H10 Casa del Mar

Really like this hotel. Very modern and clean with a great location. . A few little things that make the hotel seem tired. Random tiles missing in the pool and tiles in the bathroom in bedroom look tired and not marks on the bedroom floor. Parts of the exterior of the hotel need re painting. The lifts are constantly not working which seems ridiculous.

Hotel staff really friendly and helpful Pool water nice and warm , sunbeds very comfy. Have to get up early to make sure you get a bed together with your family Breakfast really wide variety and always stocked up. You will definitely find something to eat. Roof top bar and pool are lovely. Nice to sit on the roof too at night watching the sunset. Location you couldn’t get better. Opposite the beach. Turn left to the nice areas and right to the lively part. So many nice restaurants. Defo worth trying fat Sam’s (Mexican / burgers) Block house (steak) II Tano ( Italian ) All reasonable priced as well. The hotel restaurant is really good too.

Would definitely return to this hotel

We stayed as a family of 5 in August 26 and had a perfect holiday here.

Rooms

All rooms have a balcony, either looking over the road (some with sea view) or looking over the pool. If you have sea view, you will be in shade in the morning and baking sun in the afternoon, but the sea views are most recently refurbished. The bathrooms have walls of obscure glass which I’m not sure is ideal when on holiday. Contemporary yes, practical ??

Beds are 2 singles by default – if you want double they will put a topper on it for you. But they can be pushed together so it’s no real problem just keeping it as the 2 singles – then you get your own duvet!

Rooms are not huge – but adequate with enough storage and a huge full length mirror. Bathroom has shower which has drencher and shower head which you can remove from holder which is quite low. I liked that they had lotions fixed to the wall so you just squeeze what you need – very handy if you are using the hotels amenities. Towels are a good size – proper bath sheet.

Refurbished rooms have USB ports which is handy. Safe is a good size and easy to use. Fridge provided – and a bottle of water on arrival (no more).

Kettle provided – but no bits so you need to bring own tea/coffee etc.

POOL

Pool looks bigger on the pictures, it seemed a bit small on arrival but actually we had a great time by the pool, it’s fun, lively and lots of families just playing catch with a ball. It has a sectioned off bit for kids – well designed I think. You get your ticket for pool towels on arrival which are also decent.

The age old argument of LOUNGERS! At 7am there are the usual idiots down there claiming their piece of land. I can’t stand it – selfish and pointless. If they are going to stay there all day then fine – but so many were just reserving them for when they came back later. There are enough loungers and enough people are going out on excursions either early or later to make it manageable. We always managed to find a couple as we didn’t all need loungers as we were often mostly in the water. But I have absolutely no issue with throwing off towels from loungers that have no-one actually at the pool and claiming the loungers. There are signs all round that you can’t have a lounger unless you are at the pool and the pool guard was seen on a few occasions removing them. Good for him!!!

There is an adults only pool on the roof. Do not book the Balinese bed thinking you are going to have a luxury day there – they are nothing like the pictures. Apparently the curtains kept blowing off so they had to remove them all and there is NO SHADE!!!! The pool is not big and the bar is only manned by one person who keeps disappearing. We went up for one day and we did have the bed which was 60 euros but 40 euros of that is to spend at the bar PLUS you get 2 EXTRA large towels to use while up there which were quite nice. As our family were all over 16 it was worth it as a group to have a day up there, but we had no desire to do it again.

The gym and sauna area are adequate – a few bits not working so they definitely need to sort that out. But they aren’t hugely used. We did ask for a fan in there as it was quite hot – within 5 minutes they had put a fan in there!!!

FOOD

We just booked the hotel as bed and breakfast. I didn’t see the all inclusive food – but unless you have a young family or eat a heck of a lot of food or going out of an evening is not practical then just do b&b! The hotel is so central and there are loads of restaurants all round – there is no point being confined to the hotel. It’s lovely to walk out of an evening and enjoy Santa Ponsa. Breakfast was very good though – maybe not as much as other hotels, but we never wanted for anything. There is an omelet station, plenty bread, pastries, hot food – all tasted good, fruit and cold meats. It’s not a huge hotel though, just 245 rooms, so I think the choice was good enough for that size hotel. And there is prosecco with breakfast. If there was anything I could suggest to improve, I would say better cheeses, more cured hams, more choice in yogurt.

We had daytime food at the Café Acapulco up to the road which was fantastic value as long as you were there when the mum was cooking (family run and the boys don’t know how to make scrambled egg). We also ate at the café opposite the hotel (Balneario) on the beach which was AMAZING! Great food/drinks/service, thoroughly recommend it. And MacTavishes which was very good food. We had evening meals at Mamma Mia 7/10, Hang Zhou Chinese 8/10, El Ceibo Steak 10/10, Las Olas 9/10, Fat Sams 9/10, Kai Rooftop 10/10, Bombay Indian 8/10. Lots of other great places and for 5 of us, it was between £100 (Chinese) and £250 (Kai) a night. This was including drinks and at the hotel it is around 30euros a person a night without drinks. We really enjoyed the walk out of an evening and often had ice cream on the way back, so were very happy to do it that way. It is right next to McDonalds and 1 min walk to Burger King if you are that way inclined.

STAFF

Simply amazing!! Some shout outs go to Dani and Cristina on the bar – two genuinely really lovely people and we had a lovely night every night at the bar playing uno and having a drink before going out for dinner. They were always on and always chatty and lovely. On reception we spoke mostly to Cati who was great, but in all honesty they were all lovely people. We had a couple of days where the rooms weren’t made up, but they just really make the bed and check towels, so no biggy and we weren’t prissy about that.

BEACH

We had a great time at the beach opposite the hotel. We hired pedalos which had a slide – 20 euros for 2 hours which was all we needed. Great fun. We hired the beach loungers which might have been overkill. There is a lovely section under trees (busy at the weekend) where we could have just laid down towels. You can hire jet skis and all sorts near by – there is a shop 2 mins from hotel to book.

FUN

We did the QUAD 3 hour excursion which was great fun. We also hired a boat without licence for 3 hours which was worth it too – just to have a day out and poodle about. You are limited to staying just around santa ponsa and there is a good chance you won’t be able to do that next year as laws are changing. So do it while you can. Use EMBARK company – much better than any others. And we spent a day at WESTERN WATERPARK. Very mixed feelings on this. We had a brilliant time. Not sure if FastPasses were worth it – there were a couple of rides that were worth it for sure, so happy we did but if you are on a budget then don’t worry. Many people recommended water shoes, at midday the ground it cooking your feet so queues are not fun – however, you could just wear good fitting trainer socks – we saw that and thought it was a great alternative. I would recommend a t-shirt or swimsuit as your back does take a bit of grief on slides that aren’t properly sealed between the sections. Some slides are very bumpy due to age and ‘movement’ over time. Beast wasn’t open when we were there – but having been on others – I’m quite glad it wasn’t!!! I do think the park needs an overhaul of the slides. But it’s still a great day out. Grand Canyon was a ridiculously long queue – NOT WORTH IT. Boomerang – BRACE BRACE BRACE. I still have whiplash.

Taxis are very reasonably priced. We got a taxi to the water park to avoid the queues from the free buses and it was well worth it.

SHOPS

Very reasonably priced for most things. You can pick up beach towels from 5 euros up. Some really nice clothes shops – there is a BOSS shop saying it is authentic –it is not, but the stuff isn’t terrible. It’s an easy walk around and mooch for bits and pieces and your typical souvenirs.