Me, My wife and child arrived at the Barcelo Margaritas on the 23rd June @ around 12:30pm. This what we found.

ENTERTAINMENT

Night time entertainment was okay, but some nights were weaker than others. Needs to be improved really, for a 4* hotel.

Daytime activities were pretty good and keep your mind occupied, if that's what you want. Rifle Shooting, Archery, Shuffleboard, French Boules, Water Polo, aqua aerobics and a few more. If you win, like me (5 T-shirts, ha ha) you have to go up on stage and receive a certificate, cocktail and t-shirt.

Excellent and friendly animation team, taking into account the problems they faced on a day to day basis, they do really well. Franzi, Ivan and Bartosz are a great team and include you on everything. There were to new starters, who were useless and didn't speak alot of english.

Excellent Kids club and would recommend that you book your kids in. If you are with First Choice you get it for free. Other than that, you will have to pay. Times vary from day to day, on when the kids club is, but I would highly recommend it.

SERVICE (i.e. Bar and restaurant)

The Bar is beside the pool and if you are all-inclusive, then you help yourself, unless you want something a little special then you have to ask for it and depending what barstaff is working, will depend how long may wait. Some of the Barstaff are rude and dam right ignorant, to which I had a argument and reported one of them to reception. Lookout for a Gonzales, he is very rude and may find yourself being held back. You can order food, but this is only served between 12am - 1pm 3pm-6pm. Be advised the only bar, which is the Pool bar closes dead on 11pm, don't expect to get any drinks after that. You can go to the Discotech in the hotel and get more, but this is not all-inclusive and will cost you 2Euros a beer.

The restaurant is quite nice and you can eat outside or inside, depending on your mood. The food was a little repetitive and you may want on occasion to eat outside of the hotel. They have 4 themed nights Canarian, Mexician, Chinese and Spanish.

ROOMS

The rooms are as stated before a bit dated and not 4*. The TV only has Sky News that's in english and of good reception. I would advise getting a room on a higher floor and not around the 211 area, as the Power Generator is there and can be noisy, as well as hearing the lift go up and down throughout the night. You have been warned !!!

In all we had a good stay, but it could have been alot better, as we were expecting a 4* hotel, but got at times a rude 3* hotel. It just did not have the finishing touches for a 4* hotel that you would come to expect. Things were broken, rude barstaff, food repetitive, No late drinking, no room service for snacks. All in all, not a 4* hotel. Regardless of the hotel we had a good time, as we met alot of very friendly people and had a laugh.

Just returned yesterday. The hotel is nice and the room size isn't too bad, the air con in the room is great. We booked with First Choice, which I have now renamed Last Choice. The Rep is nice enough but at the welcome meeting it's hard sales for trips, there is no information about the hotel and how the All Inclusive works you have to work it out for yourself. We ordered chips for my 13 year old at the quite pool bar and had to pay.
Icomplained to my rep Dawn about the AI ending at 12 noon on the day we left ( we arrived at 5am Sunday 29th and had to be out of room by 12 noon Saturday 12th, we were getting picked up at 2am Sunday morning). Dawn never gets back to you, other guests at the hotel also complained about this. In the end I couldn't even pay to keep a room on becuase the hotel was full although the reception staff did agree to give us AI until we left.

The food was OK, but by the second week, I was barely eating anything as I was sick of the same things. I've been AI in 3 star hotels that have had a better variety of food. This hotel is not a 4 star.

The bar staff are terrible, with the odd acception. When you are waiting to be served, even if you re the only person therethey will clean, tidy, look at the till, anything but serve you. The paying customers are dealt with quicker. The fact that the whole hotel is not AI makes it a bit uneasy at the bar area as everyone is being policed. For god sake you're on holiday.

The maids clean your room everday, but at a price. A brand new top I had bought from Next went missing before I had a chance to wear it. The people next door to us, found all of their expensive hair products missing. There also notes in the Reps book at reception with details of missing clothes from peoples rooms.

We tried hard to see past these points and got on with enjoying our holiday, which would have been superb, if they could sort out the issues, which they could do quite easily.

