Reception area was lovely.Room superb. The food was not up to the 4* that it states.Beach club was absolutely brilliant and the best thing of the whole holiday. Do not go self catering because the shop does not sell food so you either have to travel 15 minutes in a taxi which will cost 15Euros.Italian restaurant was the best meal we had all week. A definite MUST.
Location. awfully long way to go anywhere,,Taxis over priced. No pubs to escape to of an evening as the entertainment is Pants!!! They need to bring in more professionals to do the shows etc in the evening. The reps try but they sometimes looked to tired to put 100% into it. Village to me seems to BIG and impersonal.

We've just came back from a fantastic week in the holiday village. I can't believe the bad reports some people have given this hotel!!
The hotel rooms are spotless & very generous (the bathroom for example,was 3 times as big as ours at home! 2 sinks, 2 showers, room to swing a child). Nice large balcony with access from bedroom and living room.
Fantastic pools -each with a different theme and each aimed at a different age group.
Great variety of food at the resturants and very pleasant staff.
Entertainment was very professional and not too in your face.
But best of all.........the measures of drink in the bar!! Gin & tonic heaven!

Well, where should I start, this was a fantastic weeks holiday and I really can't grumble about anything (except that we weren't there for 2 weeks), even when the electric and water went out for half a day due to a thunder storm, we were still well looked after!! In fact we arrived home Sun tea time and by Monday lunch time had booked for 2 weeks next year back at this hotel.

Bit more detail:

The hotel was really clean, including our rooms which were cleaned every day.

The rooms are really large and beautifully presented. We had a view of the train line which was not hideous as it was at the foot of the mountains and the trains never bothered us at all. The poor donkey that everyone moans about was barely able to bray so how he manages to wake people is a mystery.

The food was plentiful and there was so much variety to chose from (noone could starve in this hotel unless they just refused to eat!), sometimes it was lukewarm (but always well cooked) and there is a microwave to heat it up. Most of the staff were very pleasant, there were a couple who looked a bit fed up but after witnessing how some people spoke to them I can't say I'm surprised!

The drinks are flowing all day long and I eventually had to ask them to reduce the amount of alcohol lol.

The entertainment certainly wasn't Broadway, but to say the reps aren't actors they do a very decent job (big well done to Donna, Darren, Lauren, Monique and Tom). Every night there was entertainment in the Malaka bar and the Piano bar and most nights down in the Irish bar too.

The kid's clubs were amazing so safe and secure and all the children had so much fun. They were even taught off the National Curriculum as they were holidaying during school time.

The pools at the Beach Club and the hotel were fantastic with something for everyone.

The location of the hotel is fine just a ten min bus ride to either town and in fact, one day I walked from Benalmadena marina to Torremelinos (not intentionally) and this didn't take very long.

I'm not going to go on anymore about how fantastic this hotel is, I was dreading going there after reading the reviews and have realised that some people can moan about anything. We never once had an upset stomach or even a mosquito bite. I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone with children but you would need to go all inclusiveand you would have a wonderful holiday.

This hotel is basically split into 2 being connected by a huge and welcome reception area. We stayed in the larger of which the shops, cyber cafe, kids club, cinema , bars etc were in.
Teams of cleaners swarming all over the place. Our room which was a pool view/sea view was well worth the extra money. Separate living area with TV/DVD, large bedrooms with 2 double beds, bathroom with two basins, bath, bumwasher(if yer into that)2 showers and plenty of towels, dressing gown and even soft slippers. Oh, did i mention it was marble-tastic!!
Navigation around the hotel was easy once you got your bearings and if you did require any assistance the reps and hotel staff were always at your disposal.
Loads oflifts taking you swiftly to whatever level of floor you required. If you want a real beaty of a room, we had 538. Top floor, no passers by at night because we were right at the corner of the hotel. Beautiful sea and pool views and very large balcony that led to the bedroom and living room.
Entertainment.....hhhmmmmmmm. I have not experienced entertainment quite like this before (90% of this was done by First Choice reps) The bingo and kids stuff was ok, with the bingo reaching 800ish euros one night!!!The entertainment staff could kinda sing if you know what i mean. At one point during the week, the singing was that bad it was entertaining me to the point of nearley peeing my pants with laughing so much. But i would like to say that these guys are on the go all day and night and however they muster up the energy to entertain us layabouts i will never know.
Bar staff....if you found a happy one, always make sure you get served by them. 95% grumpy to 5% happy was the ratios on the week i was there. If you spot Laura behind the bar, a cute Spanish girl with a cheeky smile complimented by a brace, grab her. She looked after me well. All you need to do really is just try the obligatory "Hello" and "Thankyou" in Spanish and i think they give you a little more respect for trying the lingo. If you dont bother trying, i dont think they do, so put the effort in.

