The hotel itself was very impressive, it seemed very clean and well presented on the surface but on closer inspection it certainly wasn't worth its 4 star rating. All the ladies toilets had at least one broken door lock, the rubbish bins were always overflowing around the swimming pool, and the hotel rooms were not cleaned.

The beds were made each day and towels changed if you left them on the floor but other than this, nothing else was done.

The Food: We were all inclusive and having done 3 holidays like this previously we know what to look for. I don't think these people have a clue. First of all it was only full board with some drinks thrown in, the whole reason we like to go all inclusive is if the kids don't want to get up with us for breakfast then we know that they can go and get something to eat when they are ready. Of course in this hotel they don't have any other kind of food available (unless you class crisps and ice cream as food)! This was our first realisation that things were not right.The food in general was of quite a high standard although it tended to be the same every other day and lots of recycling from one meal to the next.

Drinks at meal times were a joke, sometimes the waitresses came straight over to serve you but on a few occasions we had almost finished our meal before being served. Why they couldn't have left the self service machines on from breakfast time I'll never know. Also if you didn't get to meal times early enough you could wait 15-20 mins to be seated. They clearly didn't have enough staff.

The staff in general didn't particularly make you feel welcome, and you certainly felt like 2nd class citizens, especially in the restaurent which had paying guests aswell so the staff tended to go them first because thats where they make their tips!

Entertainment: On the odd occasion it was quite good, the karioke was the best night, the brazilian dancers were okay but I've seen better in Majorca, the live bands started out good doing a few english numbers and then as soon as they did a spanish song all the spanish got up to dance(waltzies and tangos) and that's all they would play for the rest of the night which got very boring for everyone else. The rest of the entertainment was so exciting i can't even remember it.

The bar: The one bar that we were allowed to go in unfortunately had the grumpiest bar staff ever. It was obvious they had drawn the short straw having to work there or maybe they were doing community service!! There was one women that worked there most days and I think she did sort of smile at me once,(although it could have been wind). To be fair there were a couple of male bar staff who did actually let you have a couple of drinks and were quite freindly but this was rare.

After reading other reports on the Palas Pineda I was very worried, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. The hotel is very impressive and clean and room standards were good.

The bar staff, I certainly recognised the female mentioned as miserable from her description, one day there was only one person being served and I stood on the wrong side of them and she proceeded to serve everyone else who came up and totally ignored and I had to then join the queue when I realised. Generally the queing wasn't bad and the bar was the most frequently used one, us all inclusive guests had paper cups though, even cocktails (mainly in the day), and the paying bar nearby did drinks with umbrellas, sparklers etc! Not that that was a problem for me. They do need to improve on the variety of snacks available, although I would never had fitted any snacks in and my little boy got obsessed with eating crisps all day.

My main problem was the food, everyone else managed except my 5 year old little girl who only likes things like chicken nuggets and fish fingers. I am a vegetarian and this proved very difficult for me, occasionally I got by but the salads were always all covered in black fish eggs and the rest of the meals were mostly meat (which my husband said was of poor quality), we were friendly with another family and they thought the same and we all seemed to have dodgy stomachs! Most places cater for vegetarians nowadays and this was obviously alien to them and the general quality of the food was not four star, the lunches seemed better than the dinners. There was a problem with large queues too, although this was only towards the end of the sessions also it sometimes was a problem to catch the waiters attention to get served with drinks and it would have been good for fruit juice machines that are switched on at breakfast to be left on through the day. Hotel entertainment varied, I agree that the kareoke was the best night a few people went ott and it was very funny, flamenco dancers were good but the local singers did bring out the Spanish older visitors walzing and tangoing which got very boring. Sometimes good entertainment for the children though.

We travelled to Barcelona with Easyjet (flights booked in December costing only

After reading the reports of the people who travelled in July I really did not want to go to this hotel!! I can honestly say myself and my friends had a great time and cannot really fault this hotel. We were never limited on drinks and personally when you are on all-inclusive and having three meals a day who would want anything else than a snack at other times?! We found the majority of staff very pleasant and never had a problem ordering from the bar or during our meals. The waitresses in the restaurant always came over within five minutes and never complained about our long order (there were 8 of us!). On the times when there was not a table big enough for us all they would push two together for us and we were never made to feel that we were being a problem to them. Maybe if the other english tourists visiting the country attempted to be friendly to the locals they would not meet with hostilaty from the staff! I would definitely visit this hotel again and would recommend it to anyone.

My opinion of this hotel is pretty much an amalgamation of all the previous reviews . The hotel looks magnificent on arrival but thats where it ends.

Some bar staff are very friendly but others are downright miserable especially one girl who has a face like a smacked backside with an attitude to match. She tried shutting the bar at 10.50 one night and nearly caused an international incident.

The waitresses were mostly friendly but tended to lose their grasp of english when you were desperately trying to get a drink.

This was our fourth all-inclusive holiday and the first one where we havent been allowed to help ourselves to a drink when eating. The trouble is that the one restaurant we were allowed to eat in was not solely used for all-inclusive guests so the waitresses still had to take drinks orders from the paying guests.

