"We have just returned from 10 nights at the Iberostar Waves Cala Domingos. We had a lovely time with our 2 year old son. But there were some good and bad bits!
First of all, the resort is beautiful, set in a ravine that meanders down to the small beach at the bottom of a steep hill. From some places there are lovely views of the sea (but not many).
The staff were great, really friendly and helpful and couldn’t do enough for you. From the catering, cleaning, entertainment, life guards and especially the buggy drivers! All made the stay really enjoyable and easy going.
The food was really good everyday, plenty of variety for breakfast, lunch was samey at the pool bars but nice enough and the evening meals were always nice with some good themed nights. We ate at the Mexican themed restaurant once too which is a lovely setting but not many places to sit out of the sun, so be careful with little ones.
The room was nice enough, we had a ‘deluxe’ bungalow which was just enough space with the 2 of us and a 2 year old and a cot in the room too.
However, there are some negatives that need to be considered when looking at this hotel, some of which would have put us off if we would have seen before.
Firstly, the tiles around the main and kids pool are very dangerous. They are extremely slippery when wet. Our little boy slipped numerous times and hit his head. We witnessed countless other kids (and adults) fall too. When looking back on reviews on here, I can see someone had a bad injury back in 2024 because of this, and it still hasn’t been sorted. So beware. I raised this issue when I was there and was assured it was a ‘none slip’ area. There is a metre around the kids pool of ‘none slip’ flooring (which is still slippery) and then porcelain tiles everywhere else. It’s these tiles that are bad. I would say to make sure your kids have water shoes on all the time to stop them falling, there wasn’t any for sale at the local shop when we was there.
As well as the pool area, the showers in the room are also really slippery. The paint is very sticky when dry, but as soon as you get water on it (or soap) it’s like an ice rink. Again, our son fell and hurt his back on day 1. When I mentioned this, and asked if there was any rooms with baths, they sent maintenance men to look at it who said it was the same as all the other showers and I was told it’s not slip flooring again and if they had to do anything about it, it would be messy and a lot of work so they sent us a baby bath instead to wash our 2 year old in!!
By way of compensation for this, they offered a free upgrade the next time we stay at this hotel. Somewhat of a kick in the teeth as we heard the people next to us at check on get a free upgrade for no reason!!
There isn’t much privacy in the bathrooms either, the sink is outside the main bathroom area and in the bedroom, so noisy with a little one asleep. Then the toilet is behind a glass door, so if you are a couple on holiday, be prepared to hear all sorts!!
All the bungalows have a little terrace area. Ours was facing the road and didn’t get any sun after lunch, it was also taken up by a tree and had no view whatsoever. So was a waste of space really. It was also at the top of a little steep hill and had several large steps from that to the room. It was not child friendly at all. Some rooms had nice terraces with fences around them, this one wasn’t good at all, so avoid room 102 if you can!
There aren’t enough sunbeds around the main pool for the amount of people staying there. It’s a bit of a stereotypical fight for sunbeds from first thing in the morning till mid afternoon. After that it quietens a bit. But if you do get a sunbed, parasols are the next issue and are like gold dust. So again, if you are with little ones, be prepared not to get a shaded area.
The other pool is a bit dangerous for young kids, the sunbeds are less than a meter away from the edge of the deep pool and the same around the kids section. There isn’t much room to stop them jumping straight in. There is also a horrible smell of sulphur around that area 24/7, which is off putting.
The beach is nice but small, and is NOT part of the hotel, so you need to pay for a sun lounger with a parasol. There are some recycled parasols up near the main pool though if you can get one.
Finally, be prepared to do some hill walking to get around if you don’t want to wait for the buggies. There are some big steep hills to navigate to get around the resort, so they do have a lot of buggies going around to help which is great. There are 2 large ones and some smaller ones. Sometimes they are full at peak times, so you have to wait 10-15mins, but we don’t mind walking so didn’t find it too much of a problem, but most of the time it was no more than a 5 min wait!
It’s a shame about some of these issues, especially the dangerous floors. These would stop us going back if anything, which is a shame, as I think the resort has so much going for it and it was a lovely holiday!"