Hi

I'm going in late July and would like to know if the Beach Club is totally finished? We went to the HV last year and the bit of the BC nearest the 5 a-side pitch was still derolict(spelling) and i seem to think i remember a sign saying 'complete for 2005' So just wondered if it was as it was already pretty impressive last year.
Also am i write in thinking the BC is all inclusive too this year? as it wasnt last year. Whilst i'm on a roll.... what about the parasol's? are they taken very very early again? i have kids who need some shelter during the day and last year was like we had to do the old 'German thing' and get up at 1st light just so we could claim a parasol. I did here they altered things a bit after we had left...must of been my comments letter!

Any answers to these would be a help.

Yippeeeee Tickets arrived in the post this morning 2 weeks and counting. Although the weather in London has been hot this week I can't wait to get out to some real sunshine

To answer a few ?. The beach club is finished, people are queue jumping all the time, they are a pain when you are stood patiently waiting for a drink. We flew from manchester teminal 2. Flights on time and ocean 12 was the movie showing on way home. The night time entertainment has moved to the outside stage now, mini disco starts at 8pm, by 8-8.30ish in the morning the parasols around the pool have been taken, the pool water is cold but when its hot it is most welcome! drinks are AI at the beachclub, NOT food. The indoor pool is deep if you have little kids, HV did not hire parasols this year . Hope this has answered a few questions, we just got back earlier today after a lovely 2 weeks away. karen

Karen & Rich

Welcome back
Cant wait to read your review.
Send me PM on what you think of me booking for 2006.
Cant understand why they stopped the hiring of parasols thought it worked really well last year (for us anyway)

Carol

thankx karen & rich..all my q's are now answered ta

This is a review of our stay at the HV hopefully it will answer any questions for people who are going in the near future.

Checked in about 12.00 ish, but as we had been warned before, are rooms werent ready but you do get your A1 wristbands so we could go and have a drink and something to eat.

The rooms are very nice. The bedroom is very big, 2 large queensize beds pushed together and the bathroom is massive, 2 showers a bath and 2 sinks, toilet, bday etc, and enough towels for a football team.
Kitchen is ok but we never used it apart from storing empty suitcases and making a coffee in the morning.
The living area is not as big as I expected. The third bed is a sofa and the fourth bed you have to pull out from underneath it and drag to wherever you want. We did what other people had done and had to put the coffee table and other items out onto the balcony to make room for it. How people with 3 kids managed to fit a camp bed in there as well I have no idea.
The balcony is massive, we were on the 5th floor overlooking the crazy golf course and had lovely views of the mountains and down into benalmedena.

The Pool Area and Beachclub.

The pool area is very nice with plenty of sun beds, but you need to be down quite early to get a sunbed with an umbrella as these are hard to find after 8.30 am. The most annoying thing was that people were getting the best sunbeds early in a morning then not turning up until dinnertime.
The pool is shallow at both ends and dips in the middle and is about 5 feet deep. A lot of children got cut feet from loose tiles including my 2. I would recommend getting watershoes to be on the safeside.
The lifeguards are strict on inflatables, anything bigger than a beachball and they will tell you to take it out of the water, this doesnt apply to the kids pool or the beachclub.
The beachclub is very nice but very busy. Unless you are there very early you have no chance of a sunbed as there arent many.
To answer everyone you can get A1 at the beachclub, but only drinks, food you have to pay for. But be careful only 2 bars do it, the others you have to pay in. The A1 bar is behind the waterfall near the pirate ship the other is right at the top somewhere.
This was done because no one was using the beachclub. We only found out about A1 because another guest told us, they dont tell you in the Hotel.

Entertainment.

Entertainment was very good, if you like that sort of thing. My kids loved it, especially Jason, Katie, Gemma, Vinnie and steph. They work so hard doing activities during the day, then the shows at night time. It was 15 euro for the songs cd which my daughter loves. I ( karen )have finally learnt to do the actions to the Court of king caracticus, so i no longer look like a loony waiving my arms about!! My 12 year old loved the computer room, 1 euro for 10 minutes, he tried wavelength but prefered not to go. My 9 year old did the day time activities, ranging from crazy golf, to shuffle board, her winning certificates are her pride and joy!

