SBH Monica Beach Resort — Hotel in Pájara

The Hotel is in a neat spot, pretty close to a few shops and also the ocean, if you're into that unlike myself. There is "one" main pool, which is actually two seperate pools, but they're pretty good, bonus points for the nice borders. Aside from that, there is a secondary pool with two slides, one of which is on every day, they swap in alternating order. Both pools also have a nice poolbar where you can order drinks reaching from water to coke to cocktails. The poolbar at the mainpool also offers foods throughout the day, starting with some muffins before noon, onto burgers and HOTDOGS till about 5 i think, and a few sweets like chocolate donuts till they eventually close for the day. Rooms are all pretty good, though be warned, I've encountered a total of three cockroaches, and also lots of tiny ants (though I wouldn't know how to fix that). If you need help with something like that, the service at the hotel can surely help, said service was also good; competent, nice, and all requests (e.g. a broken lamp) were taken care of very quickly. There's also a beachbar, quite far from the beach but it's got a nice view. It also offers drinks like the other poolbars. Considering food, there were three main meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast and lunch offered a multitude of things every day, reaching from pudding to cereals, onto bread with all kinds of toppings, e.g. sausages, cheese, eggs, as well as cooked bacon. For dinner, they have a weekly schedule on what they offer. Throughout the week they offer different meats, salads, fishs, and some nice desserts like chococubes, jello, and even a chocolate well. It's also veggy-friendly. Also all of these work in a buffet way. There is also a small asian dinner option, which you have to make a reservation first because there aren't a lot of tables there, but with all inclusive it's still free. The food there is consists of noodles, rice and some meat, along with some sushi and small sweets for dessert. The food there stays the same every day I believe. I wouldn't say it's anything special though. That's it for the base services, now let's cover the hotel activities. There's mini-club for children, though I haven't been there as I was too old and not interested anyways. Aside from that, every day the Animation-team from acttiv, and something similar to coralia or smt had different events lined up (save for saturday as that is the resting day of the hotel). They also made different drinks every day, e.g. Mohito, Sangria and others. On all days (except saturday) they also do things like stretching, aquagym, yoga and so on, they're pretty neat and do get you some good exercise. After the Aquagym, they also do a club dance at 12 or so. I don't know if I can link the original songs due to copyright and all, but they took a couple songs, made a custom version, and dance to it. On some days you can also come along to some air-gun shooting, as well as bow and arrow things. ALSO, I skipped some facilities earlier. Below the hotel entrance/lounge, there is the Bar Turquesa. They usually also have some neat activities there, like bingo and a white party, though I've only participated in bingo. There's a gym, as well as tennis and minigolf. these are facilities you don't really hear about, unless someone tells you about it, or you look at all the facilities on the website. There's also a billiard table, foosball, and airhockey just outside bar turquesa. Though you can't play if you aren't ready to spend a few coins. Overall, I'd say the hotel is definetly pretty good, but the lack of attention to the gym and other facilities, as well as the location-sharing is kinda bad. With location-sharing I mean, that over speakers you always hear them announcing things like yoga is in ten minutes or something. But they never say where they do that and all. I'd also like a paper listing all facilities and locations in order to fix both of these main issues.

My Verdict: 8/10 Good...

