Sol Dunas Family Fun — Hotel in Sal

Arrival: Finding the coach to the resort was messy as it was unclear who exactly was the TUI rep when we got outside the airport. Coach journey to TUI Suneo was maybe 15-20 minutes. Once at the hotel, it took 40 minutes standing in a queue to check in as there was only one member of reception staff.

Having checked in we were vaguely told: "Your rooms are in that block over there". The paths around the hotel are very poorly lit and the room numbers are not all that clear. After 10 minutes of wandering around in the dark we stumbled upon our rooms.

Suneo: The rooms are a generous size and quite well appointed and at first glance, clean. There is a south facing balcony, with no view of any value but you can dry your clothes on the railings and they dry fast. The bath is impossible to get out of. The shower plunger and plug were broken. There was no resort information in the room, it's very much a work it out for yourself resort.

Housekeeping is cursory and the tea, coffee and milk were never replaced. Nothing is actually cleaned, which explains the bedbugs - more on that later. A bit of bleach around the loo would have been nice. The repairs are either bodged or patched and there is a distinct lack of plug sockets in the room and what there is, none come with USB sockets.

The staff work hard but are mostly unsmiling. Their English is not great, which creates obvious problems. Trying to get an issue fixed, is a very slow process. Beware the staff buggies that fly round the resort. They are driven quickly and most don't have working brake lights so, you never quite know what their next move is. The TUI Reps have to be the most invisible - to the point of being completely pointless - I have ever seen. They pop up every now and then at the rep desks in reception but are nowhere to be seen around the resort, which is a problem as you have no-one to get any information from, coupled with resort signage which is lacking and at times misleading and activities that are not advertised. The kids entertainment at night seems to be themed but what those themes were, I couldn't tell you as no-one was told. There was also ' 'Pirates Day' and some displays went up around the resort all lacking vital information: What, when, where, what...

Main Suneo Restaurant: The food is ok. Mass buffet help yourself, school dinners style catering. Seasoning seems to be a no no. The menu is not very inspiring generally the same dishes or variations of:

Various meat - often overcooked Fish - often overcooked Veg and variations of. Cold meats, cheese, fruit, bread Mousse style desserts

It all gets dull after a few days though they did have a BBQ on Saturday night but didn't tell anyone or advertise it. As the lad was stuck in a dark corner away from the entrance to the restaurant, no-one saw him, consequently he had zero customers and what food he had BBQ'd was stone cold. It was a great shame no local dishes were served up.

There aren't enough coffee machines in the restaurant, they break down a lot and consequently there is always a queue and invariably what you want has run out before you get there. This issue seems a particularly regular daily problem both from first hand experience and from reviews on various platforms. You can't have a hot drink at lunch from these machines. I never found out the reason why but TUI kindly made that choice for me. It seems the best time to eat is early or when the restaurant is shutting, which is not so easy if you have kids.

Drinks options were limited.and there were never enough staff at the bar. On the Sunday, I counted a queue 21 deep at the bar.

Finally, on the food front, of the four of us, three of us came down with vomiting & diarrhea. The non-meat eater didn't. Make of that what you will. Again, vomiting & diarrhea appears with depressing regularity on reviews elsewhere.

Overall: Bed bugs and being abandoned at the airport by TUI on the flight back, which was delayed by 4 hours. Not a TUI rep in sight and zero communication blew it for me.

I wouldn't bother...