Overall we had a great holiday. We did the Gibralter trip from the hotel, which took over 3 hours to get there because for some reason it stopped at a service station for coffee and then took 45 minutes to get through passport control. We only paid for the shopping trip and then paid ourselves for a tour of the rock, which was fantastic. Becareful when you buy any fags or drink in Gib, they are very cheap, stick to your limit because you do get searched by Spanish police when you leave Gib and they will take it off you.

Went to Tivolli World for the evening, great for the kids, not to busy so didnt have to cue ages for rides. Cost 4.50 to get in then 10 euro for a wristband to go on all rides. If you go on log flume beware as you will get drenched but great fun.

Torremolinos water park expensive for what you get 30 euros for me and son. If you have never been to a waterpark before it is ok but if you have done the one in Tenerife or Bodrum youll get bored very quickly, not many slides and long walks in between them. 9 Euro for a locked and 3.50 for a sunbed.

Bad Points

On 2 occasions we went out for the day and came back to find our room door wide open, on one of these occasions the wardrobe with the safe in had been opened. After the 2nd time we spoke to the manager who said it hadnt happened before, it would not happen again. But then a rep told us that it had happened the week before we arrived. Whilst we were there, there were 3 seperate incidents of wallets stolen from the hotel, 2 of them had just changed travellers checks at reception.

Cues at the bars, watch out for the ignorant ones who push in and refuse to cue. If people were polite and waited their turn the waiting time would be cut by half. Admittedley the bars are understaffed but they did there best.

And my last gripe goes to the parents who completely ignored there kids and just let them run riot. Screaming and shouting till all hours, playing football where people were trying to have a quiet drink, and that was inside the hotel. They were running around different floors, playing in the lifts, screaming ect and this could still be heard until the early hours of the morning!
Would we go back? kids definatly would, we would not. It is to isolated, to far to walk when hot ( although we did use the buses they could get very busy ) and we like to try different places every time. We would recommend this hotel to others thinking of going, but go AI or upgrade when you get there as it is expensive.

Hello there
Just booked to go the Holiday Village as we were going to the Caribe Resort in the Costa Dorada but just changed. Cost a fortune so I'm expecting alot. There is 8 of us going. I was reading the reviews and was wondering how grim is it around the pool, I realise that the pool itself is nice but read that rubbish and plates etc are left (shame on you lot) and are still there in the morning. I am a fussy bu**er so do want to know that the pool area is clean. Does it get tidied and cleaned at night??

Also does anyone know if anything is going to be done regarding the pool tiles?

Sorry if my questions seem trivial but to me it isn't!!

Yours fusspot
K

Just read your review of the HV, glad you had a good holiday.
Bit concerned about your appartment being broken into....dont fancy returning after a day out to find that all my stuffs been swiped! I hope you didnt have too much taken.
Do you know what kind of measures where being taken to prevent this from happening again?
Im travelling out next Sunday for a week with my boyfriend, cant wait to get some sun to my milk bottle legs!
Do you know how regualar the buses are?
And finally, I visited the water park at Tenerife a few years ago and thought it was great. Ive heard that there are two water parks not too far from the Hotel, did you visit both or just the one at Torremolinos?

Cheers

Caz

Hi, the pool area is not really dirty, its just lazy people leaving rubbish about. There are bins that are emptied severeal times a day, the pool is cleaned every morning i think. I didnt find it to bad most days. Our apartment was not broken into, the cleaners just left the door wide open when they had been in, nothing was taken but on 1 occasion the wardrobe door( that the safe lives in ) was open on our return. On both days we had been out all day on trips so we were very lucky. I am sure you will have a lovely time as we all did. karen

I forgot to add that the buses are fairly regular, 2 an hour, there are timetables by the bus stops and they can get busy but it is 1 euro to benelmadena and 1 euro 15 cent to fuingerola, if you go to fuingerola you must get your return ticket from the kiosk BEFORE you get on the return bus. Finally, both water parks seem small in comparison to the tenerife or Turkey parks, and as my son is a bit of a dare devil he was fed up after a couple of hours but they seemed ok to me. karen

Hi Karen from another Karen

So I take it that the pool area (not just the pool) is cleaned aswell. It's just we were away on holiday last year to the Bahia Principe, Tenerife and the pool area in certain areas were disgusting with left over food still there for days. It was hosed down a bit eash day but never swept. i know, I know i am a fussy thing but my one year old son was in hospital for 2 days last year and my other son & hubby were both ill. I just don't want a disaster like year. We can be unlucky at times!! When were you there, Karen?

