Hotel Best Costa Ballena

Child friendly great amenities

Food could be better

Great hotel in a fantastic location. Great hotel for kids.

Staff could have been more helpful

Best hotel value for money. The staff is always with a smile and the premises are wonderful.

The location is excellent, especially if you have the right type of room. Ours was superior double on the 3rd floor, which provided ample view of the seashore and beach. (The receptionist Zaira was kind enough to accept our request for seaside one, which turned out to be the most fabulous part of our stay!) However, one must remember that all rooms are at 90-degree angle to the beach, so you will rarely have entire seashore in your view. So if you are looking for sea-view, thoroughly check with the property first before you book. Another most memorable thing was the Infinity Pool (whiich was available to us due to our Superior double room booking). It is a cold (somewhat 18-22 C) pool (with Jacuzzi) on top of the hotel, as part of the terrace area. You get an exceptional view of the sea beyond the Infinity pool, which is VERY RARE photo opportunity! It is visited by very few (as it is part of Premium service offering). There are abundant sun beds on the terrace. You also get free drinks and fruits from the fridge while you are there. Kids under 12 are not allowed. The property has total 3 free pools (which includes one indoor pool) apart from terrace Infinity pool (which has limited access based on your room booking). Out of the 2 outdoor pools, one is for kids with small-waterslides and some fun apparatus for kids to enjoy. There are sunbeds nearby all outdoor pools, although full sun access is available only to some of them. Ther is a bar near the outdoor pools, so during busy times, it can be crowded and noisy. Every night, there is entertainment program for kids. During our week long stay, we also got to see one magic show, which was very good quality one. The atmosphere is quite jovial and fun-filled - families should not miss this. The only area with HOT POOL is SPA, which is NOT FREE (15€ per person) unless you have an eligible reservation. SPA has hot pool with jacuzzi, Turkish bath, Finnish Sauna and various other baths. €2.5 cap is must purchase.

#1: Food: The hotel is in resorts area, so you are practically dependent on the hotel food only. The food was quite uniform in nature, with VERY LITTLE variety. Since we were a vegetarian family, things were more difficult to us, despite our special request to the hotel previously and during our stay. The chefs simply did not know, or did not want to understand our request (they most spoke Spannish). We never received hot veg breakfast during our 7-day long stay! All we had was raw breads, coffee, jams, jellies and same assortment of desserts all the time. Often, they served cold salad (or some soup item made from it) from previous night, which was smelly. During dinner, they always had woke veg item (rice or noodle), which was prepared hot. However, the test was not up to the mark, and we got bored with it soon. #2: Planning & Organization: Upon requests, chefs made veg pizzas during dinner, which felt good enough. However, most of them were busy and did not take long-term requests. We had to tell them DAILY, despite 1-month advance booking! There is NO COMMUNICATION between reception and the kitchen staff. No one disclosed to us what facilities were INCLUDED in our PACKAGE. So we felt we OVERPAID our 7-day long stay.' Not expected from a 4-star property. #3: Forced sale of service/goods and SPA facility rudeness: Our room entitled us to 3 FREE spa tickets, but no one told us that it required purchasing swimming cap from the SPA facility itself. When we took our own caps, the SPA service lady refused to accept it. She was EXTREMELY rude. She refused to speak English despite our request, and deliberately miscommunicated in SPANISH to insult us later. She also refused to use various baths in SPA, which was totally invalid. The staff often served mineral water despite our request for regular one, later to charge us with that (despite sometimes understanding our English) The receptionists, however, trusted us, and cancelled the wrong charges.