Hipotels Hipocampo Palace

I don’t know if it’s just I’m comparing this 5 star hotel to others I have stayed in but the experience was summed up as … ‘meh was ok’, I thought the food was passable, ate it coz I paid for it, even breakfast was lack luster and that was the barometer for the other meals, pool side bar ate there once and that was enough. Outside pool decent size.. not as big as the pictures would have you believe, no deep end so swimming with goggles seemed pointless. Inside pool was nice. Towels on the few sun beds issue, as someone else has pointed out, unlike other hotels I’ve been at.. we were never approached once from one of the bar waiters for poolside drinks, I did see people being brought drinks over but we were never approached.. meaning we spent far less on the bar tab than probably we would have done if someone had bothered to ask us! We just drank the water we brought with us instead of walking over to the bar. The staff were friendly. The hotel is at the quieter rocky beach end of the resort, that was a bonus as the main resort was too crowded. At first I thought the free roaming chickens was a quaint aspect of the hotel, and with a toddler I thought it was a nice child friendly aspect, but then realised that they were not belonging to the hotel just wild in the area, leaving chicken poop mess on the grass area near the sun beds and that just highlighted a lack of care for both the environment and the animals. I feel that it was not value for money, was a package deal via TUI, which I would not endorse going through.

Overall good hotel, we travelled end of June with our 3 month old. On check in to our room in the main building there was a bad smell on the whole row of rooms so we were moved across over the road (which sounds worse than it is) not a long walk or particularly busy road. We stayed in a suite room, with a view out the back of the hotel, very nice modern room, with good air con and ceiling fan. Most of the landscaping is complete, naturally some teething issues with building works. Food - we opted for breakfast only which we really liked, good variety (1 vegetarian who was able to find suitable options. Lunch - we ate at the pool bar everyday for convenience, the staff are great I’d say the food is pretty average here given the cost, could easily upgrade some of the options here to suit 5* hotel, after 7 days it was tough to find healthy options. We ate out each evening so can’t comment on evening options. Location - we were able to walk with our pram very easily to bars/shops/restaurants with the beach also very close and a flat walk. The area is occupied mainly by Germans (which didn’t bother us as a British family). Some local restaurants worth visiting - Amapola, Grattini, SANTÉ (vegetarian only).

Gym - at our time of visiting the gym open however pretty poor, none of the cardio equipment was functioning, some small free weights, cable machine and some old leg press machines.

Staff across the hotel we found to be very friendly and helpful. Drinks by the pool took an age, we ended up going to the local store and buying our own, normally one guy trying to serve 60+ beds.

Sun beds were frustrating, they section off for ‘Serenity’ which mostly weren’t all used and then there simply wasn’t enough for everyone, it isn’t sun bed wars but if you don’t reserve by say 10am you’ll likely be waiting for someone to leave, we also reserved 2 beds and walked round for 30 mins with our baby and then found a note saying beds cannot be reserved despite most of the beds being reserved, very odd and annoying to receive. Not all of the hotel pool area is easily accessible with a pram, with the majority of the grounds grass a bit of a work up to get your pram across! Overall a nice hotel and we enjoyed our break, some small improvements which could make the hotel much more welcoming and enjoyable for the money.