Hi,
We're arrived back from our holiday in the early hours of this morning
I'll give some info on the holiday in case anyone is interested!
It's a nice short flight to Reus on the Costa Dorada,less than 2 hours.What is also nice and short is the transfer time whether you're staying in Salou,Cambrils or La Pineda it's only about 10/15 minutes drive.The short flight and close transfer time would make the Costa Dorada a good choice for families with young children.or any children!We picked up our car at the airport and found Hotel Port Aventura,the onsite hotel at Universal Mediteranea very easily.
The hotel is large but built like a mexican village all lovely pale colours,so it is very spread out but only two stories high.A lake(?)/stream runs all the way through and around the resort so you can always see water.The main pool is large,in an irregular wavy shape and great for children.There is a smaller pool that we preferred,it has a bar right next to it for snacks and drinks.As it was a bit deeper there were lchildren around this pool as well but not so many and not lots of little ones (sorry, I haven't become one of those bitter child haters
.....yet! LOL.
It was half board with a lovely buffet brekkie every morning and a buffet at the evening meal.The food in the evening didn't vary at all.I guess this is because you can do whats known as 'dine around'.If you weren't eating at the main buffet you had to get a dine around voucher and could use it at one of the other two restaurants in the resort or (what I thought was a great idea) use the voucher at any restaurant in the theme park.At the restaurants in the hotel the voucher had a value of 9 euroes an adult and 6 a child.And in the theme park some restaurants had a set meal or you could use the voucher and pay no extra.What did happen was you would end up paying varying amounts on top of the voucher.But as the food wasn't varied ever in the buffett I quess there intention is to make it so you have eat at other places and spend more money?
The exit to the theme park is literally an exit from the hotel and is 'manned' at all times.With your hotel pass you can have a fast pass type thing for each of the main rides and shows (except Stampeda) and after 9 at night you have FOTL access to all rides and shows (except Stampeda!) as much as you like.The park was open until 12 every night.There was a show on at 12 at every night on the lagoon which was really good,it had fireworks and boats and other things!The theming of the lands is excellent in the whole park.
The concensus was Dragon Khan was the best ride (similiar to Kraken) and Stampeda which was a fantastic wooden roller coaster with two cars racing each other (like duelling dragons).I has such a humiliating experiece on the one time I went on Stampeda.The attendant came to check my bar was down,and started to push down on the bar to make it go furthur down(it was resting on my stomach) she called another attendant over and they were both pushing down on me.The other people queuing for the next ride are standing only a couple of feet from the car and I thought I would die of emmbarrasment.I cried when I came off the ride.My DH refused to go on the ride again and said it was happening to other people as well and one man got of the ride in disgust when they were doing the same to him.
There was also a brilliant new show called Tempo Del Fuego very similiar to The Indiana Jones show at MGM (it must have been created by the US side of things).Although extremely short the special effects were very good. I know it was very presumptious of me but I expected the narration to be partly in English.......which it wasn't! So although I didn't understand what they were saying,the Spanish people were all laughing so I assume it was good.We has wondered in the past how it must be for non-English speakers at the US theme parks,experiencing this in Spain shows it does spoil some of the fun.
With the stay at the hotel is a free day at Universal's new water park.Again just two minutes walk from the hotel.The water park Costa Caribe is absolutely brilliant and again you can see the imput from the US here.The theming was great.There was a very good lazy river around the park.And the large pool was kind of split in two sections by rocks,alternately during the day one side or the other would have waves.You were allowed to take rings when the wave maching was on and that was great fun.At the entrance you can hire rings for three euroes a day which you really need to do as there aren't many of the 'free' ones available ewspecially on the lazy river.They charge three euroes for the sun beds a day.Although it is another money making thing it did help in one way.As when the person acme around to collect the money the family next to me had bagged five sun beds and when they had to pay for them only kept three.This would free up a lot of beds at Orlando theme parks and would stop people from lying their towels on beds that are never used all day.
The food and drinks at the park and water park was really nice and amazingly very reasonably priced.
What I didn't like was,no tea/cofee making facilities in the room.No lock on the toilet/bathroom door,no idea why.But mainly no laundry faciliies at the hotel.I know this is 4* hotel and maybe every one else is to posh to wash their own clothes but I am not paying to have shorts,T-shirts and underwear laundered by the hotel.There were so many people arriving and leaving every day I guess most people stay between two and four nights so don't need to do laundry,but with a week on a package holiday I neede to.I had to hand wash our clothes and have then drapped wet around the nice room and made it look horrible.They asked that you do not drap things over the balcony,I inderstand why as it looks scruffy but as I had wet clothes I had no option and did this.Very common!
I didn't like the look of Salou at all
( sorry to anyone who likes it there)so we drove to
Cambrils and it was much nicer there and less crowded on the beach.We didn't get to drive to Barcelona for the day as we'd planned.
I would thoroughly reccomend a stay at the Hotel Port Aventura.
Hope this hasn't been too long.Any Quesions ask away.
