Costa Calma, H10 Playa Esmeralda Reviews

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H10 Playa Esmeralda, Costa Calma,

The best thing about Costa Calma is the beach without a doubt. The strong breeze is very welcomed, in the heat. The sea is very shallow and you have to go out about 100 yards before it's to waist level which is lovely. Its great for waves too when the wind gets up. We were very disappointed that there were NO bars or eateries whatsoever in the area. You have your hotel facilities and that's it, so make sure you take drinks and snacks to the beach with you.

We stayed at the H10 Playa Esmeralda in June/July 09. This hotel is lovely, although it was 8% Spanish, 2% English and 90% Germans who were not very friendly, never smiled, and were sometimes quite rude, this spoilt our holiday a little as we just wanted to get away. The food in the hotel was quite standard. Somewhat of a variety, but exactly the same variety every night. We went half board and the drinks with our evening meals were not included and cost a fortune, therefore ended up with a hefty bill upon departure. The hotel is suppose to serve evening meals up until 9.30pm, disappointingly they started clearing away at 9pm and not putting fresh food out so we had to eat what was left if we came down later, and after the Germans had been in that wasn't much!

The hotel entertainment, again, is focused around the Germans as the entertainers themselves are German. There were duo singers on most nights but very cheesy, we ended up doing our own thing away from the hotel.

We rented a safe in the room which cost about 25 Euro's for 10 days. You cannot use the fridge in the rooms unless you purchase 6 bottled drinks from the hotel to put in it first. The rooms have air conditioning, although the cold air is switched off on an evening and warm air comes through. We were charged an extra 130 Euro's for a sea view room.

The cleaners were very good and will come back when you are out of the room if you do not want to be disturbed on their rounds. There are internet facilities and this costs 1 Euro for 10 mins.

The hotel pool was a good size but you will be lucky to get a sunbed as towels are put all over them in advance. We went to the beach everyday instead which is directly in front of the hotel (quite a few stairs and a small hill first).

Costa Calma in itself is an extremely quiet area with about three main hotels next to each other (H10 Esmeralda, H10 Tyndia and the R2). If you are willing to walk 10-15 mins then you will find another large hotel with the odd shop and bar. We had a hire car so we managed to drive 20 mins on the FV-2 motorway to Jandi/Morre Jable further south of the island which had more to offer, plenty of nice bars and shops. One of our highlights was a lovely Chinese restaurant on the front where they were extremely friendly and the food was top notch so recommend them if you go !.

Word of warning - please be careful if you plan on purchasing electrical equipment. We went into about five camera shops and all of them had the same tactics (in particular a chain called "Foto Porst" and "Seven Seas". They will offer a good price on an item in the window, then when you enquire about it, that price doesn't exist or they will say they don't have any left. Then they will try make you purchase something more expensive. They fiddle with the settings on camera's to make them look like the quality of the pictures are rubbish, then show you a better quality one double the price. All they are doing is playing with the settings!!. If you are adamant you want to buy a particular product and they feel they cannot sway you, they use other tactics like saying they are shutting the shop for a siesta to get rid of you ..please please please be very careful in the stores if you are purchasing something expensive, these guys all work together and know exactly what they are doing! All reps should be made aware of this so they can include it on their welcome meeting for the tourists.

This is an honest personal unbiased opinion after visiting. Apart from the negatives, we had a lovely 'beach' holiday and it's all about the company you're in at the end of the day!