"I stayed here with my wife and 11-year-old son in the first week of August.
All in all this is a fabulous hotel!
100%a four star hotel, and a good one at that so I cannot understand any negativity.
When making any comparisons in this review I am comparing to previous Spanish all inclusive 4 star hotels I’ve visited ie Majorca, Tenerife, Gran Canaria.
Firstly, the weather, just for information, was glorious 33° sunshine every day except one in the middle which was cloudy for most of the day sadly. Typically was the odd hour of cloud in the morning, but after that, it was lovely.
The transfer time from the airport was less than 25 minutes with only one drop-off - our hotel.
No issues in the airport despite the new automated passport control.
Equally check-in was prompt efficient and friendly.
Regarding staff I found them to be friendly and courteous throughout. As always, a few words of Spanish goes a long way and can disarm somebody who is perhaps tired during a busy shift and might be sick of constantly having to speak English despite them actually being in their own country of Spain.
The odd previous review about people encountering grumpiness probably relate to people not bothering to say a few words here and there.
We never encountered any grumpiness. Special shout out to Alejandro at the bar who was great fun.
The hotel is set literally 40 metres from the beach. The beach itself is lovely white sand with a few stones when entering the sea from certain sections but otherwise nice and shallow and good waters for snorkelling in around some rocks set about 70m out.
The hotel is large and always feels spacious despite it being during peak season. You never feel as we have to walk too far to get back to the room or between the different restaurants and bars. The dining rooms felt really calm even during busy times. Not like some of the more chaotic ones I’ve experienced in the past during other four star all inclusive hotels.
There is a small adult only pool, plus two other pool areas, the normal large pool then the splash park area which is also very big with waterfalls, jacuzzi jets and a fast moving whirlpool /lazy river. The kids loved it. To get to the splash park you have to walk across the dried out river bed and up some steps (see pic) then use your key card to get through a secured gate.
We spent most of our time at the splash park pool which has beautiful olive trees in the grassy areas which provided natural shade. This area was so vast that, again it felt peaceful sat back from the pool or handy if you wanted to be near to the pool for example if you had little ones.
The food:
We were really impressed by the food in this hotel. I would again rank it probably either first or second best out of everywhere we’ve stayed. (the next best one actually being another Estival hotel in Benidorm!)
There is a wide range of choice at lunch and dinner. There was a soup every day with lunch and two soups every night with dinner which is something you don’t normally get. The meats and fish were always a good quality and the pizza, pasta and various sauces were tasty. They did have loose themed nights which I think could probably be a bit more obvious or reinforced if they really wanted to go for the theme idea. The strongest example was an oriental theme with spring rolls, prawn crackers, sushi Etc. One example was Middle Eastern where had delicious chicken shawarma wraps with curried potatoes etc.
Breakfast was fairly standard. Nice scrambled egg but no freshly made omelette station which I think was a bit of a shame for a hotel like this. They had the ready cooked plain omelettes for people to select but no options for cheese or ham omelettes made to order. This is something I would consider adding in although it didn’t mean the things were more efficient.
The only thing I had to reheat was the beans and sometimes the scrambled egg, it just depends how warm you like it but it was warm rather than very hot. There were two microwaves in the bottom corner of the restaurant that worked really well and reheated your food even after being in for about 10 seconds so no big deal.
Coffee from various machines was fairly fast and really tasty. The juices were also really nice and self service meaning everything moved fairly quickly. At dinner you could pour your own wine, sangria or beer. The beer was Estrella which was absolutely delicious. We sampled most of the cocktails which again all of which were nice not to syrupy and not too strong. Aperol was included as part of the all-inclusive which is a massive plus! They also had Cava which my wife enjoyed.
The coffee round the pool bar during g the daytime was delicious - freshly made using ground beans not from a machine.
The pool bar next to the splash pool which became very busy because the staff were serving people at the back of an adjoining restaurant which was part of the hotel but not included in all inclusive. If you sat down and ordered anything from there, which we did not you had to pay for it. At times it meant that some of the hotel guests at the other bar were waiting a long time to be served.
Most drinks, however such as water, juices, milk shakes, ice cream and alcoholic options during the day were self service so that meant things moved fairly quickly. It was only if you wanted coffee or something else that it slowed down - but at times I waited over 5 minutes.
The staff were working flat out to serve drinks to the rest of the customers in the bar and restaurant so I don’t think it was their fault. I just think perhaps a better system could be designed for coffees such as a machine to be added for during the day.
