Hiya
I have been visiting Tenerife for quite a few years now and have always found the Iberostar chain of hotels to be great. I particularly enjoy Torviscas Playa, Bouganville, and Las Dalias.

You can get a choice of half board or all inclusive at most of them.

Have also stayed at Santa Maria self catering. Although not a 4 star I have found the apartments to be good and cleaned regularly and the staff very friendly.

Personally we always go self catering as there are a wealth of good and reasonably priced restaurants around PDLA and also Cost Adeje.

Sometimes with kids it's better to go half board or AI, rather than eat at restaurants, as the kids get bored and hungry waiting for the meals to be served
whereas in hotels they can just tuck in to the buffet with no waiting

We've just come back from Tenerife (no kids with us nowadays) and prices for eating out are not that good..........
What it will be like by October, I cannot tell.

We were in Tenerife at Christmas & New Year 2008/9 and I can confirm that the prices for eating out, supermarket supplies and basically everything has gone up considerably because of the fall in sterling against the euro. We thought it very expensive and not good value at all.

Hi there
I agree with your views on ocean palace/resort, we have been many times but after our last visit we'll not be returning unless dramatic improvements are made!! Regarding your question on other A.I. hotels i have to say the bahia principe costa adeje/tenerife is a fantastic hotel as we have been many times and is very child friendly. There is a relatively new(2008) hotel in playa la arena called hotel costa los gigantes which we are visiting may half term week. This looks a fabulous hotel and appears very child friendly. There are excellent reviews/traveller photos on various review sites and also on the hotels own website. As its part of the spring hotels(excellent!) group you can find info by accessing springhoteles.com . I hope this helps.