the food in the restaurant was abismal, bland and not very well cooked. food at the snack bar was very limited in choice and quality, numerous uncooked burgers were given. ok if you like junk food just watch what the kids eat. on the other hand if you dont mind walking for 10 minutes in the blazing heat and hiking over a very large iron bridge you can find the lunch time restaurant at the beach club which serves much the same food as the evening restaurant. hotel and surrounding area very clean as were the rooms. the location of the hotel was a dissapointment too far to walk anywhere which wasnt explained in the brochure and the taxis were 10 euros into benelmadena each way, taxis only take 4 people so we had to have 2 each way. most of the staff were friendly and helpful however the few that werent made up for it. a few bar staff were reluctant to serve you too much and didnt like being asked to fill your glass more than half way. one of managers were particularly rude and unhelpful. first choice enternainment were the best we've had, they worked really hard and made the holiday. we wouldnt contemplate going there againdue to the food and location.

The hotel is situated between Fuengirola and Benalmadena, you have to use public transport or taxis to explore the outside world unless of course you like to be imprisoned for your holiday. I can recommed the market at Fuengirola on Wednesday morning however watch out for the timeshare people who promise you the earth as soon as you jump out the taxi. The hotel has a lovely large reception area with a fountain and the staff here are helpful. The rooms are located in two blocks and they are accessed by lifts which are cramped, mainly not working or very slow to arrive. The rooms are spacious for a family of 4 persons, you have two double beds and a pull out sofa bed. The bathroom is large and has two showers & sinks with a bidet. Kitchen has a hob and fridge which is stocked with cold drinks every day. The food at breakfast time was very nice you could either have simple fruit, freshly cooked omlettes or traditional english fayre. Dinner snacks can be ordered from the bar by the main pool, this was pizza, chips, burgers, hot dogs, toasted sarnies etc.
I would recommend avoiding this if possible as the quality and quantity was very poor and you are attacked by pigeons, sparrows and flying beetles (yes they are big and one landed on my son!). The alternative is to travel over the footbridge across the road (its not as far as some people have made out) and dine at the buffet in the beach club restaurant which has more selection and you can sit down in an air conditioned atmosphere. Evening times are themed, italian, mexican, indian etc and you have a wide choice of both local and tradtional food for those who miss chips, nuggets, burgers etc! On the whole this food was acceptable and properly cooked although I must say not worthy of a four star rating. You csn have as many free ice creams as you like although they are only yoghurt pot size and the beach club always ran out by mid afternoon. Also at the beach club you also have to show your room card to order drinks unlike the bars in the hotel where they just see you wearing your wrist band, this is annoying as sometimes when you have jumped out the pool and fancy a nice cold drink you have to go back to your bag/lounger and get the card, it's also a bit of a trek from the loungers by the pool to the bars (wonder if this was done deliberately to reduce the ammount of consumption!). The all inclusive drinks are local beers, wines & spirits and the measures are generous. They appear under staffed and there were 1400 people in the hotel the week we were there! You get to know the friendly and not so friendly bar staff very quickly! Hotel cleanliness is good although the marble floors in our room and balcony had not been washed for sometime. Unfortunately some parents believe that because they are there for a good time and the hotel is surrounded by fences that it is okay to turn a blind eye to their kids behaviour and therefore gangs of teenagers roam the corridors and act in anti-social fashion with all kinds of language (and I don't mean spanish!). There were some young children pouring their soft drinks into the fountain outside the italian restaurant and there parents were sat no more than 10 yards away doing nothing! I am no snob but the whole environment attracts a certain crowd who spoil it for the majority. The italian and mexican restaurants are worth a visit. Beware of the sun louger leeches who reserve their territory in the early morning despite signs everywhere saying that if they do so before 9am then the hotel will reomve their towels, it never happens and First Choice are not intrested and pin it on the hotel management! We had a good holiday but would not return because of the chav Brits abroad culture.

Just returned from two wonderful weeks at this hotel with a 16 year old and a 12 year old. The hotel was fantastic. Lovely clean, comfortable room with a brilliant view. Food was plentiful and varied with a good choice every day. The location is slightly out of the way but only a bus or taxi ride away to the neighbouring towns. The hotel staff were friendly, although always very busy. The entertainment was good (we have definitely seen a lot worse). All in all an extremely good hotel with excellent facilities (especially for small children). The Beach Club over the road was excellent, with water flumes, wave pool etc. Would highly recommend this hotel and would definitely visit again! No complaints whatsoever.

We have just returned from a fantastic 2 week holiday at the Holiday Village, Costa del Sol and I feel compelled to put my review on this site.

Before I went I was getting aprehensive about the reviews I read and wondered if I had made the wrong choice... how wrong was I, the hotel was fantastic very clean and cool, the rooms were impressively large.

