Valeria Dar Atlas

My review from a 10 night stay with 2 children (14 and 10)

After reading the reviews I went with an open mind and I am so glad we did, rather than change hotels.

Rooms - our room was great, no ants, no mosquitoes, aircon worked really well, beds made up daily and a big bottle of water left for us. None of our personal belongings were touched or moved. We did have a problem where the door latch was broken but reception sorted this straight away.

Sunbeds - This is probably the only negative, if you want beds with an umbrella and right next to the pool you need to go down between 5 and 7, if your not bothered about shade or being at the front so you can watch the children in the pool then you will get a bed up until about 9am.

Food - The food is very Moroccan and wasn't to our taste, but there was always pasta, salad, chips, pizza, burgers etc so even though we may of eat the same thing most days, there was always something to eat. I also liked that you can get food and take it to your sunbeds, i have been to hotels before that wont let you do that and will only let you eat at your beds from a snack bar.

Drinks - yes the glasses do run out now and again but we took our stanley cups that we filled up in the day with cold fresh water from the self service stations around the resort, we had water and took our own little mini squash bottles as we aren't really fizzy drink drinkers. At night time when we did want juice, pepsi, wine or mocktails there can be a queue as there is only 1 bar open. If you like coffee like I do then bring a travel mug as the coffee cups are small, literally 2 mouth fulls and its gone, my travel cup held 3 lots of coffee from the machine then I could take it to sunbed with me. During our stay we saw 4 glasses broken round the pool and twice that involved feet getting cut. There is a big problem here with glass around the pool but I think it comes down to the guests leaving them on the floor and if they break them they don't pick them up.

Entertainment - The team around the pool in the day are fantastic, they will sit and chat with you, they play volleyball, do aqua aerobics, ping pong ball, dancing, zumba etc through the day. They try and get everyone involved but there is no pressure if you don't want to. Night time entertainment is good too, entertainment team are up dancing with the children etc and play games for the first few hours before the night time show starts. The foam/pool party is brilliant. Sfaigi and Mowgli are both fantastic and literally made our holiday with their interactions.

Pool - The pool is brilliant and I assume heated as you never get that initial feeling of it being ice cold when you get in. There are activities in the pool such as water polo, aerobics, zumba, pool team games. Floats are allowed no matter how big or small and children can play with balls in the water too. Towards the end of our stay we had some people helping themselves to our floats/goggles etc, but this isn't the hotels fault, more down to rude guests.

Location - This hotel is in the middle of nowhere, but we already knew that and are happy as we tend to stay on resort. We did get on the bus 3 times down to the market which was great for all your football kits, bags, belts, caps, trainers etc. This was with a bus that is run by the hotel that drops you off and picks you back up (worked out £8) return for the 3 of us.

Internet - I used an orange esim that I purchased before arriving, £12.99 for 50gb and I only used 10gb of it over 10 days as the wifi was good enough really, but used 4g/5g when the wifi was out of range or we left the site. Our room was close to the main building so that could be why the wifi was so good, I am guessing from the reviews I have read that if your room is further away you may not get WiFi as good.

Trips - We went to the market 3 times and even on my own with 2 children I felt safe, no one made you feel uncomfortable and if you're not interested you just say no and they say no problem. Make sure you negotiate prices, everything we brought we paid half the original price, stay firm with them and they will drop the price. They will give you their final price, but you tell them what you want to pay (within reason) when they say no, you just say ok we will look in other shops and maybe come back, they will then drop the price as your walking out. I brought 2 handbags that they said 350 and 250 so 600, i paid 350, the lowest they would go was 420 and refused my offer of 350, so I said ok i will leave it, then they said ok 350 for you!

We did a quad and camel trip which was absolutely fantastic, we paid £50 for the 3 of us and that included pick up and drop off from hotel. This wasnt the quads next to the hotel it was about 20 minutes away, the quads next to the hotel are on a small track that you drive round, the one we went to was in the desert so you just ride around on open sand. I booked this by whatsapping them, I got the number from someone at the hotel who had been the day before, it was a much better price as I booked direct and not through an app, you also dont pay until the day, infact we didnt pay until he dropped us back at the hotel, if anyone wants the number let me know.

Tips/service - If you tip the staff you will get drinks brought to table and sunbeds, but I personally didn't do this. I prefer to see who gives good service and goes that extra mile and then I gave those people a tip before we went home.

Over all we had a fantastic 10 nights here and would defo come again. If I was to be really picky then the things I would pick are:

• There are no airers to dry towels on balcony, all hotels we have been to before have a pull out airer on the wall. You have to hang towels over balcony which are usually downstairs on the floor the next morning. Swimwear we had to put on patio chairs otherwise that definitely blew off.

• Every room has a table on the balcony with 2 chairs, doesn't matter how many guests you only get 2 chairs, this didnt bother us as we rarely used it but I know some families like to sit on the balcony and drink/play cards etc.

There is no full mirror in the room, well there wasn't in ours, so when getting ready in the evening you only have a mirror above bathroom sink to see from the waist up.

• Cups/glasses are very small and do sometimes run out at the bar, this didnt effect us as we planned ahead and took our stanleys.

• The chips being outside at the snack bar only was sometimes frustrating because if your in the restaurant and have salad, chicken etc and want a few chips on the side you then have to go outside to the snack bar and get chips, which most times meant waiting for them to be cooked, some chips in the restaurant would be good.

As I say these are only things that I am really picking about, nothing that will ruin your holiday.

I read loads of comments on here before we arrived and asked loads of questions, which I found helpful so I hope this helps others. Happy to answer any questions you have, but honestly this is a brilliant hotel for the money

The experience was very good. This is a good hotel a big shout out to all the entertainment team Mowgli, Walid ,Dj khaleed, sfayga who kept us entrained during the day and the nighttime shows were really good. Food was average but a large variety daily

Mougli made me and my family feel very welcome and brought great energy around the pool and during the activities. I would absolutely recommend Dar Atlas Resort as a lovely holiday destination for families.