We got a late deal to the Gran Playa hotel 5 days before we were due to depart. Since there were no recent reviews I was a little bit apprehensive. Having arrived at the hotel almost 9 hours after leaving our house, completely knackered and wanting a swim, we were told that they were overbooked for the night and that we had to find alternative accommodation, they said that in return we could be upgraded to full board (from half board) and have the safe facility free, we had to find this alternative accommodation. This wasn’t a good start to our holiday, after a small crying fit from me they magically produced a card for a room…. We were on the 3rd floor facing the main road, the rooms are on the small side, plenty of storage space for clothes and toiletries but trying to pass each other in the room was a nightmare. There were two twin beds pushed together, two bedside cabinets and a dressing table with the TV. There is only Sky News and CNN in English, everything else is German or Spanish. Having the air con was brilliant; you could adjust the temperature and power. The air con automatically switches off when you open the balcony door. The balcony is tiny and just about fits a table, two chairs and a washing line on it. Despite the noise from the main road, once the door was shut you couldn’t hear that much.

The rooms were cleaned everyday, but make sure the do not disturb sign is on the front of the door if you want a lie in, the maids start VERY early. The pool area is clean, but yet again small. There is about enough space for 20/30 loungers round the pool and when you see the amount of people in the restaurant I wondered where they all were as we always managed to get two sun beds (but this was after 3pm) The restaurant operates quite a strict regime. You are allocated a table for the duration on your stay and god forbid if you sit on anyone else’s table!! We only went down for breakfast once; it was very continental and didn’t really have anything we liked. For the evening meal, it was better – there was a lot more choice, although some nationalities don’t believe in queuing! The evening entertainment was very geared towards the Germans, so we never stopped in during the evenings.

Ca’n Picafort seems to be more geared up towards the German tourists, although there are a handful of English bars, especially ones showing the soaps if you miss anything. The beach is a minute walk from the hotel, try walking left rather than right as it’s a lot quieter down that end and less stones when you walk into the sea. There is also a very nice café bar, San Franciso I think it was called. The last café bar on the left, gorgeous carbonara and tuna salad! We ate out at the Gandi Indian Restaurant on the pedestrian strip, which was quite nice and they had a good deal on starters and mains. Blondies bar which is right up Calle Rena de Mar had nice breakfasts. We also had a snack at William’s Bar which is right up Calle Suisse. There are also two other English bars up that road, Anne & Neil’s and The London Bar. We drank most nights in William’s bar before heading onto the Red Lion which is on the main road about another 400 metres. They have a happy hour from 8-10pm, 2 for 1 on San Miguel or house spirits, which is good considering the rubbish pound to euro rate at the moment. They also have a quiz on every night which is good fun, if you go every night for a week you may get lucky as some trivia questions are repeated!! There are also a few discos around the pedestrian area but we didn’t bother with them.

On Fridays there is a market on just past the harbour, full of jewellery, bags, fabrics etc…It can get very busy! We went to the water park in Alcudia one day. 17 euros each to get in and it was pretty poor. The wave pool comes on ONCE during the whole day. A few slides were out of action as well. We got the bus back to Ca’n Picafort and it was less than 2 euros each.

We had a bit of a nightmare with the transfer back to the airport as we’d booked a package via the website but everything was separate. The transfer was with Viajis Urbis. We’d been told to ring the day before to get our pick up time as the time on the confirmation is just an estimate. I’d rang and got an automated message saying that the system was down and to ring back, when I did it was constantly engaged, tried the other 2 numbers given and the mobile emergency number. When we finally got through to the mobile number, he couldn’t tell us anything. We were down in the reception area an hour before the estimated time and there was a coach there, but ours names weren’t on the list. When we called the emergency number at the estimated time we were told that our pick was an hour before and we now had to get a taxi. Suffice to say we weren’t happy, especially since we’d checked with that coach driver and our names weren’t on it. It cost 65 euros to get to the airport (approx an hour) so we were in time for our flight. We went to see the people at the office and at first they didn’t want to refund us saying they didn’t have enough money and we had to sort it with the UK (as we all know once you get back to the UK it would never get sorted!) Eventually they did….but just to warn you to make sure if you’re booking a transfer separately to make sure you get through to them and get the correct pick up time!

Overall, it was a nice holiday but got a bit tiresome towards the end. I don’t think I would recommend the Gran Playa to my friends, but everyone is different. I don’t really like doing half board, but when you get a good price you snap it up!