I am writing this based on the fact we got the holiday through Jet2 on what I feel is a good price considering school holidays (£2200 for 2 adults and 2 kids All incl) so was never expecting 5*||Room - family rooms are in the older part of the hotel (think was formally another hotel...Sunrise costa calma as saw a few old signs at back entrance) - these are supposedly only rooms for families of 4. Yes they are dated but were large and clean. Just 5 min walk from facilities. No view. We were in the 500/600/700 block (500 ground floor, 600s 1st floor, 700s 2nd floor). Nothing English apart from news. Shower hot and powerful. 1 bed apartment, plenty storage. Fridge and limited air con - just about effective enough. Safe (pay extra - 28 euro + 20 refundable deposit for the week. Room was a good base. The main hotel building and surrounding area looked newer and many of these seemed to have good views of sea but guess this was for groups of 3 or less!||Reception - hit and miss. Efficient check in and notified us to get food first restaurant was about to close for eve. ||Food - nothing spectacular but we were always full. Lovely fresh bread and pizzas. Lots of choice. Snack bar by pool less inviting. Ice cream only at certain times and places, not all day as some AI hotels. Always found a table and these were cleaned quick. ||Drink - short queues always. First hotel been to where glass is served around pool (mix of glass and plastic). Drinks were mix of help yourself at pool bar (coffees, water and fizzy drinks) to served (alcoholic / juices). All tasted ok. Timings strange.|Pool bar 10ish-6pm then 8ish till late. At 6pm you suddenly have to go to the inside bar to get a drink despite loads of people still around pool.... why not just keep open as reopening 2hr later? |Even weirder was the Africa bar overlooking the ocean. Closing at 6pm. No chance to have an evening drink here! A great venue/view that should be open till dusk surely! Kids pool bar - was open some days and others not at all. ||Animation - the team were great - a large team of 7 I think....? My kids enjoyed activities and kids club. Ivan and Julia especially were really engaging with my two and others though all did a great job - thankyou! My kids were dancing the SBH song.||Evening entertainment - this did lack quite severely! With a few hotels of the SBH brand in Costa Calma I was expecting better quality with rotation through the week? The only things we really enjoyed was the Fri night singer/keyboard player who had lots up dancing. The animation team show mid week was also very enjoyable. ||Pool - mixed messages from lifeguards regarding inflatables. Some days allowed, sometimes not. 8am able to get a sunbed each day by pool for 4 people. Pool area tidy. One pool colder than other which meant one pool busy and one empty. Slide pool was ok. Just one slide ever turned on. Agree prev comment about lifeguard needing to do more about 3 or 4 kids at a time using slide - accident waiting to happen. You can hire pool towel 10euro each which is refunded on return. Change them for 1 euro. ||Check out - 11am. Small luggage room. You can book a shower room for free on the morning of departure for a 30min slot. Be warned... this is 10 min walk away, in the oldest part of hotel. Shower was fine but was guaranteed towels available in room and none to be seen. Reception did not seem fussed by this. No evidence of any towels in this room - the room was pretty dirty. Not sure about late check out for room.||Manageress was visible and approachable throughout. A good look for the hotel.||Transfer was 70mins from airport. Was expecting a very German filled hotel but certainly this week (5-12 April) a mix of German and Eng at probably 60/40. ||Please ask if...

We have just got home from a week away at monica beach hotel. Unfortunately I cannot write a good review of our stay. The saving grace of the holiday was the beach, the food and that we as a family will have fun wherever we go. For the positives the food was very nice and we were able to find lots of enjoyable meals throughout our stay. In general the lunchtime food was repetitive but that didn’t tend to bother us. There were biscuits and Ice cream available during the day too which was a hit with the kids. Drinks were flowing from all bars at various points in the day which was great. |Now for the poor points.. this hotel is in need of a serious refurbishment. The place is extremely run down, there are tiles breaking off all around the pools, cracked floor tiles everywhere and damage to stairs and walkways. The room we had was over in the family apartments which felt like a completely separate hotel, the room was run down. The beds awfully uncomfortable and mattresses dirty. Not what you’d expect for the amount you pay visit here. The majority of the sunbeds, when you can find one, around the pool are in need of replacement. Wheels were fallen off, the fabric torn and damaged. If you weren’t up and by the pool before 8am you weren’t getting a bed! I saw people putting towels out at nighttime to reserve a spot. There is not enough beds for the guests here! |The entertainment was okay for the most part, there was a good singer on one night but he did a few songs then packed up and didn’t come back on stage. The pianist on Saturday night was very good and so was the animation team show. |I did enquire about the asian restaurant but the receptionist was very blunt and rude and told me it was full. We arrived Sunday, I enquired to reserve a table on Monday and she said it was full until the next week. So that was a waste of time! |The mini golf course was €3 each, we had fun by the course is so run down and shabby it definitely shouldn’t have been a charged for activity. |The communal toilets were constantly dirty in all areas, many hand dryers not working, never any soap in any of the toilets. Holes in mens toilet doors, doors not locking or even closing! |There were locals in the hotel on many occasions. Which made the place feel unsafe, at one point two men were in the ladies toilet hiding from security, we did try alert this but the staff either didn’t understand or didn’t care because nothing was done and they left once the coast was clear. |The little onsite shop was okay for picking up a couple snacks, however one of the ladies working was also extremely rude to everyone in the shop. There is definitely a common theme f rude staff, there was one particular life guard at the kids pool who would just strut about on her phone and then every now and then come around and kick stuff about. Not once did I see her actually doing her job of watching the pool. There was actually only one occasion where I saw a lifeguard standing at the bottom of the slides waving people down and this was only due to a man and child getting hurt when a kid flew in to the back of them so she felt obliged to do her job clearly. Absolutely no point in having the lifeguards there in all honesty! |Overall the hotel is awful, I give two stars purely on the food and location to the beach. Everything else is not...