Best Hotel Costa Ballena — Hotel in Chipiona

So this hotel is very international, more Spanish than anything. ||Good food choice for adults (kids not as good) swimming pool especially the kids pool. Maid service great daily. Bar staff mixed, mainly good. The best bar man was Raul he was so lovely and very good he worked so hard. Please give him this positive feedback he deserves it. ||The animacion staff the only good 2 were involved in the children’s mini club. Marta and Oscar. Both practiced using English and were good with the kids. Oscar was very friendly and great with the kids. He also was the only animacion staff that did a good mini disco and he dressed up. Please give them positive feedback from me. I used to work in animation myself in Spain and know it’s a hard job. The other animators didn’t use English and the mini disco was awful only suitable for Spanish kids!!||The mini disco on at 9.30 pm is too late it should be at 8.30 latest as it’s way too late for children. Again I have worked in many many hotels in Spain myself and the disco was 8 or 8.30! Plus it was in English so the children can understand as well as Spanish. Really poor to be honest for a big hotel wanting more British to travel there!! ||The entertainment at night was again too late 10.30 pm to watch a show way too late for us brits in other hotels it’s usually 9 pm! If the hotel wants more British to stay here with families you need to get English speaking staff and entertainment on earlier! Everything was just for the Spanish guests! This is a Shane as it’s a lovely hotel but this lets it down so we won’t return.||Also a young lifeguard with short curly dark hair was very uninterested in his job at the kids pool. I even saw him kick with his knee my sons back of his life vest. My son is 4!! He clearly didn’t like us brits as I’ve read before some are anti British! Plus this same morning my son had an accident on the kids slide cut open his mouth lots of blood in a lot of pain he did nothing didn’t even use or offer his first aid kit and he didn’t check if my son was ok!! Clearly prejudice and lazy. ||One waitress in the restaurant older hair tied back didn’t want to take our plates from the table and she was bad mouthing British people and never would look at us. Very uncomfortable! ||The hotel needs improvements with staff and times if more brits will travel there. ||The resort also needs at least 1 shop nearby or bar it had nothing around it in walking distance it’s literally just the hotel and beach. Too remote for most...

It was an amazing week. It was October so I was expecting the quality of service to be slightly below what it would be during the summer, but no. Great resort, amazing staff, fast service and really good food, all you would expect of a 4 star resort.

We were even surprised that there was no dip in quality when they had to deal with a massive influx of guests in the middle of the week due to a national holiday.

And congratulations to all of the team at the wok station, and thank you for the way you treated our kid. He was eating noodles everyday just because you made him feel so welcomed!

One difficulty we had was to understand what was included in the all inclusive, for example, we only learned of the ice creams at the pool bar on the last day because we saw people asking for them. Otherwise we thought it was only the ice-creams in the refrigerator near the rest of the snacks. Also, how does the snack machine at the lobby works? It says you have 15€ credit, but then it doesn't do anything 🤔 😳 is there anything there for the all inclusive or is just for people paying? Where are the snacks after dinner? It was confusing, to say the least, and going to the lobby wasn't always the best option since there were a lot of people checking in and out most of the time.

Even so, the only caveat to the whole experience was the children's club. Although it's to be expected that most children are Spanish, the staff mostly spoke in Spanish (sometimes a few words in English) not making the effort for a Portuguese child. It should be noted that you had quite a few Portuguese families there at the time, even if it was at the beginning of the school year. For example, one morning when I went to get my son he was annoyed that they were playing a game and since he didn't understand the rules he lost. We were at the kids club a few times and it was mostly painting or waiting around for an activity that was a let down. Of course we are in a different country, and the idea is for us to learn something about other languages, but it says a lot about the kids club that the staff member my kid prefered was one of the chefs at the wok station. The one big exception to the animation team is Borja, who took the time to make an outsider feel included, even if not speaking the same language. Unfortunately it was only on...

This was our second visit after having a great time before, but sadly the hotel has gone completely downhill and is nothing like it used to be. The place feels chavy. In the so-called premium restaurant parents let toddlers run around shouting and even grab food from the buffet, which ruins the atmosphere. The food itself was poor: tinned crudités, undercooked veg, overcooked eggs, and everyone handling the same tongs in really unhygienic ways. Theme nights were awful too. By the pool guests blasted loud music on their own speakers and left towels on sun loungers all day, which no one removed. None of the drinks fridges were cold, not in the bars or even in the rooms. we didn’t get the free drinks package so had to pay for our drinks and I was served tepid wine in a paper cup in the evening when the pool was already closed so I was cleary staying in the bar, no excuse for that. One man at the grill in the premium restaurant was so unpleasant and intimidating I stopped going altogether, and when I tried to order in Spanish (not my first language) he actually had a go at me for not understanding him. The “premium” promise is meaningless too — people without premium bracelets were using the rooftop pool freely, even with kids under 13 when it’s meant to be over 13s only. If I’d known you were now taking Jet2Holidays packages I’d have cancelled straight away, and it’s obvious from social media that I’m not the only one who feels this way. I know you’ll reply with your usual automated line about caring for your customers, that I should have come to reception, that hygiene is important to you but honestly, what would you have done? Can you explain how letting everyone use the same tongs counts as hygienic? You can write your standard response if you like, but it won’t change the fact that this was a really disappointing stay and we won’t...