Where shall I start? I have never actually written one of these reviews, mainly because I have always been so careful in my choice of hotels and spent many an hour online reviewing them.

That is the only reason we booked this hotel - the reviews on Trip Advisor.

Maybe we are too used to the 5* Luxury we enjoy in Cyprus and we have been too spoiled - but for a quick week in the sun, we decided to try Menorca.

The Island itself is lovely. Very green. The area we were staying in was quite nice. The Marina was nice - found a stunning fish restaurant (The Aquarium). The only issue for us were too many Burger and Pizza joints - even a kebab bar!!! Looks a little like a British seaside resort, but abroad. Fine if thats your kind of thing. Its not ours. We are a young couple with a 3 year old little boy. The resort in itself feels very safe. The beach is nice, but for 20 euros a day, the sun loungers can get very expensive over a week's stay. But none the less, a nice beach.

The hotel? Awful. Only word for it. As I've said, it may be purely down to the fact that we are used to different standards - but given that it has a 4* rating, I was somewhat suprised with some of the standards...........

1. Reception staff very rude, unhelpful.
2. Pool was exceptionally dirty - all of the vents that run along the pool are black with grime. Awful smell too.
3. Pool Bar is like an old fashioned school tuck shop. Rarely staffed. You had to wait a long time to get any service.
4. The pool is situated right next to the main road going through the resort - not exactly peaceful!!!
5. The rooms? Well, spacious enough. The beds are like sleeping on concrete. Asked for some help with the beds as we werent sleeping - got told "nothing we can do".
6. There were stains on the shower curtains. Wont say what I think they were.
7. The apartment did get cleaned, but of a fashion. All they did was straighten the sheets.

If you are booking this hotel because it has a kids club (like we did) think again. It is literally, one seat in a shady corner with some paper and pens - thats it! Literally, thats it. No entertainment, nothing. We saw a lady once, doing some drawing with one german child. Cannot quite understand how they can state its a kids club. Awful.

Maybe you will find this useful - maybe you wont. Maybe (as I have said) we are used to more of a luxurious hotel - but I wouldnt ever return to the Macarella.

Hope you find this useful!!

just returned from a 1 week stay at the macarella with partener and kids 2 and 9.(jamie and georgia if you read this and were there at the same time).HOTEL-lovely location,a couple of minutes walk from small sandy beech an excellent harbour area with loads of restaurants.great to walk around of an evening.room was excellent;we had pool view ,good size esp bathroom(separate shower and bath).good air-con,t.v.(with bbc 2!!).food/restaurant--we stayed h/board and found the breakfast to bo sufficient to start off the day.no great full english but plenty of pastries,cereals,fruit,toast.the evening meals were always very good quality and freshly cooked but quite repetitive(buffet style)so we never left feeling still hungry.POOL-great esp for kids.looks fairly small on pictures but not so.staff were brilliant,like mentioned on other reviews ,they love the kids....menorca on tho whole is great for a family holiday.recommend to visit cala galdana beach(abou 40 mins drive) for crystal clear sea.also mahon harbour is worth a visit......enjoy!

We have just arrived back from this hotel after spending a week there.

We are a family of four with girls aged 4 and 8 and they absolutely loved it. The hotel itself is modern, clean and the service is good. We opted to self cater and the facilities in the room were adequate for that purpose. We were lucky enough to have room 102 and i would recommend this - it is a ground floor room right near the shallow end of the pool and with nobody above you. The room has a balcony/patio overlooking the pool and is conveniently situated near to an exit towards the marina.

The pool is very nice and there always seemed to be sunbeds available no matter what time of day you arrived at the pool.

Poolside bar is good and offers a decent selection of lunch foods and snacks, although we mainly got bread, cheese, ham etc from the supermarket and made lunch ourselves. As the room is literally seconds away from the pool, we were able to sit on our balcony eating lunch.

The kids club is fairly relaxed and kids can choose to participate in individual events during the day if they want. Ours didnt bother much because they were just happy in the pool all day!

The evening entertainment was fairly good - kids disco at around 8:30 followed by something else - Bingo, You Bet, Mr/Mrs Election, Lord of The Dance, Flamenco or something similar. It was varied and generally very watchable. There is a nice terrace bar where this all takes place.

The resort is itself is excellent - two good beaches with the beach just 2 minutes walk probably the better of the two. The sea was very clear although there were jellyfish around.

The marina area is where most of the restaurants and bars are situated and there is a good atmosphere there at night. All of the restaurants (and indeed the whole resort) were very child friendly. In particular we enjoyed El Pescador, El Pato and Fiesta. Food is fairly varied with quite a bit of seafood on the menu's and some decent set price menu's.

we stayerd for 2 weeks, the apartment was never cleaned properly,the pool was filthy, so dirty for a couple of days that i would not let my children swin in it, we complained but staff were not interested, one good thing about the macarella is the location a stones throw from the beach which was fantastic and only a short walk to the marina.
Also you could not reserve sunbeds by the pool which meant there was always sunbeds free even in august which was great.