Playacartaya

Stunning, clean hotel. I travelled alone with my three children. I don't have a word if Spanish and everybody at the hotel went out if their way to make it an amazing stay. The rooms were spotless cleaned daily. The bathroom wS huge with the shower separate ti the bath, so clever. The food was delicious they varied the menu everyday. We walked the beach daily and then went yo the heated indoor pool. The chef and the crepe lady went out if their way ti cater for every individual taste. I ate squid to mutton tp pasta.

Great hotel to go with Kids. Wide variety of food, lots of pools and a fantástic indoor pool/jacuzzi with amazing warm water. Direct access to the Beach which is quite calm (river). Also they accept pets!

It was a very stressful and noisy week in Hotel Playa Cartaya It started during the arrival upon check in where the Reception team seemed stressed and without any front office organization. We where received without any welcome and were told that our room would be ready in 3 hours. When we asked for beach towels - 1 minute later- another team member mentioned that room was ready. No communication between this stressed team. Room was nice however “tired” with old furniture and cleanliness badly done. Gym was closed without any explanation- just closed. Indoor swimming pool and jacuzzi the same- closed. During the entire stay no opportunity to try this facilities. Outdoor areas very dirty around pool chairs and many broken sun beds. Poor service in the bar. Waiting too long to be served. Once again very tired team. We did not wanted to try the restaurant for lunch or diner. During the noisy and unorganized breakfast service we could imagine the main meals. We decided to leave the hotel 2 days earlier. Just could not stand being in a place like this. When we reported our feedback at the reception the previous evening, Team was so busy that did not reported our feedback to the Management on the previous evening. It seems that no turn down is done between them. the front office lady responsible for the Reception was staring/ looking at during check out time on the following day. Instead of coming and transmit personal assistance for hotel guests, she gave a tiny paper to the gentlemen that was attending us so that we could transmit our feedback per email. No comments, not greeting, nothing..very unprofessional. If you are looking for a chilled and relaxed holidays this is definitely not the place. Not to repeat ever again.

The Good * The rooms are nice and spacious, cleaning very good. * Beds are comfortable * Gardens well-maintained * Lovely beach accessible by tunnel from hotel The Bad Anything that required staff. They blatantly don't have enough people. At breakfast and dinner you will need to clear your own table, go & find more cutlery (if there is any). They run out of coffee cups, the coffee machine broke, the food was average at best. We weren't on all-inclusive and after paying for dinner on the first night we were really pleased we hadn't paid for it, I would have been fuming. There are some really nice restaurants a couple of miles down the road in El Rompido, I'd recommend those There aren't enough sunbeds by the pools for the hotel and the clientele match up to their European counterparts in terms of reserving them before breakfast with towels and then not using them all day. And the hotel do very little about it. Big queues for drinks. Again as most are on all-inclusive I guess they don't care as they have your money already. I never quite worked out why they always asked me if I was on all-inclusive *before* they made my drinks. If I had been would they have made me a rubbish one? There was also supposed to be a gym but it is 'temporarily' closed. Don't suppose I can get any money back for that as it was part of the package we thought we were getting. The clientele were also happy to let their kids run around the pool area until 2am making A LOT of noise and throwing stuff about. I kind of get the Spanish do things a lot later but this wasn't showing much respect for any other hotel guests - and the hotel did nothing about it. To be clear - the staff who are there work really hard, there just aren't enough of them. I'm sure as with anywhere this translates into more profit for the hotel owners at the expense of customers - and the staff.

