SplashWorld Globales Playa Estepona

A convenient location as we have family members living nearby. A family oriented hotel. Plenty of space, swimming pools and water park for amusement.

The hotel and the water park are fine. Travelling with a 5 and 10 year old, they loved it. Kids loved the mini discos and the slides. Rooms are perfectly fine, cleaned daily. The beach isn’t that great but we didn’t come for a beach holiday. Easy bus route to the towns. The food is absolutely terrible though. There is only buffet option, even in the pool bar. Every meat is so dry, the vegetables are poor, tasteless and not fresh. If it wasn’t for the food, I’d definitely book here again. But a week of terrible buffet food 3 times a day, in an overpacked restaurant means I’ll look elsewhere next year.

HOTEL / LOCATION - The hotel is much larger than it appears on the advertising pictures which is a good thing! Lovely location right on the beach with good connections to Estepona and Peurto Banus. We got the bus into the port (2 adults, 1 child) and it cost less than €8. The transfer in did take a while (approximately 1.5hrs) but may have been impacted by delayed arrivals. There is a Games Room at night which they should consider opening in the day. I will say the hotel didn’t seem to have the infrastructure for the number of guests. The restaurant was hectic & there were frequently significant queues at all bars for service. Additionally the main pool bar never opened on time. ROOM - We went for a family suite & expected more than one room. This was not the case - whilst it had a good view, it was three single beds crammed into one room. We don’t spend much time in our room but it was still cramped. We were also on the 4th floor & repeatedly found ants, despite housekeeping spraying bug spray. FACILITIES / ENTERTAINMENT - The waterpark / pool / slides are AMAZING! Really impressive. I also had a massage which was genuinely the best I’ve ever had. The day time schedule was hit or miss - it didn’t always follow the schedule advertised & we got fobbed off one day for water polo when they said there weren’t enough adults (there were). The night time entertainment is also quite repetitive. We did hear very positive things about the Kids Club. FOOD / DRINK - The food was awful. Not just generic all inclusive awful which you can expect but genuinely awful. It made me unwell to the point I had to go to the pharmacy up the road for medication / advice and I was debating an appointment with the on site GP. My child really struggled and one night only had a plate of tortilla chips because there was nothing else he wanted, having eaten a lot of the “snack” food earlier in the day. Breakfast was fine with plenty of options and we went to the beach bar for snacks - it was more the evening meal. We went to one theme night (Chinese) and left within 10 mins as the food was not well signed and we were being concious of allergies. I don’t think any of us could consider ourselves full throughout the week. The drinks / all inclusive cocktails were fab but certain cocktails (pina colada / daquiris) are not included and cost extra.

So it’s not all bad, but the food is terrible. The “restaurant” is like a war zone, cold food dirty areas and big queues for the coffee machine. The pool bar is no different, queues for pizza and the same boring food each and every day. The only highlight was a bbq area. The cleanliness is a bit hit and miss. Sunbeds are covered in bird poo and the roof top terrace area could be lovely but it an all broken and again covered in poo!

This is my personal and honest review. As with all holidays, there are pros and cons. Firstly the pros: the hotel is very clean, the staff are very nice and helpful. The pools are fantastic and the waterpark is great for kids. There are about 5 pools and lots of sunbeds. The food is ok, not piping hot but ok, it is a bit repetitive, but there was always something to eat. There is a kids disco at night but the adult show does not start until 10pm. The cons: The area around the hotel is rundown, the hotel is not all inclusive as I know it. Each pool towel cost 10 Euros. which is refundable, if you change your towels it's an extra Euro each per day. There are no tea/coffee facilities in the room. If you want to hire a kettle it is over 30 euros, the safe in rhe room costs over 40 euros. There is a fridge in the room but you have to pay for bottled water. The ice cream parlour was closed and you had to pay for ice creams. The beach is rubbish to be honest. There are bumper cars, trampolines and a games room but they all come with an extra charge. If you have a few kids it can work out expensive.