Marina D'or 4

Very disappointing and misleading. There are some possitive, the room we had was a good size, clean and comfortable with a good size bathroom. The splash water park was enjoyed by my children, they didn’t have to queue for slides and was kept entertained. That’s where the positives end. English are not treated the same as Spanish we saw that the Spanish were favoured over English speaking guests which there were not many of and got the distinct feeling we were not welcome at the hotel or surrounding area. As others have said the hotel caters solely for Spanish guests, we found staff spoke very little if any English, this was the same for local shops and restaurants. Be careful in shops as English are charged more than Spanish and they try and charge you different each day. The food was the worst we had experiences in any all inclusive, we never ate at the snack bar as every day was dried up, tinned hot dog sausages, anaemic looking burgers and an unknown meat in a sauce. Very strange that you also couldn’t take drinks out of the snack bar back to the pool, there was security looking staff on the door stopping people. The main restaurant had little variety with unappealing options such as pigs feet one day, pigs cheeks most days. Food served from the grill was very poor often undercooked and fatty. Only possitive is that the deserts were very nice. We did eat out a few nights but the options locally are very limited. We also found on arrival that there are different levels of all inclusive as we were just basic all inclusive we didn’t get access to the sports water park or other restaurants. The local area is very run down with not much to do, you are close to the beach but it’s very narrow most people sun bath on the grass verge. It is also very pebbly close to the water. Overall would not recommend and would not return we were glad to come home

Postives and negatives! This was a really hard review to write as there are counteracting positives and negatives to this place. We are both in our 40s and took our teenage boy with us. We understand what to expect from an AI hotel and are not particularly fussy (for context)... but here is our list of pluses and minuses (in brief and then explained if you want to read further), alongside some advice we wish we knew before we booked. POSITIVES: * Our room (but not experienced by all) * Buffet * General pool (Magic Splash) and activity there * Drinks and drink queues * Sushi restaurant NEGATIVES; * The AI transparency * The AI experience when we'd upgraded * Staff (some) * Restaurants - availability to book and standard of one * The "app" to book other park visits, restaurants etc * Waterpark queues and quality * Reception queue YOU WILL NEED TO SPEAK SOME SPANISH OR AT LEAST TRY! My view would always be that we are in Spain, after all, and I love languages and am happy to try, which would usually prompt a positive reaction from staff, but I was still met with rudeness on occasion. I've never experienced this before. This issue was more difficult for other Brits we spoke to, so if you want a place predominently Brit-orientated, don't book here. There was a general sense of the spanish-speaking being given priority / queue jumping etc, which is a shame to have to write. There were a couple of lovely bar staff but also one who was incredibly rude to people. Entertainment staff were great. The All-Inclusive (AI) is varied so check what you have booked. Normal AI gives you access to the pool across the road (Magic Splash), as well as the beach club pool, and all of the food and drink on offer there. It DOESN'T include visits to the bigger waterpark hotel (Magic Sports) nor the a-la-carte restaurants. The Irish bar is not included (although you can visit and pay for drinks). The impressive looking round pools photographed (Thalasso) are also not included. We upgraded to Ultra AI once we realised (€150 for 3 of us) so the boy wouldn't be disappointed but it wasn't worth it, we found, by the end! Note, this upgrade still doesn't give you priority sunbeds or queue jump at bars and buffets.... this is called Priority or speed-pass or something and is so frustrating when you've queued and someone can jump in! Our room was excellent, we had a brilliant sea view and huge balcony. We did not pay extra for this. I note that two other families we met had hellish experiences with their rooms including bugs and flooding and long delays in staff rectifying this. The resort app is temperamental and booking different hotel waterparks and a-la-carte restaurants was so frustrating. You then approach the hotel reception to book instead and are met with lengthy queues almost all day. As a result we didn't manage to make the most of the upgrade we paid for. A la carte restaurants - we only managed to book the burger bar and sushi restaurant as everything was full (we were entitled to 4 with the upgrade) The burger bar was a disaster. My girlfriend ordered a veggie burger and was served meat. When we questioned this we were met with denial before they changed it for an actual Veggie burger which was fridge-cold in the middle. Anyone under 16 will be given a child's meal regardless. I had to swap with my 14 y/o due to his appetite! We left sharpish! Sushi restaurant was lovely with plenty of dishes coming around on the belt. We never had an issue with the buffet and always found things we liked to eat. The food was fresh and varied. The Magic Splash pool (included in basic package) was our favorite. As long as you get down there before 11am you should be ok getting 2/3 beds together. As the Spanish love a siesta, they leave the beds for lunch at 1/2ish and you have much more availability for the afternoon. There is water aerobics around 11am and sports and pool activities for the kids around 4/5pm when it cools down. Bar queues vary, getting busy around midday but then quieten down when people go to lunch/ siestas. The bar in the pool sells watered down spirits, whereas the one with towel exchange served real spirits. Towels and cups - if you dont take your own beach towel you can pay a €15 deposit for one and then you are given tickets to exchange for clean towels at any time. The deposit is refunded when you leave - TAKE A PHOTO OF YOUR RECIEPT! Cups are €1 each - you won't be served a drink without a cup or cup ticket so remember to make sure you have enough cups or tickets before you set out to ANY of the pools or outdoor bars. Glasses are provided in the buffet and restaurants. Waterparks - dont even bother with the Polinesia waterpark. You won't get a grey sunbed and you are not allowed on the blue ones, despite there being plenty. The park is dated, queues are long for only 2 decent rides. Sports Hotel waterpark is pretty good but queues for the rubber rings you need are 20-30 mins plus and its packed so you are unlikely to get a bed for the day. We had a lovely holiday in general and our son made friends and really enjoyed himself, but we won't return. Its all very hectic and unbalanced at times and the negatives probably outweighed the positives to warrant a return, particularly as we were very lucky with our room.