Just got home from this hotel. So many good points, food lovely, staff are friendly, very clean, lovely rooms which were cleaned with made beds every day, nice pools and slides. Beautiful beach just over the road. Entertainment was ok in evenings. Nice drinks, proper makes of spirits (Smirnoff, absolute, disarano) instead of local. Bad points, everyone is Spanish very few speak English, so children couldn’t join in the kids club as they wouldn’t know what was being said to be able to join in. There’s a shop inside the hotel, we paid over 20 Euros for 2 floats for the pool. The lady in shop also inflated them for us. Got them into the pool and was told they’re not allowed. Why wasn’t we told before buying them? And why sell them in the shop in hotel if your not allowed them? We saw many other people having the same problem. Beach is amazing but no sunbeds or umbrellas therefore no shade so was too hot to stay there. Was meant to be all inclusive but had to pay extra for cocktails and ice creams. Although not a problem as was plenty of other options. And wasn’t expensive anyway. All in all a lovely holiday.

This is an aquapark hotel so our children naturally loved the 3 large slides and approx 8 smaller slides and were very entertained. However the hotel has serious problems with food, service and capacity. The food was very poor , even to the point of rice being semi raw and watermelon served off, when I complained the staff didnt seem to care at all. The service was poor. especially when the restaurant was busy. The first night we sat down for the buffet and were not asked for our drinks order for 25 minutes, it was a further 20 minutes before getting a drink by which point our children had almost finished eating. They open the bottles of wine and more or less throw them at you, don't even pour your first glass. Our young spanish waiter didnt even know "Ribera del Duero" a very common type of spanish wine, poor guys basically had no training and we didn't see any organisation or managers in the dining room. The other big issue was the capacity. The hotel was jam packed and the pool was unpleasantly busy most of the time. The jacuzzi was like bathing with 40 people. We also couldnt get sunbeds on the days the kids wanted to stay at the pools/slides. The hotel is next to a busy road and we ended up lying on our towels on the grass next to cars whizzing past. I was furious not to be able to have a sunbed when we spent several thousand on a holiday. Also it is very noisy at the pool with no quiet area to escape to. Also a warning that most of the customers are all inclusive, something not at all clear when we booked via ***********. We were half board not all inclusive and every time we wanted to order a drink or ice cream etc this caused a ridiculous amount of confusion with staff who kept asking us for our all inclusive pass/telling our chikdren that they couldnt have certain items that werent included in an all inclusive package, even though we were quite happy to pay for our orderand had placed a credit card on our account. To have to explain this once is ok, but this literally happened every time we ordered something which got very tiresome, and again shows a lack of staff training. Check in took over an hour.but even then nothing was well explained and we had to go back to enquire about towels etc. The other disappointment was that I complained to reception about food being served off, poor service and lack of sunbeds. I also wrote 2 emails to Senator head office and yet 6 days later still no response from anyone! In summary Positives: water slides, great beachside location, clean rooms and staff friendly if poorly trained. Negatives, just about everything else. Especially the food and chaotic service. We usually stay at a Fuerte which is far superior and needless to say we won't be staying at a Senator again.

We are a family of 4 and spent one week in june of 2023 in this hotel. It was 5*. All the employees, the SUPER FRIENDLY animation team, the activity spaces, pools and everything else was very good. The food is of good quality and varied. We really enjoyed it and our kids just ask when we can come back.

Lovely place, no sun loungers on beach. They sell floats in the shop but you’re not allowed them in the pool and they don’t tel you until after you’ve bought them. We were the only English there so hard to communicate. Lovely hotel, nice food, great slides.

We requested a quiet room and we were very surprised and pleased. Although it was facing the slides it was so quiet on an evening we could sleep perfectly. The bed was comfortable and the room spotlessly clean. We had some issues with a leak in the bathroom which weren’t resolved during our stay and meant we couldn’t use the shower over the bath for the entire 5 day stay. It wasn’t a major issue as we had a separate shower. As others staying here have said, it’s targeted to the Spanish market, so there’s limited English spoken. Some of the reception staff speak English but the entertainment is in Spanish, we embraced it and had a great time but it’s worth highlighting. If you’re heading to the beach via the boat, then go prepared with supplies and remember there’s no shade. Breakfast is busy, so go early or be prepared to queue. I recommend the outside terrace. We didn’t eat here on an evening as we took the tourist train (recommended) to the local town.