Marina Parc Hotel

We booked our first holiday abroad since having children. Everything looked perfect online when booking, then we came here to read reviews, and was a bit out off and concerned, but we’d booked it. So glad we did, for the end of August, none of the bad reviews seemed fair. I’ll list our holiday, and then a few minor bad points to give you the full picture. We arrived about 11am and the room wasn’t ready until 4pm, however once checked in we were given our bands which meant we could get something to eat and drink, and our cases were put into a safe room. This gave us chance to get our bearings and have a look around. What we didn’t realise is it’s like a small village rather than a closed in resort, and split into different areas. 3 good size pools, plenty of places to get a snack and drink. On a whole the place was very tidy. When we got into our room, it was a bit plain, but had what we needed. It was clean, and the Air Conditioning worked well. Our family room was 330, and on the walk to it at the back of the building, the land next door was rough with rubbish and junk which let it down a bit. This could be easily rectified so surprised this hasn’t been addressed. We often used the pool by the restaurant as it was great for our 7 year old, but also the baby pool was safe for our 18 month old. There was always a great selection of food each time we went, quite often replaced so always fresh and all the staff I came across were great, including evening bar staff. The water park was good and also able to eat and drink there as part of the resort. At the water park plenty of life guards, however around the pools there isn’t any. Before having children this hadn’t dawned on me, but I suppose looking back, a lot of places similar don’t have them, but would have been nice knowing there was another set of eyes keeping watch, not that we took our eyes off our children. Children’s evening entertainment started a bit late (9pm) and was a bit repetitive, so that could be improved. I know plastic glasses are safer, but there was so much wastage. I made an effort to take mine back when I could for a refill, but even then some staff binned them and got a fresh. Overall we had a great stay. Short walk to the beach and a few shops. I would highly recommend, those leaving bad reviews must have been expecting surroundings, food and quality of the Ritz.

We spent 4 nights at the hotel in September. The guests are mainly families. Around half British and the rest a mix of nationalities. My expectations were low, given the price for an All-Inclusive, here are my impressions: - THE GOOD: - grounds are nice and well kept, many pools and gardens - included acuatic park, great for kids and the main reason why we chose it. It’s not huge but fun and clean - food: buffet food was better than expected, with many options. I specially enjoyed breakfast and dinner grilled items - rooms decor: the hotel is run by a new management and you can see they are making efforts for updating the decor - desk staff were very nice - THE AVERAGE: - mattresses could definitely use an update - pool towels are 1EUR/day and you need to leave a deposit. I would rather pay a euro more a day and have them included! - THE BAD: - drinks: oh boy drinks are soooo bad, from the coffee (from a dispenser, fake tasting), to the juices (full of sugar and very artificial), the included bottom shelf liquor (I mean even white Bacardi and Beefeater are top shelf and extra cost!), even the water tastes bad (like chlorine). There are also 2 kids club (one run by TUI and another by hotel staff. The latter had strange hours of operations and we could not use it). There are also nightly animations but didn’t go so can’t comment).