"We stayed at SUNRISE Aqua Joy for four nights in August 2026 as a family with young children. Overall, our experience was genuinely mixed. The resort does many things extremely well, particularly the food, pools, cleanliness, entertainment, and family facilities, but several significant issues—especially a water-slide safety incident—prevent me from rating our stay higher.
THE POSITIVES
The food was excellent and one of the resort's strongest assets. We enjoyed the main restaurant as well as the à la carte restaurants. The food in the specialised restaurants was good, although reservations and availability were somewhat limited.
The swimming pools were excellent. They were clean, comfortable, and well-maintained; the temperature was good, and we had no significant problems with sunbeds or overcrowding.
The animation team were fantastic and the night shows were excellent. Evening entertainment was genuinely one of the highlights of our stay.
The kids' area itself was okay rather than exceptional, but the staff working there were amazing with the children and deserve particular praise.
The location is excellent.
Our rooms were large, very clean and well maintained, and housekeeping was excellent throughout our stay. The bathroom was also generally good.
Check-in and check-out were straightforward, drinks and bars were good, accessibility around the hotel was acceptable, and overall I felt the resort offered good value for money.
Most importantly, the vast majority of the staff were friendly, welcoming and genuinely helpful. The criticism of staff below relates only to a minority and should not detract from the many employees who provided very good service.
WATER-SLIDE SAFETY
This was the most serious concern during our stay.
My young son had just come down one of the aqua slides when another, older child was allowed to follow before my son had properly cleared the landing area.
I managed to pull my son out of the way just in time. Unfortunately, that meant I took the impact instead. The other child came off the slide at speed and struck me hard in the chest with both feet.
I was unable to breathe normally for some time afterwards and was left with pain in my chest and shoulder. Fortunately, my son avoided taking the impact himself.
What concerned me even more was that I witnessed another similar incident involving another child on the same slide later that same day.
For that reason, I do not think this should be dismissed as an unfortunate isolated collision. I strongly believe the hotel should review lifeguard procedures to maintain a safe interval between users and ensure the landing area is completely clear before allowing the next child to descend.
For a resort so heavily oriented toward families and young children, this is the issue I most hope management addresses.
OVERNIGHT CONSTRUCTION NOISE
There was significant noise from the construction site immediately next to the hotel, including during the night.
The disturbance was substantial enough to prevent our infant from sleeping properly.
I appreciate that neighbouring construction may not be entirely within the hotel's control. However, guests should ideally be informed when significant overnight construction disturbance is occurring, and families with infants should, where possible, be allocated rooms away from the affected side of the property.
POWER CUT AND COMMUNICATION
We also experienced a power cut lasting almost two hours.
The backup arrangements appeared insufficient during the outage, but the communication was particularly frustrating.
Whenever we asked for an update, staff repeatedly told us that the electricity would return in “10 minutes”. This continued throughout much of the almost two-hour outage.
If the restoration time is genuinely unknown, I would much rather be told that honestly and receive realistic updates than repeatedly be given an estimate that turns out to be incorrect.
STAFF SERVICE
Again, most members of staff were excellent.
However, I had several disappointing interactions with a small number of staff, particularly around the snack area and some stations in the main restaurant.
On several occasions, staff appeared visibly irritated simply when I spoke to them or asked for assistance. When an order was prepared incorrectly, and I politely asked for it to be corrected, the irritation sometimes became even more obvious.
Order mistakes happen, and they're completely understandable. What was disappointing was the attitude towards a guest who asked for the correct order.
This was not representative of the majority of the resort's staff, who were friendly and helpful.
ROOM DESIGN
Although the rooms themselves were spacious, clean and comfortable, there were a couple of surprisingly poor ergonomic design choices.
The light switches are incorporated directly into the bed headboard, in a position that makes them very easy to activate accidentally while sitting back or relaxing. We repeatedly found ourselves unintentionally switching the lights on and off.
The bathroom door handle also sits extremely close to the door frame. When holding the handle and closing the door normally, my knuckles repeatedly hit the frame, eventually causing the skin around them to peel.
These are relatively minor problems compared with the safety concerns, but they are unnecessary design flaws in otherwise very good rooms.
BEACH AND SEA
The beach and the sea were among the resort's weakest points for us.
Considering that this is a beachfront property, I found the actual beach and sea experience surprisingly disappointing. The swimming pools were substantially better, and we preferred spending our time around them.
INSECTS
During our stay, my three-year-old woke one morning with considerable swelling of his ear following what appeared to be a very small insect bite.
I also developed separate bites on my wrist and nose despite staying in a different room.
We noticed very small flying insects during the stay. I cannot identify the insects responsible and therefore do not want to speculate or make an unsupported claim about their type. Nevertheless, because more than one family member was affected while staying in different rooms, I think pest-control inspection would be worthwhile.
OVERALL
There is genuinely a lot to like about SUNRISE Aqua Joy:
Excellent food
Excellent swimming pools
Large and very clean rooms
Excellent housekeeping
Fantastic animation team
Excellent night entertainment
Amazing staff in the kids' area
Great location
Good value for money
Generally friendly and helpful staff
The main negatives during our stay were:
A significant water-slide safety concern
Severe overnight construction noise
Poor backup and communication during the prolonged power cut
A small number of noticeably poor staff interactions
Some frustrating room-design issues
A disappointing beach and sea experience
Insect bites affecting family members staying in different rooms
Without the safety and operational problems, I could easily see this being a very good 4/5 family resort.
Unfortunately, I cannot overlook an incident in which inadequate spacing between children on a slide nearly caused my young son to take a full-speed impact, particularly after witnessing another similar incident on the same slide later that day.
SUNRISE Aqua Joy has many genuine strengths, and we enjoyed several aspects of our stay. I hope management takes the feedback constructively, particularly regarding water-slide supervision.
Overall rating: 3/5."
