La Pineda, Estival Park Hotel Review

Overall Rating

A clean hotel with friendly helpful staff. There were plenty of resort facilities plus small gift shops & restaurants etc. A good hotel base for families. Close to the beach (which seems clean) but also very close to Aquopolis Water Park - a must if you have kids who love water. The resort was also only a bus ride away from Port Aventura theme park.

Unfortunately the La Pineda coastline view is spoilt by an oil refinery and its tankers. Also this area of Spain is served by Reus Airport - which we found to be too small and dirty - in fact not properly equipped at all to deal with the vast numbers of passengers visiting this popular area of Spain! Really, considering the numbers of passengers using this Airport, Reus should be brought up to the same modern standards as Palma Airport on Mallorca.

We stayed in the Hotel Estival Park 2 on an all inclusive basis - which is great for families.

We found the Estival Park 2 hotel to be clean and the staff friendly and helpful. We arrived there at gone 10 at night, having opted out of the in flight meal, so we were quite hungry by the time we got to the hotel. After taking our luggage to our rooms, we were given a temporary all inclusive card at reception so that we could get snacks & drinks from the bar. The delicious cheeseburgers and San Miguel beers were very welcome (especially as we only had to show our all inclusive card). The next day we had our photos taken for our proper all inclusive cards.

Our room was a duplex style family room - which was on the ground floor. No fantastic view -just the road and a few bushes - a bit of a let down really. Still - I guess we were lucky as some of the duplex rooms were on the entertainment side of the hotel. Sure they had great pool views during the day, but the noise from the entertainment late at night may not be so welcome if you have young children trying to sleep.

Our air con wasn't working for the first night - something to do with a catch on the 'patio' doors - this was sorted out the next day. Our television wasn't working too - not that you go on holiday to stay in and watch telly, but nevertheless it should have been in proper working order. This took a few days to sort out (I think they forgot so we had to remind them).

The food was quite varied and mainly meat or fish based. Some excellent desserts too. There was plenty of fresh fruit & salads available. The pools (in Estivals 1, 2, & 3 were clean with plenty of sunloungers around. Our favourite outdoor pool was Estival 3 - it looked more inviting than Estival 1 & 2 pools. If you like to take your holiday somewhere picturesque then be warned as La Pineda itself is no picture postcard. It is okay in that it has lots of little shops and bars plus some really good ice cream shops BUT, there is an oil refinery complete with tankers, fairly close - which isn't very picturesque. The beach seemed ok (clean) though we didn't actually sunbathe on it or go into the sea.

The best thing about La Pineda is the Aquapolis water park which is only about 5-10 minutes walk from the hotel. Aquapolis waterpark 'knocks the socks' off Costa Caribe - with its many water slides, pools and excellent Dolphin & Sea lion shows. It is a big water park with plenty of places to sit and sunbathe while your kids enjoy the waterslides & pools. You don't need to worry about La Pineda's beach if you visit the Aquapolis waterpark. Apply plenty of suncream though to help prevent burning as the pools are mainly salt water. The queues for tickets for Aquapolis were not so bad.

The buses to Port Aventura are quite regular, and they drop you off right outside the gates. They go via Salou though (through the resorts) so it takes a good 35 minutes to get there. Port Aventura (part of Universal Mediterranea with Costa Caribe) was excellent. It was very hot when we were there so we kept going on the water rides just to get saturated - so we could keep cool. My husband and eldest daughter went on the Dragon Khan ride - just don't eat or drink a lot prior to riding this. Its best to buy your tickets for Port Aventura in the UK to avoid the big queues. I got mine online from Keith Prowse. Ignore what it says about needing a signature and ID photo on the back of the tickets - we didn't need this, though you could take photocopies of your passports for ID purposes just in case they decide to follow their own rules. They don't allow you to take food into the park (obviously so you will purchase food from their usually over priced kiosks or alternatively, queue up for ages in the heat just to hire one of their lockers) AND they want to see what you have in your bags before letting you inside. They do allow you to take in bottled water, though surely it is against civil liberties to dictate to people where they should purchase their food (shhhh... we had picnics provided by our hotel, hidden at the bottom of our bag).

The Barcelona Highlights trip (organised by First Choice) was excellent. Our visit included a trip to the Neu Camp stadium and a brief stop for photos outside the Sagrada Familia Church, the famous one, which you get the best view of if you happen to fly over it whilst on route to Minorca. My youngest daughter had her photos taken with the 'human statues'. Barcelona is definitely well worth a visit if you are staying in this area of Spain!

Reus airport is another story altogether - not at all what you would expect from an international airport serving this popular area of Spain. Unlike the clean, modern airports at Palma and Mahon (on the Balearics), Reus airport was smelly and filthy, with broken seating in the waiting area and rubbish on the floor. There was no sign of any bins or cleaners either. In our experience the First Choice passengers were treated no better than cattle in that they were forced to queue at the checking-in areas in such a confined space that resulted in some passengers pushing in front of others. This of course led to some friction and lots of people complaining to the reps. Not a good reflection on First Choice!