"Booked this holiday on relatively short notice after tui cancelled our trip to Morocco, as all holidays were now so much more expensive due to the short notice. We found bull escorial and spa and at a very reasonable price thought it looked great, our family consists of me, my wife, a 14 year old and a 5 year old and we told them not to expect much from this holiday, but boy was I wrong.
We arrived late (around 10.30pm) we checked in and was told that we could grab something to eat in the food hall which we thought was nice but due to the time there was not much out, so we just went straight to the room, we had a family room which consisted of 2 single beds pushed together and a large sofa bed, and although the sofa bed doesn’t appear to look very comfy my 14 year old daughter reinforced that she thought it was very comfy, the air conditioning is great although it does blast directly onto the sofa bed so if you have it on during the night you will definitely need to wrap up, but as I like sleeping cold this was great, there is a good size fridge with a small freezer section. There is no kettle but I did see another family bringing a kettle to the reception so I assume you can borrow one from there.
There are towels in the bathroom but You can borrow larger beach towels from the wellness spa with a 10 euro deposit per towel, when you return the towel they return 9 euros. If you want them washed in the meantime they will charge 1 euro, which I was totally fine with.
Our first morning We had a late morning due to all the travelling the day before so didn’t go down to breakfast until around 10am. And didn’t go to the pool untill around 10.30am, I was a bit worried about finding sunbeds as ideally we would need to find 4 together but this was not a problem on the first day as we were able to find them, but the next day seemed to be busier so I did go earlier around 9am to secure our beds as we had pool day planned, their is bed management by the lifeguard which I though was very good, however the lifeguard didn’t start until 10am and there is no management before that time, so there was beds already secured by 8.30 with no-one to be seen. occasionally the lifeguard will walk around the pool looking at the empty sunbeds and asking neighbours how long they have been gone for, after a while he would put down a paper I guess as a warning, I never received one of these papers so I don’t know exactly what it said. At one point I saw the lifeguard looking at some beds and a family shouted down from their balcony saying it’s their bed and they are coming down and he still put the warning down, which I thought was very good because it’s not fair for you to reserve those seats and then not use them! However I will say this was a bit inconsistent as i personally saw a number of sun beds with nobody using them for a good few hours. But I imagine it is extremely difficult to control and manage this so some attempt is much better than no attempt at all! The sunbeds themselves were comfy, the side tables were very good with 4 cup holders in each table, also a mini trashcan underneath each table which was also very good as you didn’t have to leave your sunbed to put your rubbish away. The parasols are also very good allowing you to adjust the height if needed. There is a large pool and a smaller pool which are both connected, in the larger pool you are not allowed any balls but you are allowed the balls in the smaller pool, floats are not allowed in any pool. They also have daily entertainment at the poolside such as children’s mini disco and aerobics and water polo, these were all fun and the entertainment team were great but from what I see from the days that I was at the pool it seemed a bit repetitive, the mini disco for the children playing the same songs every time. And be careful choosing the sinners closest to the pool as things can get pretty heated during the water polo, and you may get a ball thrown at you. We avoided these seats for that reason alone!
The poolside bar was really good and I have to say the highlight of this hotel is probably the staff, they do an amazing job in all areas, everyone really pulls their weight, I heard them taking drink orders in from all different languages and they always done it with a smile on their face, and their never was more than a 2 minute wait to get served the poolside bar also had self serve drink dispensers for your fizzy drinks so you didn’t have to queue and they also had jugs of cocktails and mocktails on the side so you could just pour your own if you wish which was great. Drinks were also great the beer on tap was nice, they generously pour alcoholic drinks with mixers and good selection of branded drinks and the local stuff is still good.
Right next to the pool bar was also an ice cream container which contained 3 flavours of ice cream that you could scoop out. And this was proper ice cream, I have stayed at many all inclusive with terrible ice cream pots but this ice cream was really nice, and you could go up and get it whenever you want. Round the corner from the pool bar is the snack bar, now I have to say this snack bar was amazing, they had fresh pizzas made and left on the counter so you can just take a slice straight away with no waiting, but you could also order burgers, chips, hot dog, chicken nuggets, salad and more, with the best variety of food I have had in a snack bar, the pizzas were also amazing. On more than one day whilst we were chilling by the pool we were all happy to just stay by the pool and eat from the snack bar rather than going to the buffet lunch.
Breakfast lunch and dinner also was very nice, probably not a lot of variaty for fussy children like my 5 year old but she didn’t struggle for anything to eat during our stay.
Evening entertainment was varied, some nights there were singers whilst very good did not interest my children, however one night was acrobatics which my children were very interested in.
And one night my 5 year old left her sliders in the entertainer area, and we didn’t realise until the following morning, the sliders were put behind the reception were we were able to find them thanks to the stuff, on a separate night my daughter left her teddy bear in the toilet without me realising, and a few hours later before i Or my daughter had even realised the receptionist recognised us and called us over to hand the teddy bear back which was amazing and saved me dealing with a huge meltdown if my daughter had realised the bear was missing. Amazing attentiveness from the receptionists.
Overall I could not fault anything with this hotel, it has everything you want from a hotel and a stay away, good food good service, a good location close to a beach. And considering the very reasonable price compared to other hotels makes it even better, at no point did it feel like we were skimping on anything.
Not too much to do with small children although they did have a games room, with bowling and ping pong and air hockey, we did want to play bowling which is free with a deposit, but they operated on a key system where you get a key from reception, and although there was no one playing it when I went down the receptionist said the key has been booked out already, so it appears there is nothing stopping someone from booking out the bowling and keeping the key with them their whole holiday stopping other people from using the bowling alley, there was also mini golf which we didn’t do.
I would definitely recommend a stay here for a nice chill relaxing break away."