We're arrived back from our holiday in the early hours of this morning
I'll give some info on the holiday in case anyone is interested!
It's a nice short flight to Reus on the Costa Dorada,less than 2 hours.What is also nice and short is the transfer time whether you're staying in Salou,Cambrils or La Pineda it's only about 10/15 minutes drive.The short flight and close transfer time would make the Costa Dorada a good choice for families with young children.or any children!We picked up our car at the airport and found Hotel Port Aventura,the onsite hotel at Universal Mediteranea very easily.
The hotel is large but built like a mexican village all lovely pale colours,so it is very spread out but only two stories high.A lake(?)/stream runs all the way through and around the resort so you can always see water.The main pool is large,in an irregular wavy shape and great for children.There is a smaller pool that we preferred,it has a bar right next to it for snacks and drinks.As it was a bit deeper there were lchildren around this pool as well but not so many and not lots of little ones (sorry, I haven't become one of those bitter child haters
.....yet! LOL. It was half board with a lovely buffet brekkie every morning and a buffet at the evening meal.The food in the evening didn't vary at all.I guess this is because you can do whats known as 'dine around'.If you weren't eating at the main buffet you had to get a dine around voucher and could use it at one of the other two restaurants in the resort or (what I thought was a great idea) use the voucher at any restaurant in the theme park.At the restaurants in the hotel the voucher had a value of 9 euroes an adult and 6 a child.And in the theme park some restaurants had a set meal or you could use the voucher and pay no extra.What did happen was you would end up paying varying amounts on top of the voucher.But as the food wasn't varied ever in the buffett I quess there intention is to make it so you have eat at other places and spend more money?
The exit to the theme park is literally an exit from the hotel and is 'manned' at all times.With your hotel pass you can have a fast pass type thing for each of the main rides and shows (except Stampeda) and after 9 at night you have FOTL access to all rides and shows (except Stampeda!) as much as you like.The park was open until 12 every night.There was a show on at 12 at every night on the lagoon which was really good,it had fireworks and boats and other things!The theming of the lands is excellent in the whole park.
The concensus was Dragon Khan was the best ride (similiar to Kraken) and Stampeda which was a fantastic wooden roller coaster with two cars racing each other (like duelling dragons).I has such a humiliating experiece on the one time I went on Stampeda.The attendant came to check my bar was down,and started to push down on the bar to make it go furthur down(it was resting on my stomach) she called another attendant over and they were both pushing down on me.The other people queuing for the next ride are standing only a couple of feet from the car and I thought I would die of emmbarrasment.I cried when I came off the ride.My DH refused to go on the ride again and said it was happening to other people as well and one man got of the ride in disgust when they were doing the same to him.
There was also a brilliant new show called Tempo Del Fuego very similiar to The Indiana Jones show at MGM (it must have been created by the US side of things).Although extremely short the special effects were very good. I know it was very presumptious of me but I expected the narration to be partly in English.......which it wasn't! So although I didn't understand what they were saying,the Spanish people were all laughing so I assume it was good.We has wondered in the past how it must be for non-English speakers at the US theme parks,experiencing this in Spain shows it does spoil some of the fun.
With the stay at the hotel is a free day at Universal's new water park.Again just two minutes walk from the hotel.The water park Costa Caribe is absolutely brilliant and again you can see the imput from the US here.The theming was great.There was a very good lazy river around the park.And the large pool was kind of split in two sections by rocks,alternately during the day one side or the other would have waves.You were allowed to take rings when the wave maching was on and that was great fun.At the entrance you can hire rings for three euroes a day which you really need to do as there aren't many of the 'free' ones available ewspecially on the lazy river.They charge three euroes for the sun beds a day.Although it is another money making thing it did help in one way.As when the person acme around to collect the money the family next to me had bagged five sun beds and when they had to pay for them only kept three.This would free up a lot of beds at Orlando theme parks and would stop people from lying their towels on beds that are never used all day.
The food and drinks at the park and water park was really nice and amazingly very reasonably priced.
What I didn't like was,no tea/cofee making facilities in the room.No lock on the toilet/bathroom door,no idea why.But mainly no laundry faciliies at the hotel.I know this is 4* hotel and maybe every one else is to posh to wash their own clothes but I am not paying to have shorts,T-shirts and underwear laundered by the hotel.There were so many people arriving and leaving every day I guess most people stay between two and four nights so don't need to do laundry,but with a week on a package holiday I neede to.I had to hand wash our clothes and have then drapped wet around the nice room and made it look horrible.They asked that you do not drap things over the balcony,I inderstand why as it looks scruffy but as I had wet clothes I had no option and did this.Very common!
I didn't like the look of Salou at all
( sorry to anyone who likes it there)so we drove to Cambrils and it was much nicer there and less crowded on the beach.We didn't get to drive to Barcelona for the day as we'd planned.
I would thoroughly reccomend a stay at the Hotel Port Aventura.
Hope this hasn't been too long.Any Quesions ask away.
glad to hear you had such a great time, apart from the couple of hiccups!
