Family holiday
Aug 2022
| WestCoastFamily86
We are just back from a two week holiday at the hotel. We had a wonderful holiday and thoroughly enjoyed our time there.
We, and our kids, met some great friends there and have some wonderful memories from the holiday.
For our next holiday, we would definitely visit the island again, but may look at other areas.
Room
We booked a one bedroom apartment on the first floor and it was ideal for a family of four (we have two children under 6).
The bedroom area has a sofa, which pulls out into a proper bed and is very comfortable. For a family, it means you effectively have one double and two single beds (or another double) in the bedroom. This was quite important for us, as we wanted a separate sleeping and living area.
The living room area / kitchen is big and so is the bathroom. The hotel room was very modern and freshly decorated.
The rooms were cleaned daily, although one thing we noticed is that the cleaning can be quite quick and just covers changing towels, emptying bins and a quick mop (generally, without having brushed beforehand). The cleaning could be a little more thorough.
We had a large balcony, which faced the pool. The balcony itself wasn’t really that well furnished (four basic white chairs and one small table).
Room recommendation
Having seen the studio apartments, we would recommend a one bed apartment for a family. We would also recommend going for a first floor apartment facing the pool.
Room facilities
It was generally well equipped and you could, if you wanted, make meals in the apartment.
We were a little surprised to be charged extra for a safe for the room (roughly 70 euros for the fortnight). The safe did not work for all but 2 days of the stay, as we waited for it being repaired. No refund was offered, despite handing the key back in days before we left.
Also, worth keeping in mind that there is a tourist tax in place when you arrive, which is in addition to your room booking payment.
Entertainment
The kids club team (Adan and Valentina) were fantastic and are a credit to the hotel - they really do care about the children and our children were very fond of them. Indeed, so much so, our children want to go on holiday wherever they are next year.
There were plenty of day time activities for our children to get involved with (crafts, games and painting) and the hotel has football, basketball, hockey / hurling pitches for older kids and a kids playground for all age groups. Darts and water polo for adults too.
One disappointment with the hotel is that it generally closes at 7pm (ish). We had booked based on reviews of evening entertainment, although all of that seemed to have stopped. A large number indoor function / entertainment suite sits entirely empty (including a large bar). The result is that, once the poolside “mini disco” stops at 730pm, all guests tend to depart and head for the surrounding restaurants and bars. This is quite frustrating, as having some onsite entertainment in the evening, and the ability to have dinner there, would allow for a more relaxed stay. Friends our children made would generally want to play together after the mini disco. But, with no entertainment or food available, we had to stop the children playing and head out of the hotel. Most families we spoke to said the same thing and would have liked to have had some evening entertainment and meals available.
You can eat at the hotel during the day, although often the wait was over an hour (with one person in the kitchen). Food covers breakfast / baguettes / snacks. The hotel, again, seemed to be rectifying the wait time, as towards the end of our stay there seemed to be two cooks in the open kitchen at busy periods.
Pool
The two pool areas are good - our children equally enjoyed the kids pool and the larger pool.
The real disappointment with the hotel is that there are far too few sunbeds and even fewer parasols (around 6 for the entire childrens pool). The hotel did seem to be trying to rectify this as, during the second week of our stay, some more sunbeds were brought in, but no additional parasols. We had to buy our own parasol, as it is not possible for young children to stay out in the summer sun without any shade available.
The result of all of this is that you see people “reserving” sunbeds with their towels from early in the morning (before 630am in fact), with all generally gone by before 8:30am. Groups of 8 or so sunbeds being reserved for the entire day by groups of guests, but then not being used until the afternoon. You don’t really go on holiday to set alarms for those types of times so we often ended up having to scrabble around for one lounger when we arrived at the pool.
The hotel also, while we were there, introduced a policy of not being able to reserve sunbeds before 9am (the pool opens at 10am).
Local area
The hotel sits around a fifteen / twenty minute walk to the beach and Santa Ponsa itself. We were quite happy to be a little further out and in a little bit of a quieter spot. I am sure though that our kids would have loved to have been a little closer to the beach so something we will keep in mind for future.
If it is your thing, the local area has a lot of Irish themed bars and a place called “the square”, which has live bands and entertainment on.
Restaurants
We tried a number of restaurants while there and would recommend:
In Costa de la calma
- the royal garden - two good and one not so good meals
- El Jardin
- Grill Manolos
- Burger Club - surprisingly excellent
- Penny’s tea room - good for lunch
- Gauchos
In Santa Ponsa
- Beewi Beach
- Las Olas
- Pacos
We actually had quite a few bad meals in Santa Ponsa itself, generally just the wait time for food being the issue (we sat twice for over 90 minutes without food, which doesn’t work with young children).
We would recommend booking meals the night before, as often the restaurants are very busy (locally and in Santa Ponsa). It does feel as if the restaurants are still trying to get back up to speed post covid and packing tables in without the staff to cope.
Our previous holidays have been in Mogan (in Gran Canaria) and the local area (both Santa Ponsa and Costa de La Calma) was not, in our opinion, as nice as Mogan and a little too touristy for our taste. But that is just our preference.
Things to do
We visited the aquarium in palma with another family from the hotel and it was a really great day out. There was a lot to do and see and a change from the beach / pool. It was roughly 40 euros one way by taxi, but there appears to be a complimentary bus offered by the aquarium so worth looking into.
Other families visited the water park and marine centre close to the hotel and recommended those so would be worth considering.
Taxis
The taxis to and from the airport are around 45 and euros one way. We used Holiday Taxis for our trip and paid extra for a mini bus and kids car seats (x2). It was roughly 90 euros one way. So more expensive than getting a taxi at the airport, but they were very good (arrived on time, had all the car seats there, helped in and out with luggage and amended our booking when asked for an earlier pick up etc). We had a lot of cases and a buggy, which is why we booked the mini bus rather than a regular car.
Manage booking
Wishlist
Contact us
Email sign up
Kids pool
Kids Entertainment
Gym
Air-con
Kids play area
Wifi
.svg)
