you need them.
Secondly, we never saw the Jet2 rep on site once, only at the airport, and whilst they were a good airline to travel with, and some very helpful staff along the way, there are some finer details they need to work on with their customers, and a bit more onsite presence would be a good start. We booked an excursion with the Tui rep in the end. On our checkout morning, it was by chance that the hotel reception told us to meet our coach in a particular area out the front, which you wouldn't just happen to know, the Jet2 app simply says "wait out the front" with no other details.
There are some funny rules in the hotel, i.e. hiring hotel towels for 10 euros, but has to be paid in cash and not card, they are very protective of their blue towels for some reason! even after the lifeguards took ours off our sunbeds (see next section), they wouldn't replace them for some reason? When hiring ping pong bats from reception, they do not stipulate to other guest's to bring them back by a certain time, so you have to wait around and guess when to go back and hire, then when I went back they told me that they only had bats to hire, so I ended up buying ping pong balls from their gift shop. Also, if you want to use the spa, bring your own swimming cap, it is a compulsory wear, otherwise, you can purchase for 3 euro's each (must be cash again!).
The entertainment is very good, and lots of varieties, but be warned, it is loud, and goes on until past 11pm some nights, which is not ideal if sometimes you are wanting a more relaxed evening. I would also recommend not staying on level 1 above the bar, where we were. It took us a couple nights to work out what all the loud scraping noises were each night until late, to discover it is people scraping their chairs in and out of their tables, in the bar area directly below.
Lastly, the worst, but most frustrating aspect of the holiday was the lack of sunbeds. People wake up at 7.30/8am and queue to get a sunbed, which is crazy to me, considering you are there on holiday and presumably want a break from the usual routine of waking up early. Only one day did I decide to reserve sunbeds, like everyone else, and when I came down from breakfast, two had been stolen. We had the hotels hired blue towels on the sunbeds, which had been removed by lifeguards and put in a random pile of other people's towels...yuck! They advise that they give away sunbeds if they had been un-attended for twenty minutes or more (yet I didn't see this done with anyone else on holiday). I asked them to please look after my remaining two sunbeds whilst I got my children downstairs, and when I came down someone had stolen my remaining two! I was so upset that for the rest of the holiday we just didn't bother with sunbeds until after lunch (when the odd ones became available), and just sat on chairs mostly, it seemed like a very unfair system of rules.
Overall, despite the negatives listed above, we did enjoy our holiday, and would go back, but forearmed is forewarned.
August is ideally not the best time to go, too busy, I would ask for a room on a higher floor to avoid some of the noise at night, and I would select the time of my flights more carefully where possible, so that it fits in with securing the room at the correct time, making it a more safe and enjoyable experience overall."