Finally the entertainment staff made our holiday, they were all really friendly, they make a point of remembering everyones name when you take part in the activities daily. It was good fun, they are good with the kids and the adults. The shows in the evening were good too.

Overall we did enjoy our holiday, believe it or not.

Stayed at this hotel on 23 june 2008 for 1 week with my family and my boyfriend.Booked it through thomas cook as i work there.I booked it as i knew where it was altough i hadn't been to it before,and we had great flight times.The flight times did change but there was nothing we could do about it.When we arrived it was very late at night/early in the morning and the friendly staff at reception were lovely and checked us in within seconds.We were all inclusive,and the food was amazing.breakfast was from something like 7:30am-9:30,there was a great variety like full english,cereal,fruit,yogurts,toast and bread rolls.Lunch was 1-3pm and did a couple of meat dishes,pasta,chips,salad,fish dishes,pizza,ice cream,cakes and fruit.And tea was something like 6:30-9:30 and had similar stuff to lunch but with a couple of different dishes.At all of the meal times there were water,wine,fizzy drinks and soft drinks.I'm a fussy eater and i found plenty that i liked.Between the meal times you can get baguettes,pizza,burgers,chicken nuggets,cake and ice cream from the poolside bar,the staff there don't speak much english and take their time serving you.You can also help yourself to the self service drinks on the wall,but if you want any alcohol from behind the bar you have to pay,howeve the ice slushes are free but you have to ask for them.

There are activites all throughout the day for adults and children,usually starting with french bouls,water polo,some you have to put your name down for with the staff that come round with the clipboard.

There are two pools,the main pool on the picture which doesn't get much sun untill around 10am due to the trees,and if you want a sunlounger you need to get up a little early and put your towels down,especially if theres more than 2 people.The other pool is on the apartment side of the hotel,it has alot more sun and is more spread out.

The rooms are abit dated but are clean and openly spaced.We had a room that could sleep up to 4,and also a room that slept 2.Both rooms were great,with a nice pool view or a sea view.

For anyone going to playa del ingles i would reccommend this hotel as it the staff are friendly,the food is lovely,theres plenty to do for adults and kids and i think it does deserve it's star rating!

And i would also reccommend to go to the Yumbo centre and go to cafe le belle and ricky's caberet bar as they are top class,but watch out for the clown mime on a corner of 3 bars on the ground floor,he makes you laugh,but not when he picks on you.

All in all FAB hotel,going back next year!!!!the only downfall is the pool bar staff and the fact that on the day you leave,no matter what time your transfers are,your all inclusive ends at 12:00 noon,bare this in mind!
There is a room to put your luggage when your kicked out your room at 12:00 noon,and if you ask you can get a slot in room to have a shower,it's half an hour per room,as we had two rooms we had 1 hour,and you get clean towels too.

Just arrived back from this Hotel. First impressions clean, and tidy. we were all-inclusive. Staff at reception abit slow seeing that there were 2 behind the desk. He did ask if we wanted ahigh floor or low floor we went on the 1st floor. The room(116) was clean with sliding wardrobe coat hangers shelving, TV with not many english channels bathroom was clean. You can hier the pool towels which are a deposit 12E each which you get back at the end of your stay also you can change them if they get dirty. The safe is 2E aday so you can hire it as long as you want but again 12E deposit. There are 2 pools the smaller one is more crowded and not so deep (1,40M) at the highest level.The pool on the appartment side is deeper and more relaxing, this gets more sun as not so many trees.Both pools have bars bar staff havent got alot of time for people not a smile all through the week. The restuarant is roughly the same food repeated the waiters are on a go slow,and if you are all inclusive its help yourself to drinks at the pool bars Breakfast is 7-10 lunch 1-3 dinner6-930 , dont sit under the air con in the restuarant as the food gets cold quite quick, Entertainment not bad have seen worse. this Hotel should be a 3* not a 4* as rated,though it is closed to the Yumboo centre about 10mins walk and the Grand Chapperal about 5mins walk.