CotswoldsRuss
June 22, 2024
We stayed in early June hoping for some early sun and were not disappointed. It has recently been refurbished very well. The room was a pretty good size, with a large bed with firm mattress, the terrace overlooking some scrub land and woods with a side glimpse of the sea. We could have done with a couple more drawers but it was fine (and we brought extra hangars) and there were plenty of sockets. The bathroom was really good with a big shower and rainshower plus hand unit, but you have to lean over to get over the sink. We were advised by TUI a couple of weeks before going that the hotel 100m away between us and the sea was undergoing final refurbishment and that there would be some light noise as they were working internally and a little outside. We asked for more details but although TUI were good on the phone they never came back to us as promised. As it turned out, although you could hear the work most of the day, there was only very ocasional heavy drilling and we barely noticed most of the time. Our reception said they were supposed to have finished in May but had overrun and had promised to finish 20th June (3 days after we left), but it was still a building site with an untiled pool so I seriously doubt that happened. One reason we barely noticed the work was the music. Until around 11:00, it was all pretty good laid back soul and reggae with music you know plus Spanish. However, after then a DJ set up on a raised area over the smaller main pool. He usually started with club type music with a constant thump, thump, thump, thump of drum and bass but at least what you'd call songs, but at some point in the afternoon, he switches to just the drum & bass and repetitive 6 note synthesizer riffs (that was something like a 14 year old might make in his bedroom) as though he was in a club in Ibiza, and ramped up the volume. There were maybe a handful of under-25s, a few 25-late thirties, but a lot of 40s upwards, so they may want to take a look at the demographics of the guests at different times of the season and think about this. This was the only bad point of the whole holiday. The only break from this is a once a week 'white day' where they wrap palm trees in white and stick giant inflated animals in the pools but the great thing was that on that day there was a really good cool sax player (a 'white night' we had in another hotel was fabulous with guests asked to wear white one evening with a fantastic band playing) They say on the website there is entertainment but this consists of one night with a woman singing and guy on a keyboard who were quite good, but the other was a woman and acoustic guitarist. She wasn't very good and sang every song drearily slowly, for example Halleluja (plodding normally) at half the normal speed and even 'simply the best' and the speed of Halleluja. We walked to the big shopping and restaurant area or Cala Bona most nights. The restaurant - plenty to choose from for breakfast with lots cooked fresh with eggs