I don't know were all the good reviews are coming from but my wife and I did not enjoy our stay at this resort or the country for that matter.

First don't bother going at all if you can't get to the island the day you leave your home. We had to stay in Caracas for a night due to no direct flights and that was the most fearful night ever there are no good hotels within less than an hour of the airport. Everybody scams you there, the people are very poor and once you leave the secure area of the airport your swarmed by taxi drivers, people wanting to exchange money with you and hotel operators (most of them speak no English there other than "taxi".)

The resort:

The rooms are old, the windows raddled when the wind blows because their tracks are loose, the plumbing leaks or drains don't drain. The food and drinks are boring no culture to speak of. The pools were nice but I can't spend more than a few hours a day sitting at the pool. (The wave pool is closed and looks to be closed for good) (The casino is closed and looks to be closed for good.) The beach is ok, but strong under tow and lots of erosion. Most of the resorts staff are unfriendly and speak little to no English. Elvis and Raloul are both great and genuinely seem to like their jobs and the guesses. This is not a 4-5 star maybe a 2 -3 even for a Caribbean country and we have been to others, if the people were more friendly it would have been easier to over things like the food.

Day trips, the island has history but to find a guide to tell you about it is like a summer day in February so what you see is what you get. Some areas are beautiful and other areas are just garbage lined streets.

The best things about the trip was the weather, sunny and warm every day and coming home. If you decide to go the banks exchange rate for US$ is 2160Bs.F/1US$ the people need your US$s and will exchange for $4000-5000Bs.F/US$ so pay for as much as you can once you get there because with the exchange rate everything you pay for becomes at least half price when paying for things in there currency.

hello we havve just returned from the Lagunamar we stayed for two weeks from Jan 30 to Feb 14 with three kids 3,4,11 the 11 year old celbrated the first night we were there and I managed to get the staff in the south tower to bring out a cake and surprise her and sign happy birthday, withthe language barrier this was a little tough. There were 6 of us travelling and no one got sick from the food or the water but we did watch to make sure the kids didn't drink the water. We requested an ajoining room and this took a few days to get straingtend out. The kids programs were fine the awarded medals for kids who one the games during the day being Canadaian we are not used to eating so late and they awarded the medals at 9pm according to Miguel this is the custom for south america.
The food was fine for us as the kids went to the beach club most lunches and had had hamburgs and french fries. The Mexican restuarant for lunch is nice,and the pizza is very good but once again the language barrier is huge.
We went to the Hilton for gambling and the taxi cost us 6 bucks one way. we took the kids down to the flea market one day and didn't have any problems but heard that others did.so beware.
when we left the airport to come home it cost us an extra 100us for over weight but another lady was told it would cost her 60 us and she was able to talk them down to 10. This seemed a little suspect to me.
If you are looking for a holiday for kids that love to swim and eat
and don't want to do too much outside the resort I would recommend Lagunmar, one other thing when travelling with kids this age I would recommend everyone have thier own suitcase and check each one in withtehir pass port to cut down on the wieght cost.
Any questions don't hesitate to write me
ejroth@hurontel.on.ca

We had a great time at the Laguna Mar 10 Feb - 17 Feb 08!

The First Choice flight went smoothly, with enough onboard entertainment to see you through the 9 hour flight from Gatwick - for an extra £5 per person, you can upgrade the films and video games (not once did I hear "I'm bored" from my teenage children!!). Getting through immigation in Margarita is no slower than getting through Gatwick on our arrival back home.

We stayed in the South Tower; the bedrooms were cleaned and new towels given on a daily basis. You do have to keep the air conditioning on all the time to stop the floor becoming slippy, so the duvets are needed as the rooms can become quite cool! There's loads of choice for breakfast food - bacon, scrambled/fried eggs, waffles, pancakes, pastries, fruit, cereals, toast. Midday and evening meals in the South Tower Cafteria always had a variety of meats - beef, chicken, pork, lots of salads, lovely soups and a selection of cakes. Burgers, chips and hotdogs were only available in the cafeteria in the evening, however these were available in the day at the snack bars by the pools and beach. Something for everyone then! and no "holiday tummy" for us...

Carlos, the First Choice Rep, was fantastic - really helpful and friendly. The only trip we arranged was the jeep safari - great value for a full day touring the island, and the boat trip at the Laguna was great fun (holding starfish and little crabs!) - highly recommended. The rest of our time was spent on the Laguna Mar complex, just lazing around the different pools - which were all clean. You are given towel tokens to get beach towels every day - so you really don't need to take any towels of your own.

The evening shows were a little cheesey, but the staff put a lot into them and we found ouselves going every night and having a good time. Daytime activities for kids were popular and they gave medals to the daily activity winners before the start of the evening shows.

The staff were friendly, and if you try to speak a little spanish to them, they appreciate the effort.

We all enjoyed our 1 week there, and would go back to this hotel again (soon, hopefully!)

