Firstly, the hotel is gorgeous, and in a lovely, if out of the way location.
Everything feels very modern, and it has obviously had a refurbishment fairly recently.
The hotel however, has mainly Spanish and Protuguese clients, there were only a handful of Brits there, and many staff have problems with English.

The hotel is split into 3 blocks, all on different levels, as the cliffs were obviously cut through to make room for the buildings.
The reception is almost on the second floor of Block 1, which is also the "Ground Floor" - down a gentle ramp from the road.
Floor 1 of the hotel also has a veranda with childrens pool (with various toys/play equipment in), childrens play area, the childrens club, a shop, bar, games room and the first of the swimming pools - this one was labelled as the Adults Pool, but was open to anyone.
To reach the next two blocks, you cross a wooden bridge to a deck on top of building 3.
Building 3 contains the Representatives room - a spacious, and very comfortable room with a number of sofa's and chairs, and a counter where the holiday companies keep folders for their information - no notice boards here, everything is neat and tidy in folders. This is where you have your Welcome Meetings - if your rep actually shows up, ours certainly didn't. The only sign of him visiting the hotel was the fact that the pickup schedule finally appeared 8 hours before pickup...
The reps area also has two internet PC's (1euro for 15mins), and a couple of vending machines, that don't actually have the prices of anything anywhere to be seen.
Floor 0 of building 3 has what is describes as the "Snack Bar" - in reality, the only snacks available from it are plain crisps. This is also where the entertainment takes place at night. There's a large covered stage just outside the bar area. One of the biggest problems here is the layout. To watch the entertainment, you sit in the bar, but there are pillars everywhere, and from about a third of the seats, you can't actually see a thing.
You will also find teh Buffet Restaurant, the real Snack bar and the main pool here.
The pool is very nice, and not deep (1.7m), going to paddling depth.
There are plenty of sun loungers around, and they aren't the cheap white plastic ones either - but no umbrella's.
You also access the beach from here, and what a lovely beach it is!
The sand is fine and golden, and the cove is very shallow to quite far out. Do be careful of Jellyfish though, I got stung on the arm on the first day, and my arm swelled up like a balloon. The hotels Lifeguards carry lotion for jellyfish stings though, which works pretty well (I still have a nasty red tender area though).

Room : Ours was a slightly strange layout. You entered into the bedroom, which leads into the kitchen and the living area that has a sofa bed, and a pullout bed in it.
The bedroom and the main area can be seperated by a sliding opaque glass door.
The bathroom was very spaceous, and the internal walls and doors were all opaque glass, with a huge walk-in shower.
The kitchen comprises of several cupboards (not much storage space), a small sink, 2 ring cooker and a fridge - NO kettle. If you want a kettle, you have to hire one, it was somethign like 14 euros + 16 euros deposit. I have never before gone self catering and not had a kettle! You get a toaster though, so i can't see the reasoning behind it.
To be honest, the lack of a kettle wasn't a problem, as we used a pan on the hob, which heated up very quicky, and got very hot.
The living area had a very nice glass topped table, and a 23inch LCD TV on the wall - unfortunately, the only English channels available were Sky News, BBC News and CNN.
There was a small balcony, with two plastic chairs and table.
Everything was very clean, and the maids came every day to clean.
The room also had two aircon units, which are wired into the doors, so they only work if the doors are shut.
There was a double wardrobe - one side for hanging clothes, the other shelving, and also contains the safe, which uses a combination. The safe cost 14euros plus 10euro deposit for the week, and you get a key to put in the inside of the safe door, then you enter your own combination number for the safe.

