HL Rio Playa Blanca

So I’ll start with advising you to not just take the negative comments as gospel. I did and it gave me such a negative attitude from the start which turned out not to be necessary. Booked via TUI every bit of it ran smoothly and we was very pleased. On arrival the reception gave clear instructions how to find the room and checked us in quickly . They had even arranged a cold buffet as it was soo late. The suite we stayed in was incredible, clean, modern and a great layout. The air con was fully controllable and very effective. The suite was very big, loads of extras such as ironing board, hair dryer , kettle, fridge and loads of storage. The suite come with a little terrace area which is really nice. The all inclusive buffet, the food was plentiful with a lot of choice. The choice did not change much however that’s probably because there was always a vast choice to begin with. English breakfast items, omelettes to order (and cooked in front of you), toast with jams , cereal and various pastry’s. Loads of choice with different themes each day but still pizza and chips if you needed to resort to comfort food. They had bbqs and Donna kebab which was exactly the same as a takeaway but felt like better quality. The drinks are frustrating so you have to give a euro for a cup voucher, once you’ve done this you can use this refillable cup for drinks. The cups are very small and it seems like the only reason for this is to minimise how much you drink. If your by the smaller pool/slides it’s a bit of walk for a child sized cup of beer aswell. Staff was very friendly and always smiled and appears to be well mannered towards guests. The hotel is just beautiful and very well maintained. The cleaner ignored my do not clean sign on the door and also did not vacuum or clean the mirror during our stay which was a bit annoying as inevitably sand gets in the apartment and you then spread that to your clean bed linen. The entertainment was absolutely fantastic, they had bands every other night and the in-house entertainment team also did some fantastic shows. The greatest showman show was incredible and very well executed, you put a great show on. The entertainment team are constantly trying to entertain you, I have no idea when they find time to rest because it’s constant. I really don’t have much to say that’s negative because it was an incredible hotel and holiday. Location is also very good , the shuttle bus they advertise to the beach does NOT run anymore. (Bus 30 to the right of the hotel takes you to the beach). Playa flamingo beach is a 10min walk away and it’s great. Supermarket on site, launderette on site is €6 for washer and dryer €4 for dryer , arcade games room, chill out terrace with great views , water slides open from 1pm ish and WiFi is available but very slow at times. If I was going to point out negatives i found I’d say 1) cutlery sometimes dirty , 2) house keeping not doing a thorough job, 3) cups too small. Overall it’s great and well worth a visit.

We’ve just got back from a week at HL Rio Playa Blanca and, having read some of the reviews on here before we went, I really wanted to post our experience to reassure anyone who has booked. I know people have different experiences, but this is an honest review of ours.

In fact, after reading some of the posts and reviews in the run-up to our holiday, I came VERY close to changing our booking altogether. I'm SO pleased I didn't.

My family and I (husband, son age 11 and daughter age 10) went with fairly modest expectations and honestly expected to find quite a few of the problems I'd read about. Instead, it was so much better than I expected and, for the price we paid, I thought it was fantastic value.

I'll say upfront that I personally wouldn't class it as a four-star hotel by UK standards. If you're going expecting four-star luxury, you may well be disappointed. But we booked it as a relatively budget family holiday and judged on that basis, it massively exceeded our expectations.

We had a suite which was absolutely huge and was cleaned every single day. The hotel in general was clean and well looked after and, since I know this gets mentioned a lot in reviews, we didn't see a single cockroach all week!

The pool area was great. A word of warning on sunbeds – the early bird definitely catches the worm here! Most were reserved by around 7am, so if you want a particular spot you do need to be up early. However, we never once had to queue at the pool bar.

The Entertainment Team deserve a special mention because they were exceptional. They were brilliant fun, incredibly friendly and really good at getting people involved without ever being pushy. They genuinely added so much to our holiday. The evening entertainment itself was probably one of the weaker points for us and could be a little flat, but during the day the team were fantastic.

We also found everyone at the hotel extremely friendly and there was absolutely no trouble while we were there. The TUI reps were super helpful too.

Food and drink: I actually think the food gets a slightly unfairly rough ride. It was decent. My husband and son would happily have eaten in the hotel every night! My daughter is fussier and I personally wanted a bit more variety, so we chose to eat out most evenings, but that was our choice rather than because the food was awful. Breakfast was absolutely fine and the snack bar during the day was good. One useful thing to know about drinks is that you'll need your own reusable plastic glass or you can "hire" one from the hotel. The pool bar won't put beer into a full-size pint glass, but if you take two half-pint glasses they'll happily fill both! 😂 At the snack bar you can serve yourself.

Another thing that pleasantly surprised us was the connectivity. The Wi-Fi/5G was good throughout the hotel and we had no problems getting online. All of the TVs in our suite also had Netflix, Disney+ and Apple available for you to log into your own accounts. Really handy if you or the kids just need an hour to escape the sun and decompress!

The location is fantastic. Flamingo Beach is only a short walk away and is a gorgeous sandy beach with some lovely bars and restaurants, so it's really easy to get away from the hotel for a few hours or go out for dinner.

Playa Blanca town centre/old town and Marina Rubicón are also only a very short taxi ride away – once you actually manage to find a taxi that turns up! 😂 – so there are loads more restaurants, bars and shops within easy reach if you want a change of scenery.

AquaLava is directly opposite the hotel and is good for an afternoon. I'd recommend going after 3pm and paying the cheaper entry rather than making a whole day of it. We also did Aqua Park in Costa Teguise and Rancho Texas, both of which were AMAZING days out – Rancho Texas in particular was a massive hit with us.

The only genuinely frustrating experiences we had all week weren't actually anything to do with HL Rio. Twice we booked taxis which simply didn't turn up despite us waiting for over an hour, and on our Aqua Park trip the coach from Hotel Elba was over an hour late with no apology, meaning we didn't arrive at the park until midday. Annoying, but neither was the fault of the hotel.

Overall, we had a brilliant, relaxing family holiday.

Would I describe HL Rio Playa Blanca as a UK-standard four-star hotel? No. Would I describe it as an excellent budget family hotel that gave us far more than we expected for what we paid? Absolutely. Clean, enormous room, great pools, fantastic entertainment team, friendly atmosphere, decent food, good daytime snacks and drinks, excellent connectivity and a brilliant location close to a lovely sandy beach.

For the price we paid, I genuinely couldn't fault it. I'd happily go back and would definitely recommend it to families looking for a good-value holiday in Playa Blanca.

I know everyone's experience is different, but ours was overwhelmingly positive and, after coming so close to changing our own booking because of what I'd read beforehand, I really felt the hotel deserved to have our experience shared too. ❤️

After reading alot of negative reviews I was really worried about our holiday but it was honestly amazing. The staff were all lovely and helpful, the rooms are clean and very spacious, bed isn't the most comfortable but then nothing beats ur own bed, there was always plenty to eat and it was nice. The cocktails weren't the nicest but there was plenty of other options. The entertainment staff were brilliant. I would say its more a 3 star than a 4 star but we had no issues at all and had an amazing time, would recommend to anyone!