We liked it here and found no major problems. Yes the resort was undergoing some renovations in the North Tower but you must expect this when it is open 365 days of the year. If you are going to this resort because it has a casino, you may want to look elsewhere. The casino has been closed, but we never found out why. We arrived Feb6th and were put in the North Tower, we had heard that the South Tower was the better one to be in but we found no diffence in the room themselves. The restaurant in the North Tower was much nicer than the South Tower. We had move to the South Tower later because the friends we were travelling with were placed in that tower. The room were basically the same all the furnishing equal. The room in the North Tower had a nicer view overlooking the mountains. and was bigger. But both were very very clean with big comfy duvets on the beds, body pillow as well as regular pillow. If you are wondering about duvets in a tropical climate well as you had probably read on other reviews, they like you to try to keep the airconditioner on at all times and not open the windows because condensation on the floors makes it very slippery. Besides I wouldn't open a window there for fear of critters coming in. There was no worry of that though, they had just fumigated the day we arrived.
We had found that the restaurant in the North Tower nicer than the South tower. The North tower restuarant had the nice high back wooden chairs with the nice floral blue tablec lothes, you typical buffet. The south tower restaurant was very noisy and looked more like a cafateria with its white plastic chairs and tables and placemats. Both towers have their own pools, bars and towel areas. If you are travelling with children you may perfer the North tower it is closer to the childrens area.
The main pool bar is situated right in the middle between the two towers. There are plenty of areas with shade. Be very careful of the sun, you are only 10° from the equator. We saw many burnt people thinking I guess that because there is a constant breeze there that they weren't going to burn, big mistake, Also take some good lip balm you'll need it. It cooled down by 4 p. m. and no one was in any of the pools much after that time. You may want to be sure to pack a light sweater. You may have read about the pool scum by other reviews, yes we did see some, but you also have to remember that you have all these people in there with their suntan lotion and oils on, well it has to go somewhere, but we did see them cleanning the pool everyday and removing it throughout the day. The pools are not over clorinated like some areas we've been to. All activities are done at the bar pool so if you want it a little quieter you may want to consider staying by your Hotel pool. The kids area is amazing, lots of water activites for them. They have a kids club there also that keeps them entertained. The staff if very good with the children, even though we do not have any kids around anymore, I was impressed with what they had there, it's just like a big waterpark for them. The wave pool was a little disappointing, if you are expecting big waves you may want to try the beach instead, good waves for body surfing and wave jumping out there, The bottom is sandy, no rocks. The beach itself is a combination of yellowish sand and black, this is not oil in the sand I beleive it is the residue of lava rock so don't be worried about it, if it was oil it would stick to you and it would be very hard to come off.
The grill at the beach is excellent. Here is where you can get your burgers and fries if you so desire. The bartenders at this grill make fantastic Pina Colada's very yummy, the best on the resort (I tried them all).
The waterslide was undergoing some renovations when we were there so it was down for just 1 day. It was pretty good, quite a long ride down really. I did find that the left side of the waterslide a little slower than the right side. There is a knack for going down these too. Lie down with your knees bent, feet flat on the slide and your hips raised up a bit, you should have no problem. I got stuck a couple of times going down till I was shown the proper way of doing it, then I went down quite a bit faster, it was fun.
We found that with the size of the resort and how spread out if was, that it did not seem crowded at all, sometimes it seems like there was hardly anyone there, which was kind of nice. The resort was very clean.
If you like to work out when you're on vacation they have an excellent gym there, and someone is there to help you out. Their english is not so good but they can show you how to use the machines.
The lagoon is where you will find all the water activities, banana boat, pedal boats and kayaks. We found the staff very friendly, even though their english is not that good, I don't complain because my spanish is not so good either and it is their country, if you know the basics you'll do just fine. I think they get a kick out of our broken spanish, they just smile but they know what you're trying to get across.
The buffets were your typical buffet meals, salads, fruit which was always the same watermelon, cantalope and pineapple the odd time an orange, yogurt, cheese, breads, pasta with three sauces to choose from, you could get other stuff from the grill area but usually it was a wait, since they only had one person working. You had the traditional dishes if you wish, some complained about the food, but they always seemed to have their plates full??? I say if you want food like back home, stay home...... I personally like to try different dishes from different countries I travel to, if I don't like it I find something else, I've never gone hungry.
Salvador's restaurant (located by the pool bar )was a hit and miss on the service, very slow at times getting a waiter or your food, this is an a al carte. You can get pizza, nachos, chicken basket, fries stuff like that here, but they are not very fast or organized, if you're not in a hurry it's okay, it's not fast food. Here you may find a bit more of a language barrier.
Everyday at the pool bar the igaunas come by, they don't bother you, it makes for some good pictures, you can get pretty close to them. They like fruit, so I would throw the fruit slice from my drink to them. They were probably anywhere from 2 - 3 ft long tip of the tail to the head.
You might want to be careful and keep you sandals on around the pool area, it can be quite hot on the stones. there was a constant breeze the whole time we were there which was nice, didn't make for scorching temperatures. All in all we enjoyed ourselves very much. If you just want to relax take the family along I think this is a good choice. There is not much outside of this resort that is close by. The entrance is about 3km from the hotel itself. Otherwise if you want to go into Polarmar for shopping, I did not go myself, others that have been there before told us that it is very expensive and basically the same stores that we have here. No deals on things in fact they thought it was quite expensive.
Remember departure tax.....well it has gone up! It is now $157,000. Bolivars equal to about $74.US dollars. You must have Bolivars to exit the country. Make sure when doing so you get a receipt from them, you have to go through a number of different check points, you will not be allowed if you do not have a receipt. As of July the currency is changing over to a new look the old currency will no longer be accepted. You can change you US dollars at the Hotel at a better rate, NOT at athe desk, Do not ask here, you can change for a better rate in the hotel shops or from you tour group, they will explain how to get the better rate. If you pay for anything in the hotel shops in US funds you will be given your change in Bolivars. If you need more information about the currency exchange rate feel free to contact me, I will explain in more depth, it can be confusing. Hope you have a good time!