There were four of us in one room for eight days. It was cramped but okay, there is only one long pillow and one thin blanket for sleeping for each of the two beds.. how does that work when two people are sleeping in each one? Right upon arrival there were stray hairs lying around, the mirror was not clean, why was there no shower head on the bathtub and why were there two showers directly in the walk-in shower? The cleanliness in the bathroom was also not satisfactory, crumbs, hairs, the seals moldy.. overall an impression that it was lived in a lot and left that way! Whenever the cleaning service came, there was still dirt afterwards! The gimmick with the Xbox in the room, with one controller, was really good at the beginning, until you were kicked out of the connection every time and the Wi-Fi didn't work either, and no streaming service worked on the other TV either! The handle on the balcony door was already loose and on the second day it fell off completely; we went to the reception several times and mentioned it, we were on the fifth floor and it was not repaired until our departure! The buffet was extensive enough, except for people who just don't eat meat! The pool was so worn out that individual covers were broken and a whole lot of tiles were broken and lying loose on the pool floor! The entire Magic Hotel Resort was run-down, there was always something broken everywhere; when you wanted to go over to the five-star hotel to the pool and were actually supposed to pay 71€ for four people, you were only offered half, the rest was closed! Dinoland also had expensive admission and the tower plus roller coaster were closed! The water park across from the Magic Games Hotel was also partially closed and run-down, the pool in this water park was milky, when you went down the steps you slipped, one day everyone even had to leave the pool immediately! The gaming hall where you could play for 50 min. For a lot of money was also partially out of order, it was also too expensive for what was offered there! Unfortunately, you got the impression of paying a lot and half of it is out of order or makeshiftly repaired! Why is the pool actually closed from 7 p.m. and why can you only play down at the screen until 10 p.m.?! The elevators also broke down so often! The staff, however, was always super nice and friendly! In summary: it is not worth a second visit, it annoys me to have spent so much money on it!