Pure Honest Review: If you like queues, then you will love this hotel. There is a queue for everything. We got to the hotel just after 3pm, joined the reception queue to check in. There were only a few people in front of us but it took a good 25 minutes to then be told our room is not yet ready and to go have something to eat or drink and then come back to see if the room is ready. Hour later we were told the same thing, the second time coming back after 5pm the reception was choker packed, so we had to join the queue once again to finally get our keys. The coffee doesn't get replenished, but you can join a queue in the reception and ask for some more. Milk provided in the room is the powdered stuff and the coffee mainly seems to be decaf, but if you join a queue at the bar they will give you a box of UHT milk. We also had a power cut one night lasting till the following morning - so no water or electrics when we woke up. Buffet food was surprisingly mostly very tasty, if you want to book the a la carte restaurants, then that can happen in the Piano bar from 10.30 - 16.00 - you have to join yet another queue, wait for about an hour and then book pretty much when it's available, because it is quite popular. We only managed to get into two restaurants, one at 9pm, because it was otherwise fully booked. This was very late for us as we only went for breakfast and dinner. Beach was beautiful and very comfortable temperature with a light breeze most of the time. The sea is a little bit on the cold side but refreshing with all that sunshine. Beware many people just put their towels on the beach beds early in the morning and then you barely see them before lunch time - that is quite annoying. But there are still some free beach beds by the time you have breakfast and get to the beach. Beach bar is close by but again you have to join a queue for your drinks including water. On trip advisor many people complimented the staff and their friendliness. I must admit it felt like we ended up in a different place, because most of the staff were huffing and puffing, taking their time (so the queues were long and tiring business) and in general you are often made feel like a bit of a pest for asking for drink or anything 'special'. For instance they often run out of stuff like sparkling wine - ok can I have a wine spritzer instead - half wine/half sparkling water - this request was often above their ability to do. It took 4 attempts to get that right. They also run out of vodka and beer several times. But we found a few staff who were nice, although they were a minority. Getting beach towels - they open at 9, but queue forms from about 8.45 and then the towel person turns up ten past 9. Evening entertainment is mostly background music, live music Monday and Thursday which is quite good, but you have to be quite quick to get a table as that's limited and then wait yet another queue to get drinks. Amphitheatre shows are half hour long - quite amateur and make sure to be there at least half hour in advance to join a queue at the bar to get your drinks before the show. We found the best bar for the evening was the beach bar as there were hardly any queues for the bar and there was always somewhere to sit. If you have a ground floor apartment, then please be careful when you are drying your swimwear - my wife's bikini was stolen during the night despite being tied to a balcony chair. We tried to book a trip, but our Tui rep was unavailable/went home for the day, but we were told by the reception staff to book with the guys on the beach. We were told it is 70 Euro for the Salt lake trip. It was literally a taxi guy who took us there and waited for us, we then had to pay another 10 Euro for entry and they also want 1 Euro per person to shower after swimming in the lake. If you want to get a better deal, probably ask a taxi driver how much it would be to drive you to the lakes and back. Overall despite all the queues and being met with a not very friendly approach the sea and food was good and we had...

First things first, this hotel really gives you your moneys worth and we were very happy with our stay. It is a big hotel (or actually two as there are two hotels together, Sol dunas and Melia dunas). Everyone working there were extremely helpful and friendly, it's located on a quiet spot a few km away from the Santa Maria centre and has its own private beach.

The buffet was surprisingly good with plenty of choice and I'm sure everyone finds something they'll enjoy. Some mornings some juices were finished and some evenings some foods were eaten by the early birds, but sure, plenty of other choices available.

The area is very big, and if your room is at the further parts, you will end up walking quite a lot. For us, it wasn't an issue, but I can imagine that it might concern some other people. The hotel has golf carts that will take you and your luggage back and forth, and every time a golf cart passed us with some empty seats, they always offered a ride.

The room we had was very clean and spacious with a nice balcony. However, as with the whole hotel, it was a bit worn in places, the bathroom door wouldn't close, the shower leaked, sometimes the sheets had a few holes in them. Again, to us it wasn't a bother, and I think it might be still some post covid issues. A big part of the hotel was empty, and clearly not used for a good while. Also I recommend, bring some mosquito spray with you! For yourself, but also to spray indoors, as there were quite a few of mosquitoes indoors when we arrived.

There is 4 pool areas to choose from, all the pools were clean and well maintained and had a bar next to them.

There are quite a few cats living at the premises. They silently circle the tables during the meal times, some are very tame, others clearly more stray. As I am a cat lover, I would like to see the hotel taking the responsibility and spay and neuter the resident cats.

The beach is huge with golden sand and absolutely beautiful. However, because it is always windy, most of the time the waves get quite big and you can only swim at the small area between the breakers. Again, to us it wasn't an issue, especially as there's a coral reef just a little swim away. A part of an old reef is to be found inside the breakers, lots of fish and other creatures, and just outside the breakers it is even better. But don't expect the white strip as the beach in santa maria.

There's a complimentary shuttle service to Santa Maria, but only two shuttles each morning and only one coming back at 4pm. The taxis are not expensive as such, although they do try and get more and more money from the tourists. Atm 4€ was the lowest price, but unfortunately I heard people paying 6€ as a rule, which to me sounds unreasonable for 2,5km ride.

Sal Island as whole is very small, and currently it has a sort of innocence to it. People seem honest and friendly and there doesn't seem to be much drugs or other issues, except for the poverty. However, atm the government seems to be on top of the issue and lots of government housing and schools are in use and under construction.

There's a so called "pre registration" and airport tax that I was informed should have been filled and paid in advance on line. However, there are a few issues. The government website did have a very long and complicated form to be filled, but the site crashed every time when it came to the last page that was the payment. Also there seems to be quite a few half official or unofficial sites that try to charge you more money, so my advice is that don't bother with any of that. At arrival, you queue at the passport control, they charge you 30€, stamp your passport and give you the receipt, that's it. I was told that the money goes to the housing projects, let's hope that's true as that thought made me happy to...