Portintax, El Greco

a great family hotel, loads of activities.located right next to the beach and with a water park also.the hotel is clean and the food is very good with a great choice.but there is a few steps around the hotel but nothing to bad

I've just got back from a 2 week all inclusive holiday in El Greeco & I thoughly enjoyed it, the food was excellent with plenty to choose from and the staff were great. This is the first time I've ever been all inclusive & from my experience it is with out a doubt the best way to have a holiday.

The hotel is basically on the beach but there are a few steps down there ( about 30 ) so it wont be suitable for wheelchair users. The only things that are not so good about this hotel is the entertainment was only so so & our room wasn't cleaned as good as it could have been, allthough the rest of the hotel was spotless.

This was our first holiday to Ibiza (Portinatx), and I must say that we had a fantastic time. We went with our 2 children aged 5 years and 3 years, who thought it was wonderful, especially being able to go on to the beach every day. The location to the beach couldn't have been better, apart from having to climb 54 steps, which are not ideal if you have a pushchair or for the less able. The weather for the time of year was lovely. The El Greco Hotel was very clean, and the staff were very friendly and helpful. The food was excellent, with so much to choose from. We didn't know what to eat most of the time. The children enjoyed the kids club, and couldn't wait for the mini disco in the evening. The evening entertainment could be improved for the adults slightly. The resort itself is lovely, not very big though. There are a few shops which don't take long to browse around, and there are a handful of bars/restaurants which we didn't use as we were All Inclusive.

Would definitely like to go back sometime - well worth the money.

This was a last minute deal for us so £648 for two AI was not bad. The hotel was good, excellent food with lots of choice, well presented and tasty.

I cannot find much wrong with the hotel, but the reps were dire, they gave no info about the area, just tried to push the company's over-priced trips.

The entertainment was the worst I have experienced, mostly mimed and very limited. Not much going on in Portinatx with only a couple of bars, we would really have liked to experience some local culture but the place was so overpowered by English that it was impossible, we were fed up and ashamed of the gluttony of the Brits so can imagine what the Ibizans must think of us.

Unfortunately we came home the day ot the Portinatx festival, so we missed seeing the people of Portinatx involved in traditional activities and we missed the 24hrs of partying. We would return to Ibiza but to the other, lively end, not to club but to be in easy reach of more things to see and do. I have no doubt that if you are looking for a beach holiday in a very nice hotel in a quiet resort, then you will not go wrong here, i's just not for us.

We have just returned from our holiday in Ibiza, and thought you might like to know about this great resort and the hotel we stayed in. I was really looking forward to this holiday, which had been booked a year early, as we had been to this resort and hotel before.

Portinax is on the North side of the island, and it took about 40 minutes from the airport to get there. The El Greco is perched right on the most beautiful bay you will ever see. They filmed South Pacific there. Yes there are a few steps down to it, but by the end of the second week you hardly noticed them. The hotel is spotlessly clean, and the maid service was amazing. I lost count of how many times our sheets were changed. The maid came and cleaned our room ever day, and tried to clean our sons (3 of them), but often couldn't get in because they were still in bed. This did not put her off though, as she would return later to venture where I feared to tread. All the hotel staff were very friendly and helpful.

The Hotel El Greco is ideal for families or couples looking for a holiday away from it all, but with a choice of things to do when you are feeling a little more active. It has a total of 244 rooms over 6 floors. I would recommend a room on one of the higher floors if you can get it, as people are leaving and arriving at all times of the day and night.

The entertainment this year left a lot to be desired, and we found that we spent a lot more than we had intended, as we tended to leave the hotel at night and venture across the sands to the "town" centre (a few shops and 2 bars). The bars were great! Our favourite being Del Boys, whilst the kids (I say kids but they are 21, 17, 16 and 12) loved Vincent's. The owners and their family made us very welcome in Del Boys, and by the end of the 2 weeks it felt as though we were leaving family behind.

The main reason we returned to the El Greco was because of the food. My husband is a bit of a fussy eater, where as I'll eat anything (and I do). Here however there was so much to choose from that even my husband had something different most days and nights. The buffet is about twenty feet, double sided, and at the top they have what they call the show cooking. My advice would be to walk round first and check out the show cooking before deciding what to eat. There is usually a choice of two soups for starters, with as much freshly baked baguette as you can eat. The show cooking usually consisted each night of a choice from a meat or a fish dish, ranging from beautiful sirloin steaks, pork steaks, lamb chops, pork chops, gammon steaks, tuna steaks, salmon steak, hake and swordfish. My husband thinks they make the best gravy he has ever tasted abroad. The main buffet usually consisted of some sort of casserole, a kids dish, vegetable, salad, cold meats, cheese, and a selection of desserts to die for. My husband usually opted for rice pudding (the only place we've been able to get it abroad) or sponge cake and custard. A couple of nights during our stay they had a special champagne night, where the chef would pour as many glasses of champagne as you wanted, and a special table was set up with fresh prawns on ice, mussels in white wine, and various other shell fish. At lunch and dinner times there was a help yourself bar where you could pour yourself a lager, a wine or a soft drink (as many as you liked). At breakfast there were always bottles of champagne available if you wanted them.

The water park as promised was only a short walk away from the hotel, and the beach was fantastically supervised by the lifeguards. There was also a bar there where you could continue your free drinks. Although not that big, it did keep the kids entertained, and there aren't many hotels that have their own water park. We did spend a couple of days around the pool, but it wasn't very big and had a lot of small kids running around, so most of the time we went on the beach. The sea went out for miles before getting too deep to stand up in, and then you could see fish swimming around you. There was also the usual water sports, donuts, banana boat, skiing and pedalos. We took a pedalo out one day and the view of the beach was amazing.

We also hired a car for a few days. We got a good deal through the Thomson reps at the hotel. This turned out to be quite fortuitous, as the 2 days we had the car, Ibiza had the most rain they had had in 40 years. Had we not had the car we would have been stuck in the hotel with little to do. As it was, we were able to explore the whole of Ibiza; visiting Ibiza town as well as many little unspoilt coves.

Now for the downside. Just outside of Portinax is a sewerage works, and depending on which way the wind is blowing, the smell is disgusting. This did not help the entertainment, as on our first week the entertainment was out by the pool. The second week after the rain it did move inside but the entertainment was so poor we still went out for most of the night. I did hear though that the Thomson reps had had that many complaints, that a new entertainment manager was brought in midway through our second week.

I have read in other reviews that the Thomson reps could hardly be found. This I find hard to believe, as there were always two reps a their desk in the hotel until 8pm every night. One of the reps from Gateshead took a shine to my 12 year old, and really made his holiday, and she had us laughing at some of the complaints she had received.

The hotel is not really the place for teenagers or young adults, as it is more for families with small children. Although there were quite a few teenagers there. Unfortunately they all seemed to be drawn to each other, and made a lot of noise when returning home at 5am in morning after an impromptu beach party (mine included). So much so that we were threatened with being asked to leave the hotel if it continued.

I personally love the resort and the hotel, but I think if I was to return in future I would probably go self catering rather than all inclusive, as on top of the £3500 it cost for our family of 6, we spent about another £1000 due to the entertainment not being up to much. Although the food was fabulous, the meals at Del Boys were excellent and reasonably priced, so I think it would have been cheaper for us this year to have been self-catering.