We always go all inclusive but this year the holiday village topped the poll for me. The food was plentiful and varied ( if you don't like bacon fatty don't eat it simple as !!!!) the entertainment team were fantastic and the kids clubs reps were great. T

he new wave pool and aqua slide had just opened whilst we were there and the beach club really makes the hotel special any where else you'd be paying hundreds to visit a site like that everyday !!!

Overall I give this place 11 out of 10 . I'm very jealous if you're reading this prior to your holidays here !!!

p.s your formal style lunch is served in the beach club over the road other wise snacks are at the poolside bar. personally i'd eaten too much at breakfast to bother !!!

p.p.s a visit to the doctor is expensive at 80 euros i had a chest infection whilst I was there so decided to bypass the doctor and headed straight for the local pharmacy and was able to buy antibiotics over the counter for 5 euros !!!

We have just returned from out second visit to this hotel (first one last year) and I feel compelled to say that this will be our last visit!

Even though some parts of the holiday were fantastic - we have serious reservations about other aspects. The hotel itself was the same as last year and the staff were great, but there is one big difference!!

The pool was closed on at least 5 occasions while we were there because of excrement in it (yes i did say poo!!) and although i know the reps can't be held responsible for this happening - they can be accountable for their attitude towards it and us!! The First Choice reps were rude about us complaining and really didn't seem to care that we paid a lot of money to stay at this resort. I am in touch with several other holidaymakers who were there with us, and am in the process of gathering all their complaints (of which there are many) to forward on to First Choice.

The entertainment staff were great however, and made us feel really welcome putting huge amounts of effort into their shows, I would like to thank them for that. So Tom, Darren, Lauren, Donna and Monique - well done to you all. One other special mention must go to Tom Oldaker (we nicknamed him Tom Tiebreaker) for his poolside quizzes each day - they were great!! Thanks Tom.

We have just arrived back from our 2 week holiday in this hotel and I really wish i was still there!! I was unsure about what to expect because of the mixed comments from the reviews but was astounded by the place.

The Hotel is massive! Took us a few days to get to grips with everything but the signs on the walls helped. There are 2 blocks both with rooms but block A is much bigger and it contains the games room (very big!), irish bar, laundrette, indoor pool and health club, Piano bar, Wavelength Room, tweety Creche and other childrens clubs, mini supermarket and mini cinema. So as you can see there is a lot inside the hotel. All those things are on level -1 but the irish bar, laundrette, indoor pool and health club are on -2. Level 0 is the reception area and First Choice Desk. The reception area is where you can hire the table tennis bats (20 euro deposit-for 1 hour)and also crzy golf putters (never used them but presume same charge). You can also purchase your laundry tokens here (3 euro per token). I must warn you because we made this mistake, for the washer you need 2 tokens and the tumble dryer needs 1. we never got told this so a couple of trips was needed to reception.

Food - we were all inclusive which i would highly recomend but if you have booked self-catering don't worry because yo can change once you get to the hotel. Lots of signs telling you about that! Breakfast is served in the main buffet restaurant and so is dinner. Lunch is served over in the Beach resort but you can also get hot food in the bar beside the main pool. Mexican and Italian restaurants were also very nice and you feel quite seperate from the rest of the hotel which is nice. You have to book these though!

The main pool was nice but we were always over in the Beach resort. The gates for that open at 10am and there was always a queue of people waiting to get over so they could put a towel on a bed. Quite sad really but if you want a parasol that is what you need to do! Be warned that if you wander down say 12.30pm, don't expect to get any shaded beds at all. Lucky if you actually get a bed!

there is a baby pool at the right hand side which goes up to your knee's. There is a pool next to the bar which is normal size with a litlle waterfall. then down again to one with a pirate ship which was cool again deepish water and also some bubble beds! and down again to the sort of main pool at that side. There the normal pools but there is also a wave pool with two slides which you go down in the rubber rings. This was my personal favourite and they opened about a week ago! the waves are on for half an hour then off for half an hour. I mudt warn you that the waves are really rough and small children will not be able to swim in them but you can float around in your rubber ring which is fun. A lot of people were complaining about the pools being closed but all i have to say is that as you can see it doesn't really matter if one pool is closed because there are plenty of others you can go to! Plus at least they are taking cleanliness seriously!

Rubber Rings - you can hire these from the little shop as you enter through the Beach resort. You give 20 euros and you get a band with a token and also a loose token. you go down past the wave pool and just before the Football pitch you turn left. In there you give them your loose token and they will give you your rubber ring. at the end of the day you take your rubber ring back and they will give you a token. You take it to the little shop and give both the band and the token and they will give you 17 euros. So 3 euros day-hire and 17 euros deposit. You do this everyday you want a ring.

Overall i really enjoyed the holiday and would definitly go to another holiday village. I would also fully recomend it to all families and don't really understand many of the complaints!