Hello karen, we just got back on Friday, if you are unhappy with any bit of the cleanliness, report it. We had room 559, friends were in 560, neither of our bathrooms were cleaned for 10 days, although the towells were changed daily. I told the reps but nothing was done so i asked to speak to the manager, Frank. He sorted it! He starts work at 6.30pm. The pool area could get a bit grubby, but my concern was no soap, or watered down soap in the toilets! That i found disgusting! My daughter ended up sick for 2 days and i had to fill a form in from the reps, but i think it was just a bug. Did notice lots of kids had barking coughs as did my jess. I would like to point out that none of this spoilt our holiday, we encountered a sick child, door left open twice by maids, nightmare trip to gibralter etc but still had a good laugh, the entertainment kept my kids amused, they were happy , so that made me happy. Anything else, just ask. from karen x

Hi Karen

Thanks for all the info, it's been a great help!!

Hope you don't mind me asking you a couple of questions. Do you get fresh pool towels every day?? What was the food and drink like, especially the beer and wine. Not that we drink alot but last year at the Bahia Principe the wine included in the all inclusive was the worst I had ever tasted yet the year before we were there it wasn't too bad!! We ended up buying bottles from the hotel which is a pain when you have paid for your drink already. Oh, sorry, just remember something else. You know in the balconies do they have a thingy that pulls out of the wall to dry bits and pieces on!! You'll be thinking i'm mad and you'd be right.......................

Thanks again
Karen

PS Haven't been on a first choice flight for years, how was it??

I think i may stop reading the forum till i get there..... as i am starting to get a little concerned

Ill kids
Bad security in rooms
No sunbeds
Mediocre food and trama at the bars

I booked the hotel knowing its location and that the entertainment was a bit cheesy,but I didnt mind a bit .

Looking back at the reviews for last year, they seemed a lot more positive by now

Anyway hope everyone on here has a fab holiday and the kiddies too

Hi quirkygirl

I'm also worried!! My hubby keeps telling me to stop reading about it as it's making me even more worried.
When are you going??
Karen

in 13 days!!

Hi from the HV,

It is very hot today, and that is not just the temperature of the sun

There are queues at times for a drink at the poolside bar, but they do move reasonably quickly. The HV has got quite good facilities, but is certainly not 4 star. The rooms are a good size, but I am afraid the service in the rooms by the maids is not good enough.

Some things to bear in mind. You will need a 15 euro deposit for EACH beach towel, refundable. You can change them as often as you like.

There is a deposit for the safety deposit box in the room, which I dont really object to, but I was amazed that you have to pay 2 euros a day rental for the box.

If you or your kids wnat to play football, I repeat play football, not the coaching, it costs 2 euros for kids and 3 euros for adults.

We took a coffee up to our room from the piano bar and noticed that the maid did not clear it from the room the next day, perhaps we should have taken it back, but hey 4 star, I spoke with reception about this and they said, "you shouldnt have taken a cup up to your room, it is not allowed" and that is even if you are AI.

The pool is nice bu gets very busy, the beach club is a little disapppointing, not very exciting.

The food is average, there are occasionally some nice stuff but generally is it just okay. The variety is good and breakfast is quite good.

The FC reps and entertainers are okay, there seem to be loads of them but you can never find one, if that makes sense.

Last year we went with Thomson and I have to say, there reps and entertainers stoiod out as exceptional compared to FC.

I will post more fully when I get back, but it si not all doom and gloom, but it could be a lot better.

Happy hols

Andy

Hey Quirkeygirl/Karen.

Cheer up Like you I am a little concerned at some things that have been posted like the ill kid's, room doors left open, cut feet and ignorant holiday makers who seem to think they are exempt from Queing but I refuse to to let anything or anybody spoil this holiday for us. Iam starting to really get in the holiday mood and am sure that we will all have a great holiday so keep smiling and see you there

Tony

One thing I forgot to mention is that it seems to be really getting busy at the H/V I was hoping that it would not be as packed seeing as it will still be term time when we go would hate to think we are going to be like sardines round the pool or beachclub.

Tony