"Very quick transfer from the airport to the hotel, only about 20 minutes.
Arrived at the hotel at about 11pm to be greeted by the most miserable woman at the reception desk. We had our passports ready and everything we usually need to check in to a hotel in Spain then she asked to see our booking confirmation email. We didn't know what she meant so she showed us an example of it. We then had to search through all our TUI emails to find it, we booked about 10 months ago so that was a lot of emails. Eventually we found it and she made us email it to her. This was such a weird thing, surely the information we provided and the passports with the names on the booking should have been enough.
We eventually got to our room, our flight was over 3 hours late so we were exhausted and wanted a coffee and to chill… no kettle, nothing in the room to make a coffee. Never have I stayed in a hotel where they don't provide basic tea and coffee equipment in the room.
On to the room itself now, it was spacious, nice big bed, bathroom was decent with a nice walk in shower. Balcony was pretty decent but had very cheap plastic furniture. It was overlooking the pool at the back of the hotel. We had our room “cleaned” twice during our 7 night stay, I say “cleaned” because it wasn't cleaned. They made the beds but didn't actually change the sheets. I know this because I had a mosquito bite on my leg that I had scratched on my second night and left a small blood dot on the sheet, that blood dot remained on the sheet for the entirety of our stay which means the two times we had our room cleaned they just made the bed and didn't change the sheets. They also did not fill up the hand soap in the bathroom with soap, instead they topped it up with water. It was a thick gel like hand soap on the first few days then once they cleaned the rooms it was watery. They also did not top up the shower gel at all, not even with water like the hand soap.
On to the restaurant now. I can't really fault the food, it was decent and there was enough choice to please even fussy eaters. However, there is not enough space in the restaurant to accommodate the capacity of the hotel. If you're not in the queue at the opening time for breakfast and dinner then you'll be waiting a long time to get in and by that time everything is either gone or stone cold. They also allow parents to let their children run riot in the restaurant which resulted in them almost getting food and drink dropped on them constantly. There is not sort of queueing system in the restaurant to get to the food, it's a free-for-all with people pushing you out of the way to get to what they want (especially the French guests).
The pool area is nice, we only ventured out there once because we had other things to do, there's also water slides and a small park around the side but we didn't go around there at all so I can't comment on the quality of them.
There is also an indoor spa pool on the basement level which is adults only between 11am-2pm. There are two hot tubs, a sauna, a steam room and a big spa pool. The girl working on the reception desk for the spa was extremely polite and nice. The pool was very nice but could do with a bit of repair, there were some tiles missing and some covers for the jets were missing too. The hot tubs also had some tiles missing too. The doors for the sauna and steam room both need some repair, they are glass and don't open properly, they scrape on the floor and make an awful noise and the ceiling of the steam room is peeling off.
One night it was about 2am and the people in a room a couple of doors down from us were making a lot of noise, I wanted to call down to reception to let them know but there are no instructions on how to use the phones on the room so we had to walk down to reception to let them know. The man on reception instantly got the hotel security to follow us up to our floor and show him where the noise was coming from and sorted it right away.
Here is a list of the good and bad points of the hotel. Starting with the good:
Ideally located for walking to Portaventura World
Decent food
All communal areas kept very clean
Majority of staff are very nice
Big outdoor pool
Big indoor pool and spa
Big beds
Nice showers
Here are the bad points:
No tea or coffee making facilities in room
Children running riot EVERYWHERE
People slamming doors at all hours
Rooms not cleaned properly
Chaotic restaurant
A lot of areas need a refurb
A sewerage smell lingering in most areas
Having to keep your card with your room number on you at all times making the wrist bands absolutely pointless
We had a 2 star experience in a 4 star hotel, I'd definitely recommend spending a bit of extra money and going somewhere different. It definitely needs a couple of stars knocked off or a complete overhaul."