Playa D'En Bossa, Mare Nostrum

I have to admit, it's the second time we've been there now, because we really enjoyed it there last year but this year was just terrible! Our rooms faced the delivery entrance of the hotel where we could hear the garbage delivery about 3 times a night. One moring I counted 21 bins, not to mention the glas containers. The place appeared to be much dirtier this year which might be due to the abolishment of the environment tax.

Some of the towels came back even dirtier than before. Friendliness of the staff also diminished noticeably but there are always exeptions to the rule.

The atmosphere was dreadful you could have literally spat on the neighbours table without having to move a great deal, it was extremely loud and a complete and utter chaos. And it is a mistery to me where the air conditioing is meant to be located. The surroundings of the hotel are shabby and the beach is the biggest catastrophy. The rats are a plague and the beach is contaminated with dead eels.

If you are looking for the Carribean sea and beach feeling take a ferry ride to Formentera island.

The shows in the hotel are really bad as well, you can tell what the hotel thinks of its guests.. you can't honestly consider this to be entertainment. The minidisco for children was alright and the Bingo games they offered were acceptable but the rest was just a joke.

The swimming pool could have done with a bit of chlorine, hygiene is definitely something different. They even closed the pool down at some point for some unexplicable reason.

It's a pitty because we only returned to that place because of that hotel since Playa d'en Bossa is anything else than a nice. It's surrounded by building sites which will probably never be finished.

Thanks but no thanks.

Overall the holiday was great, for kids the mare nostrum is the place to be, though it was not worth £849 per person that we paid. Rooms did not have air conditioning, food was not that great and the menus were repeated every other night.

We have stayed at the Mare Nostrum 8 times and are going again this year. This hotel is clean and friendly and food is a very good standard. There is an assortment of sports activities throughout the day for both adults and children, although we haven't really got involved in this because we hire a car and tour the beautiful island, finding quiet beaches, old villages, the cathedral in Ibiza Town which are all absolutely fantastic.

In the evening the hotel has a disco for the younger ones, then a bit later in the evening spanish dancers, a parrot show, etc. and silly games for everyone. The entertainment crew really try to please everyone. If you have any problems it is sorted out very quickly because there is a caretaker on duty 24 hours - for instance my niece took her baby last year who needed a cot instead of a bed she rang reception and within 10 minutes a cot arrived. My shower went on the blink and again they were there within no time to fix it. There is also a security man on reception at night when the day reception staff have gone home.

We went to the Mare Nostrum hotel in May 2003. The hotel was clean, rooms are basic but from chatting to other guests it's normal that brothers and sister have to share double beds. A ceiling fan was also in the room but was quite noisy.

The hotel is located on the main road and a short trip from the airport, though traffic and aircraft noise wasn't a problem at all. Across the main road was access to the beach which was narrow, seaweed was washed up in patches and you felt overlooked from the path and from other people though the beach was not even nearly full.

It was a 15 minute walk to the town shops past some waste land and a couple of family bars with trampolines and a bouncy castle outside, the shops were full of the usual Spanish gifts and it wouldnt take you more than an hour strolling round then seeing the same holiday gifts.

Food was plentiful on half board and was often quite nice, cooked breakfast was a choice of bacon plus trimmings one day, and sausage plus trimmings the next day, the usual continental and cereal was also on every day.

The evening meal had about 3-4 choices each night, which was also buffet style so you could try the lot if you wanted! It was obvious food was being recycled from the night before as the mixed salad would become more mixed with odd vegetables in the night after. Also a couple of nights you would have the same as the night before. I also found the meals didn't cater for children.

The entertainment in the hotel was the usual kids disco, bingo then some dancing or magic act which would be ok-ish if you like that sort of thing - I found it a bit boring really.

Drink prices cost about the same as they are in the UK - has the euro effected this? Last time I went to Spain the beer, wine and spirits were really cheap.

We didn't bother with any of the trips that the reps were selling as they were all very expensive, but we did get the boat over to Santa Eulalia which we all really enjoyed as there was a nice beach plus more shops and bars.

We has a bus ride to Ibiza town a couple of times and both times we felt like we missed where everything was, the town consists of the harbour and small streets of gift shops selling basically the same thing!

The brochure, which we booked the holiday, described this as " A large and lively hotel, with a wide range of activities and entertainment. This description left me slightly concerned as I am not really a party animal and was quite looking forward to a rest as well as fun for my family - We found all in all the hotel was nice for young families but I wouldn't go back to Playa d'en Bossa again as it was far too quite.