Grand Park Lara

During our stay in a Family Suite at Grand Park Lara (a €2,700 package), a heavy wooden door frame completely broke off the wall and struck our child on the head. It was held together by just a few dots of old glue, showing complete neglect of basic maintenance. To make matters worse, the air conditioning units in the room were covered in black mold and dirt, posing a serious health risk to a young child. When we confronted Guest Relations and Management alongside our agency representative, we were met with complete disrespect, dismissive attitudes, and zero empathy. They refused any financial responsibility (not even refunding the last 2 ruined nights) and tried to brush off a major child safety incident with minor hotel perks, which we firmly rejected. Unsafe room infrastructure, moldy A/C units, and arrogant management. Avoid this hotel if you care about your family's safety and health!

We are currently staying at this hotel and I could not recommend more highly. Ignore the negative reviews this hotel is amazing. Offered a free upgrade when we checked in. Check in was super quick and a porter takes you and your cases to your room. Staff are always busy serving, cooking or cleaning. The main restaurant does get busy but if you are there within an hour of it opening you will find seats no problem but there are so many other places to eat it really doesn't matter. The barbecue area is amazing for dinner.and the pool bar snacks are extremely good and always varied. If you want a sunbed in a particular area yes you will have to be up at 6.30am but other beds are available most of the day and if struggling to get one tell the staff and they will sort you out. The entertainment is very good as well. I would definitely recommend this hotel and would return in a heartbeat.

Lovely hotel plenty of different foods & drinks, really clean, pools are great and beach is a short walk away, friendly staff nothing is any problem, would definitely recommend this hotel

This is a cheap and cheerful, fly and flop kind of hotel. It is big, brash, and lively. We have just returned from a week's stay there and it was much better than expected. I was concerned after reading the bad reviews but it turns out that my fears were groundless. Summary of the good and the not so good: The good: 1. Food. Fresh, varied and available 24/7. The Tulip Bistro was open for breakfast, late breakfast, lunch and then from 6pm to 7am - literally all night. It has a calm, relaxed atmosphere with music playing and plenty of choice. There was also a snack bar serving burgers, chips, hot dogs, pasta, noodles, vegetables, salads, fruit and a fridge of ice creams - this was open all afternoon. In addition there was a kiosk serving jackets potatoes on one side, and waffles on the other. This was open in the afternoon only. Then there was another open air BBQ snack bar - open early afternoon until around 9pm. There are fridges filled with water bottles all over the hotel, various bars where you can get drinks, ice cream, coffees etc. A pub for drinks and football. Finally there was an a la carte restaurant where you paid a supplement of 15 euros per person. You got a five course menu and very decent wine. Lovely relaxed atmosphere and attentive staff. We went twice because 15 euros for all that food and wine was a real bargain! Availability of food was a major plus of the hotel - you didn't have to get up for breakfast and didn't have to rush to dinner - there was always of range of food options available - no matter what time of the day - very conducive to a relaxing holiday. 2. Staff - there were a huge number of staff - cleaning, serving, waiting on you. If there was a queue at a bar then it moved very quickly. We didn't queue for more than 5 minutes all week, and the hotel was full. Reception staff were friendly, helpful and efficient. Very well managed and appreciated. 3. Entertainment - an awful lot of effort was made with the entertainment. Each night the central area is turned into a different venue - dance nights with giant hot air balloons, cabaret nights, circus nights, tribute nights, etc etc. In the day there was a range of exercise options available, with funny instructors - takes some skill to get you laughing during a tough class but they managed it. We didn't use the kid's club but it looked brilliant. There's also a cinema showing a kids film in the day and an adult one at night - again not used but nice to have the option. The less good: 1. The main restaurant. We went once, stayed for a starter and left after about 10 minutes. The restaurant is large and airy, with a huge amount of food, beautifully presented, a bar where you get served very quickly and many, many staff to look after you. Unfortunately it was filled with children running full pelt around the buffet which felt dangerous with all the hot food and wine glasses and a weird frantic crazy vibe - which was inexplicable considering the amount of food available all day every day - I think another reviewer commented on this - the way the adults were acting in that restaurant was as if they were starving and hadn't eaten for days. Pushing, shoving, darting here there and everywhere, piling plates really high, letting children run wild. A real shame. I think the hotel could improve this a little, firstly by putting up some notices to say don't run around the food, and secondly by keeping the restaurant open until 10pm. 2. Information about activities could be improved - a printed sheet provided when you check in maybe? It took a while to find the information boards - and they didn't provide the full info - I found out on the last day that beach yoga was available. It would be good if the schedule was more widely published. 3. Windowless second room - booked a deluxe family room and the kid's bedroom didn't have a window. Bit oppressive though my 12 year old didn't mind too much. Summary and other points not mentioned: 1. Great value for money - this hotel is not fancy at all but it provides everything you need for a good basic holiday. It is clean, comfortable, next to the sea, and you are well fed at all times. 2. The shops in the hotel lobby - particularly the hoodies and bags - are better value than the ones outside. We thought it would be opposite! 3. The spa is lovely and the staff are expert but afterwards, when you are sat all chilled out, a man comes and gives a very hard sell, and all the work the masseuse has done disappears! They would be better waiting until the next day. 4. Sunbeds - generally plenty available, even around 11am. If you want one on the front row next to the pool then yes get up at 8.30am and stick your towel down but we found beds on the 2nd and 3rd row when we wandered down at 10 ish each day and there were always plenty free on the grass areas - which were clean and not filled with cat poop as another reviewer claimed. 5. Beach - only went twice due to windy conditions - but there were masses of sunbeds, beach bar, snack bar, kiosk selling boat trips and water sports. Sea was wild - perhaps not ideal for small children, sand was not white and soft, more grey and rocky, good for a change of scene though. Beach is a five minute walk though they have a little buggy shuttle thing too for when you are tired. It's a nice touch. 6. Pools - one big pool where they have entertainment, music, the lively place to be. Smaller pool with no music - much more relaxed. Four water slides. Small baby pool. All fully staffed with attentive life guards. Cleaned regularly. This hotel is vast, with around 950 rooms, so thousands of guests but was actually a really easy, chilled out place to relax - a real achievement to manage all those people. We forgot about work entirely and my son said it was 'the best hotel he's ever been to'.

My overall view on Grand Park Lara is a negative due to being shoved in a back room overlooking fields and cats, however the downfall is my room was infested with bugs and ants crawling all over the bed and walls and staff didn't do anything until the day we left. The pool and evening shows are great. I would recommend looking elsewhere to spend your stay.9