Entertainment : We were sold the hotel on the basis of entertainment during the day and evening, something we wanted. The problem is, that the entertainment is aimed squarely at Spanish speakers.
Not once were we able to join in on the daytime activities, because there was no timetable or information available, other than random announcements in Spanish, the one time we were aware of something happening, the person organising it totally ignored the English speakers, and just collected the Spaniards, and went off somewhere.
Evening entertainment doesn't start till late. 9:30pm for the mini disco - again, about 90% of the instructions to the children, and teh music, was in Spanish. 10:30 sees Bingo - this is free, and if you get a Full House within under 60 numbers you get a bottle of cheap champagne, anything over 60 numbers
and your prize is 2 nights in the hotel (how many people are likely to actually use that?). Bingo was done in about four languages, very fast, and very hard to actually pick out the numbers.
The main entertainment is 10:30pm - 11:30pm. They have tried to get around the language barrier here by having dance/acrobatic acts on 5 nights.
We missed Ballet on the night we arrived (shame!), but there was also Belly Dancing, Brazillan dance act that included Capoeria (a martial art), an Oriental dance/acrobatic act, and an African acrobat act.
These shows were actually pf a prettty high standard, and African Footprint were quite funny, but also performed an excellent set of routines.
The final two nights were the standard fair of "MR & MRS" and "MR Barcello" shows by the staff. They weren't bad, and quite funny, but 90% of the dialog was in Spanish.

Food: Although we were self catering, we like to eat out - we just don't like being tied down to a schedule that HB/FB/AI give.
As it's an AI hotel too, there were supposed to be several snack bars open untill 11pm. in reality, only one cafe/snack bar was open with food, and it had very limited hours, 10:30-11:30am and then somethign like 2:30pm - 6:30pm. If you wanted something at traditional meal times, the only choice at the hotel was the Buffet, and it was VERY expensive. Breakfast is 11eu, lunch 20 and evening meal 20 (children under 13 half that price), plus drinks. It would have cost almost

When I arrived at the Barcelo Cala Vinas , it looked very nice and pleasent and as I was on a family holiday i didnt want anything to rowdy . However I was shocked at the lack of enterainment aimed at the Brits when I visited in july .

My room was clean , however I didnt really think the rest of the grounds were the banister near the outside grill was full of manky stuff and got cleaned towards the end of the holiday. There were also cats roaming around the place , whilst my mum choose to eat there, both myself and my partner would venture up the stairs across the bay for different food and also the best chinese I have ever had , it was so nice we visited three times .

I rook my mum away for her 50th birthday , she did enjoy the resort but was very disappointed at the mostly spanish aimed entertainment .

One thing we all did enjoy was the venture into Magaluf to go and see pirates uncut . This was a fantastic show.

This was our second visit to this hotel. After waiting for over an hour for our room to be ready we soon settled in with no problems.

The hotel is situated in a peaceful sandy cove with only two hotels in the bay and a few apartments, the rest is residential. There are plenty of sun beds both around the pools and on the beach. However this year we shared the sea with jelly fish.

The shop was well stocked and staff friendly and helpful. The outside cafe was good with a good choice of food. Magaluf is about a twenty minute walk away so you don't get the noise from this busy town.

One good tip is to walk in to Magaluf and taxi back as it's all uphill and dark at night.

Would go back again.

The room was dirty on arrival, however, after complaining the room was cleaned to a good standard promptly. Also someone stole a pair of our shoes out of our room, and the hotel staff did not make any effort in retrieving them.
The all inclusive was good fare but was slightly restricted e.g. on snacks could have a beef burger but had to pay if wanted a cheese burger and drinks had to be paid for after 11pm
The entertainment was very good for all the family, the pool was good although a family memeber did cut their foot on a sharp object in the water
Apart from this it was a good holiday situated in the lovely bay of cala vinas.

Clean and tidy and the staff was helpful.

Entertainment was ok.

The hotel was idyllic, set in a small cove the steps of the hotel take you straight to a small sandy beach.

The studio apartment was small but comfortable enough. There are two pools, a restaurant and an outdoor cafe. The staff were extremely friendly and the entertainment was rotated on a fortnightly basis so never a dull evening. Maguluf is easily accessable.

This was the first time we had ever been abroad and we were very impressed!