The hotel supplies you with three little tokens that you used to exchange for plastic glasses over the day so that people then return them meaning there aren’t lots and lots of stacked up plastic glasses at the end of the day. I didn’t really see any litter there during the whole time I was there which is good and the staff were working non-stop to keep everything beautifully maintained and immaculately clean. Even simple things such as all of the bins being covered over with lids meant that things seemed extra clean.
The à la carte restaurant “The Terrace” was spectacular. It is set above the main restaurant and offers stunning Sea views. It’s incredibly special dining experience where you’re made to feel like a VIP. In other hotels we’ve been to the à la carte essentially serves the same food as that in the buffett restaurant and it’s pretty only different in that you’re being waited on. This was completely different and the food we had with some of the best we’ve ever had!
I had a tomato soup on my wife had a goats cheese salad to start both of which were fabulous
I would highly recommend booking this during your stay. You have to specify the date in advance, obviously because it gets busy, and you also have to select from my menu ahead of time which is completely standard so I don’t know why people were complaining about having to do so in previous reviews.
As you can probably see from the photos the gym here is excellent. They have all of the latest life fitness strength equipment and enough for a full workout while you’re on holiday including: shoulder press, lat pulldown, leg extension, lying hamstring curl, leg press, pec / shoulder fly,all of the usual cardio equipment, Smith machine with plenty of weight plates, free weights up to 32kg‘s and plenty of cable stations. The gym seems like it is used by outside people as well so was never empty and at one time I counted 20 people in there which even though it’s quite a small space didn’t feel overly cramped. Again definitely one of the best hotels gyms and more than enough to keep you ticking over.
We attended the Spa. What is nice is that children are allowed in there up until 1 pm. Overall the Spa is slightly dated to compared to the rest of the hotel but was still nice to use. There was a good sauna and steam room and ice bucket shower however no freezing cold plunge pool (which I always enjoy).
The WiFi is the best I’ve had in any hotel.
Strong everywhere in the hotel.
The animation team were really friendly with kids and adults encouraging participation if you wanted to, but with no pressure if you didn’t want to join in and preferred to chill out instead. I played water Apollo, table tennis, football which was mixed children and adults and some other silly games around the pool all of which were good fun they also had aqua gym, water basket, big inflatables and a magic carpet challenge in the pool. All of activities took place at the splash park.
One of the negatives was that there was no yoga or stretching class, which is often really nice thing to do on a morning and my wife missed this.
The entertainment:
A real positive of this hotel!!
I would give it 9.5 out of 10 - the best entertainment we’ve had across all of the holidays.
What is amazing is that they seem to vary it week on week so if you were here for 10 days or more, you wouldn’t see the same thing twice. That’s something I’ve never seen anywhere else.
During the time we were here we had a band which were fantastic, a great Michael Jackson impersonator, a Bruno Mars tribute act who also sang some other songs who was fantastic, an illusion show with a bit of a comedy twist that was really good actually, a queen tribute act that was superb!!
We missed out on the Beatles duet tribute act because of the rotation but I bet they were excellent to. The best thing I’ve ever seen entertainment wise was at this hotel. It was a guy running like a TV type game show where the hotel was splitting into red and blue teams. They had different rounds: name that tune, rounds where you had to get up and simulate different dancers, identifying celebrities from distorted pictures, identifying landmarks etc. This could’ve easily been poor or cheesy but it landed so well. Got everybody up joining in by the end of the night and was really fantastic. Other things advertised for the following week included a street dance group and other bands which we did not get to see.
The kids mini disco starts at 6:30 and then the entertainment starts at 10 allow people to have their food and then head to the bar for an hour.
We never the hotel particularly noisy later into the evening preventing sleep.
The rooms were modern and spacious enough, including the bathrooms and large shower. Our balcony was overlooking the gardens which was nice.
The beds were firm, but comfortable meaning you woke up feeling refreshed.
If this is particularly important to you, when we were there, the split was perhaps 50% British, 30% Spanish, 20% French, German, Dutch.
Any previous comments saying that the entertainment was not inclusive/ mostly in Spanish is absolute rubbish and also a silly comment to make. You’re in somebody else’s country so just get involved. All the kids were made to feel welcome as we are all of the guests from what I could see.
Overall we really loved staying in this hotel and every other family who we spoke to said the same. Even though we tend to change where we stay it would be one of the ones I would genuinely come back to in the future. Everything seems to work really well. The staff are super attentive and the site is large and spacious enough without feeling like you’ve got too far to walk.
Positives
Entertainment
The à la carte experience
Immaculately clean up throughout
Relaxed buffet dining room
Very friendly staff - especially the bar staff
Large pools
Excellent gym
Plenty of sunloungers
Negatives
No freshly made omelette station at breakfasts.
Pool bar can overwhelmed/ too busy at times"