I had no complaints about our room . The maid kept it very clean and nothing went missing. I do know people did have things taken as my son had befriended one of the lads that had their gameboy stolen.

What really got my goat was the fact i was sold this holiday on the promise of a load of facilities at the hotel but on arrival found we could not use them without paying for them. We made a complaint to the rep. Who we did not know existed until we had been there 12 days.

For future travellers his name is Leo and he works for hotelbeds.com but he does represent fleetway and is in the hotel most weekdays about 9.30 - 10 am.

As an all-inclusive hotel it was a bit of a joke, in previous years if we missed breakfast it was not a problem because you knew there would always be something to eat later but not here , unless you are a crisp fanatic.
After this i would only ever go to a hotel that was totally A.I because this was a nightmare , too much confusion on the hotels part.

If you do fly ryanair beware the friendly faces as you check in this side . Whilst they may smile and say thats ok when you are a few kilos over on the ridiculously low 15 kgs luggage allowance they know for a fact that the reus gestapo will collar you coming back ( 14kgs over = 98 euros ) ouch !

This was the worst hotel that I have ever had the misfortune to visit. First impressions are of a pretty impressive place with a marble entry hall, but the attitude of the staff and the amount of items stolen from bedrooms far outweighs the appearance of the hotel.

The rooms are not cleaned as such just beds made and towels changed and ours was full of ants. On the second day my sons gameboy and a substantial sum of money was stolen from our room. I heard of two other children who had game boys stolen and at least three other people who had money and personal items stolen, and this was only speaking to one other family outside our group!

the all inclusive option was a joke, set meal times and no snacks appart from plain crisps and plain ice lollies. The staff ridiculed each other if they happened to be serving in the all inclusive bar, which shut a t 11pm no matter how many people were left queing. The food was in no way four star and had very little to offer children, it was often also recycled from the day before.

on phoning Fleetway travel to complain I was offered no help and told to complain once I reached home. The staff were the rudest I have ever come across and just ignored you if they felt like it. I was shouted at by a member of staff in the dining room for helping myself to food which was being served buffet style anway, while a friend was verbally assaulted by the cleaner about the mess in here room.

The room was lucky if it measured 5 foot by four foot and had two adults and three children aged 18 months to 7 years so a bit of mess was understandable. the family of five had to share four beds as no cot was provided.

I was about to add a report when i read the previous report from Oz which is almost word for word what i would have written in my report.

I just want to add that i would give the food and entertainment a 3 plus rating but not quite 4. The children loved the swimming pool water slide, built in jacuzzi and waterfall. There is an electronic games machine room. There is also a cash point/ATM machine next to the hotel.

We were very happy with every aspect of the hotel and our holiday. We would recommend the local water park and Universal theme park.

pineda palas is situated at the very end of the pineda 'strip' and only a ten minute bus ride from what was a very 'down market' Salou.

We stayed all inclusive, there was 7 of us in the group age ranging from 10 weeks old to 77 years old.

The hotel was spotless and coming from essex's most fussy person for cleanliness and tidyness that is saying something!!

Hotel food was dissapointing but not awful. The choice of foods was a little limited (especially the vegetables) and due to what seemed a lack of staff to deal with the huge amounts of people that stay there, the food in the hot plates often run out with a good few minutes wait for it to be replenished (very annoying when a couple of other dishes on your plate are going cold). Also some of the areas where the large dishes of food are kept are not heated so unless you get what you want from it within 5 minutes of being brought out from the kitchens you will find vast pots of cold food, that just ended up going to waste (or as i discovered recycled into the next days salad dishes!!)

The foods problems however paled into insignifigance when compared to the staff at palas pineda. There was the odd one or two staff here that were friendly and decent (they must be new or management)the rest however were rude and ignorant and as the other reviewer pointed out, it all revolves around the all inclusive part of your stay. The bar ceases to be all inclusive from 11pm onwards and when i say 11pm i mean 11pm. Thats not 11pm and 5 seconds 11pm !!!

If you queue up at 10.55pm to get some 'last orders' and your not served by 11pm forget it,your digging into your euros, and boy do the staff love it when they get to tell the English that they now have to pay.

The bar staffs favourite trick at about 10.45pm is to send two staff out around the tables to collect glasses another 2 bar staff then attempt to wash and wipe the collected glasses between them, this is barely a job for one, so between two of them it looks a little like the chuckle brothers at work. This will then leave one maybe two serving the large queue of holidaymakers just trying to get what they have payed for. Come 11pm the staff drop everything to come back behind the bar to serve telling one and all with big smiles on their faces (and this is the only time they do smile)that the 'free' bar is finished (sorry free?? i thought i had payed already for it??)of course there is then 6 or so bar staff more than willing to serve you and of course take your euros.

This may all sound a bit of a bitter i couldn't drink 24 hours a day story but believe me it is no exageration, and anyway when on holiday with a 6 year old 3 year old 10 week old and an elderly relative, drinking isn't really a number one priority.

