Hotel Pinija — Hotel in Grad Zadar

My family stayed in Pinija for 13 nights, so I would directly go to ups and downs of the hotel. Would be fair to give 4.5 stars.

Pluses:

Big, spacious rooms with good sound proof and conditioning. If you prefer quite stay - choose park side view.

Big variety of food both for dinner and breakfast. Very nice pancakes!!!

Hotel is big with lots of people, but it never is crowded or bothers you with queue thanks to good restaurant organisations, several elevators, plenty of places to sit and relax: in the lobby, beach bar, restaurant terrace.

Sea is nearby, so you eat with a great view. Huge hotel territory, that makes your stay safe, personal and pleasant.

Big parking. You will always find a place. Supermarket is nearly in Petrcane to go by foot.

Perfect gym with good machines and conditioning included in price. Possibility to rent a cayak, surf, play golf etc. for a reasonable price.

Nice cleaning and restaurant staff, also a girl in the pool. Always smiling, ready to help.

Big indoor pool with long open hours. Clean toilets on all the hotel is also a big advantage.

Outdoor pool clean and with warm water (in most other hotels it was much colder). Not much sunbeds, but you will find a place, if come before 10 am and after 16 pm.

Sunbeds near the sea are not included in price, but we anyway don't use them, so it was not a problem for us.

Minuses:

Vine and water are not included in price in the evening as are in Istrian hotels.

BabyClub is very small and orientated only for babies and toddlers. Small room can not be accesses from the pool side, there ane no animator programs with games inside/ outside the hotel, that is suitable for different ages. We used to stay in Molindrio, Mediteran Plava laguna and it had much more fun for children starting with games, workshops, animators and finishing with magic evenings, fire show, etc.

Evening music programm is nice, but very alike every evening. The same, in Istrian hotels there are more different events: jazz, national, top covers music themes, theatre, magic shows, humour shows, etc.

Bar and restaurant is pricey. Event in Italy prices for food and drinks was less. The quality of food and drinks is good.

There is a list of allergens, but no information next to each meal what allergens it contains. Staff was ready to help, but it sounded like "probably this meal may not contain this allergen, I think". That made me eat only simple dishes like chicken and pasta and not try lots of other staff. It would really be nice to see exact allergens next to concrete ice-cream, cake, dishes.

Ice cream was not included in dinner price as it is in many hotels.

All in all the stay was very pleasant and relaxed. We liked it very much and would definitely recommend it. If mentioned minuses would be fixed, it would be even better!...

First of all, I do not understand why this would ever be categorized as 4* hotel, except for the swimming pool, room size and big screen TV, it has absolutely nothing even remotely close to other similar rank hotels.

Location is nice and quiet with sea and beaches all around, but quite far from anything interesting. Old and communist style exterior is not something anyone should be allowed to see. Interior is obviously refurbished and it looks quite nice and cozy. Weather was not very good so we used the interior swimming pool and it was very good, clean and spacious.

Room and bathroom were both good size and apart from the broken door, not working AC and a few damaged pieces of furniture, not too bad. Beds were very good and comfortable, but the pillows were terrible. There is a minibar, but can only be considered as a small fridge as there were no items inside. Also, there was no information book/leaflet about the room and hotel, only a QR code which did not work. Balcony was outdated, extremely dirty (table and chairs were covered in century old dust and sand) and overlooking car park with a bit of a seaview as well.

Restaurant and bar area were nice and there was a lot of seating when we were there in April, not sure if this would be the case in peak season. Food was below average even for a 3* hotel, very generic, tasteless and mostly made from frozen ingredients, especially seafood, very disappointing. They don't even bother with kids friendly meals. Not counting butterless croissants, breakfast was a bit better, but nothing more than just average, only positive side would be a surprisingly wide range of cheeses. Poor coffee and fake orange/apple juice is also not appreciated. One thing I really, really hate in hotels and restaurants in Croatia and it happened here as well is they don't even give you tap water - disgusting!

I would probably give this hotel 2 or maybe even 3 star rating if it wasn't for the issue with ants; the bathroom was infested with them as can be seen in the photo and the worst part of this is that management does not care much about it! I've stayed in more than 50 hotels in my life and this is only a second time I'm giving any of them a 1 star rating and I don't even feel bad about it as it's well deserved. I would definitely recommend avoiding this place if you care about hygiene and will...

I have never been in a hotel where the towel rail worked... until now. Powerful air-con chills the room down nice and quickly and is a floor standing affair so you can dry clothes on it. The room has a decent size fridge but no kettle or tea and coffee making facilities. Our room was a cheaper one situated round the back of the complex, which suits us as it's nice and quiet; our balcony looks out through trees to some villas over a quiet access road. Nice. If you want to pay extra you can get a room with a sea view. While you're looking at that you can listen to the "thump thump" of music during the aqua aerobics and screaming kids in the pool (only during the day, it's quiet and civilised at night).

Meals are the standard buffet type which offer a decent choice but no baked beans or tinned tomatoes with breakfast... sorry Englanders. I suggest the hotel supplies hotter plates as most meals get back to the table quite warm instead of hot. To use the sunloungers on the beach costs 400kuna each per day... bit steep! Especially as you cannot get the money back if you're a guest. 350 is the price just down the beach, special hotel rates eh? Yes, this narked me off a little.

Sunloungers round the pool? Included in the price. Get there early as by 10am they all have towels on but no bodies. There's no policy preventing this so we joined in; finish breakfast by 8.50 and bang towels on a couple of loungers. TBH we lay there most of the day and turned a nice shade of pink. The pool is small but a lovely temperature just to loll about in, a fair bit warmer than the sea which can best be described as "blimey, this is cold... oh hang on, it's not so bad". Not cold like glacial run off, but parky enough to only be pleasant after a few minutes in there. What have I missed? Oh yeah, grab a massage while you're there, the girls do a good job of wrestling away the kinks and knots in your muscles. Also there is plenty of parking in the shade of trees round the place. Comfy beds too. Hotel Pinija doesn't get much wrong and it's a relaxed place that's not all up it's own behind. If I was running this joint I'd dot some ice machines about the place but other than that, thumbs up, we had a nice stay. We may...