My mother in law went to the bar the day before we left and asked for six bottles of water and was told no as you cannot have that much in one go, as there was seven of us in the group is it really ideal for everyone to queue up at the bar so that the ration quota's could be forefilled? And anyway she asked for 6 20p bottles of water not 6 Moet Chandon shandies !!!

So this is what to expect from the bar staff at pineda palas.

The entertainment was a little hit or miss to be honest, we booked the holiday on the understanding that a full programme of kids club would be available and this was not the case. Apparently it was still to early in the season and the full amount of childrens reps were not present. However on the nights that they did have a kids disco it was very good and the kids loved it.The adults entertainment that followed was good in general with a very impressive karaoke night, the chap who runs it has karaoke songs for german english spanish and even russian. The russian karaoke songs are a site to behold, each song last about 20 minutes and are real sorrowful affairs, the only problem is that you cant go to the bar to drown your sorrows after listening to them as the bar staff just make you feel worse!!

Okay so i dont like to finish on sour notes so i'll tell some of the good points.

The pool is excellent, really well designed with little pools for the toddlers, water slides for the kids (and kids at heart!!) and jacuzzi. And of course the hotels location and cleanliness.

Although i have marked my review as a no to return, if and really only IF i could get this hotel at the right price i would return, and what i saved on the price of the hotel i would spend on duty free booze so i wouldnt have a need to visit the bar from hell!!

The palas pineda hotel is a lovely looking hotel. It is everything you could wish for when you arrive in a foreign country, but the looks are deceiving. (never judge a book by its cover.) The hotel is a 4 star rated hotel and it does really look the part. It is very clean in all aspects, the rooms, the lobby, the pool. It is spotless. That is the best bit, the rest is very poor.

The food: The food selection was poor. The food was the same nearly every night and you could not even match it with anything ie: fish and chips, meat and potatoes with veg NO CHANCE. I would say that the all inclusive option at this hotel does not exsist. It is Full Board with set times for your meals 3 times a day.there is no such thing as snacks between your meals as all you are entitled too are crisps and ice cream.

The Staff: Very rude and have trouble understanding english, alot of them can only speak spanish

The Pool: This was very nice. It has one big shaped pool with a slide, 1 pool with a rock water feature and a baby pool for the toddlers to play in. It has an indoor pool which is free to use according to the hotel but you can only use it if you have a swimming hat but it cannot be your own it has to be one of theres which costs 2 euros. You do have to put out your towels on your sun loungers at no later than 8am or you will not get a bed or space around the pool area, so if you are going to palas pineda you will have to become a german throughout your stay.

The entetainment: all round this was rubbish for kids and adults, so if you are looking for a good time forget it. If you are going for 2 weeks then the programme is repeatative and you would have seen it all before. The bar shuts at 11pm on the dot not a second before or after and then you have to pay for your drinks. The entertainment finishes at 12.


The location: It is situated on a beach which is a small pebble-sandy beach. It is a 10 minute bus ride into salou and about 25 minutes to universal med. Catch the bus, do not get conned by the taxis which cost about 15 euros each way.

My final verdict is if you want a nice family holiday with plenty of food, drink and entertainment then stay clear of this hotel. TRUST THESE WORDS I ONLY SPEAK THE TRUTH.

I am currently in Palas Pineda and using their internet cafe to look at the internet (1 euro for 10 minutes). I have been here since Friday night, we had our own transfers (30 euro's from Reus airport), it is now wednesday and I have fallen in love with the place!!! The staff are very friendly, after reading reviews before I came here that the staff were not helpful and were very rude I was a bit wary! But I think they are very friendly and they can't do enough to help you. I don't know if it is that we got engaged on our second night here but they are always saying hello!

Hotel facilities are excellent, indoor pool & Jacuzi is very nice for a break from the sun, and the two pools outside are very spacious leaving room for everyone to go in, granted there are not enough beds out for everyone, but over the other side of the pool there are plenty of beds stacked up for you to take and place where you want.

Drinks and food are great, the buffay style meals are great, salad bar excellent, drink menus are great (especially the cocktail menu). Food does sometimes get repetative, but then again with around 20 different dishes to choose from how couldn't it.

Entertainment. Although I don't have children there seems to be plently of facilities for children, 3 games rooms, a play house (where you can leave them), fancy dress (this is provided), pool games (both children & adults), and games in the evening. Evening entertainment is great, quite a bit of variety.

Bus costs 1euro 50 to go to Salou where there is plenty to do.

There are alot of Germans here, here but alot of them are very pleasent, and smiley (afterall you can't blame all of them for one of them being miserable)!!!

All in all I am really enjoying myself, and I would definatley come back again. I may write again if I find anything different from the above. I hope this helps everyone who is planning to come here. Also if you want to find pictures, go to Google and type in 'Palas Pineda' and it will come up with about 300 pages for you to look at.

Happy holidays

Caroline

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