Viva Tropic, Majorca

We, as a family with two young children, had a lovely holiday at this hotel.

Location
The hotel is situated in the pleasant seaside resort of Alcudia in Mallorca. The transfer time from the airport is about 1½ hours by coach. This was just about the maximum time for our kids. However, this ride could well be the closest you see of real Spain on your holiday.
In Alcudia itself, this hotel is located close to the shops ...
...souvenir shops but there is also a general store. There are also some bars with arcade games and sit-in pay-and-ride toys. It is only a short walk away from a clean, wide sandy beach. However you do need to cross a main road. But there are traffic lights and the road is not that busy.
As stated, the hotel is situated in Mallorca, Spain. The staff is Spanish but the hotel or indeed the town has little to indicate its location. The majority ... more

We, as a family with two young children, had a lovely holiday at this hotel.

Location
The hotel is situated in the pleasant seaside resort of Alcudia in Mallorca. The transfer time from the airport is about 1½ hours by coach. This was just about the maximum time for our kids. However, this ride could well be the closest you see of real Spain on your holiday.
In Alcudia itself, this hotel is located close to the shops and the beach. Most of the shops close by are souvenir shops but there is also a general store. There are also some bars with arcade games and sit-in pay-and-ride toys. It is only a short walk away from a clean, wide sandy beach. However you do need to cross a main road. But there are traffic lights and the road is not that busy.
As stated, the hotel is situated in Mallorca, Spain. The staff is Spanish but the hotel or indeed the town has little to indicate its location. The majority of the guests and entertainers were British, German and Swedish. There is no requirement to speak Spanish to anyone.

Accommodation
We stayed in a one-bedroom apartment, consisting of a twin bedroom, a bathroom, a sitting and kitchen area combined and a balcony. This was clean and regularly cleaned and was perfectly acceptable for our needs. The bedroom was a good size and it was simple enough to push the two beds together to form a double. The bathroom was also a good size with a sink, a toilet and a bath with a shower. The sitting area was equally spacious which was necessary for us as we sat out the hottest part of the day in there. The seats folded out to make perfectly acceptable beds for the children. There was a TV but there were not many channels and none in English so we usually watched sport. To get the remote control, you needed to pay a deposit at reception. The kitchen area consisted of a good-sized fridge (which was very useful), a couple of rings to cook on and basic equipment. We self catered the whole time and we managed with this perfectly well. An oven might have been nice but wasn't absolutely necessary. There was a table to sit round to eat so that was very handy. The balcony was a good size. It had a high wall so was perfectly safe for the kids provided they didn't stand on the chairs. It was also the perfect place to dry clothes and towels. There wasn't much view from ours but could just about see the pool.
However we stayed in the favoured low-rise block of three floors. The main block hosting reception was a multi-floored tower and was the location of most of the accommodation. When we booked we insisted on the low-rise block to be more manageable with the kids.

Entertainment
For children, there was a kids club. It wasn't a formal one where they took the kids away all day. Rather there were particular times when the music would sound and kids would be invited to come and join in some activity or other. Examples included boule, basketball, table tennis, drawing, ball games, painting, singing and dancing. My kids were quite shy and didn't really participate that much but other children seem to enjoy the activities very much.
Every evening, there was a kid's disco starring their absolute favourite, BUFO, the intergalactic hero. (Basically one of the entertainers, with the short straw that evening, dressed in a very hot-looking dog costume.) The entertainers would sing and dance with preset moves with the children joining in up the front. Again my kids didn't like to do the actual dancing in front of everyone, but they would enjoy watching and insist that we never miss a show. This was despite, or maybe because, it was basically the same every night.
This was also the time that the awards were given out. These consisted of certificates signed by BUFO, for those children and adults who'd scored highest in that day's activities. These were played straight and not shared out to make everyone win, so some children and adults were perpetual winners. There were adult awards because there were a few activities for adults too, announced the same way as for the children. This was mainly shooting for me in the morning. Having never done it before, I went along for the experience (and something to do). It was quite fun and I was rewarded by finally winning an award on my last day! At other times of day there were group activities such as football and water polo.
After the kids disco there was a family show with usually the in-house entertainers performing for our entertainment. The best for us was the Disney night, which as the name suggests; they performed a medley of Disney favourites dressed in costumes. One evening, however, they had an external Spanish group perform Flamenco dancing, just in case we had forgotten we were actually in Spain! This would be easy enough to do as any local contact can be kept to a minimum if you really want to. The children loved these shows too but I found them a bit amateurish and cheesy.

Facilities
The main attraction was the swimming pool. This was spacious and attractively shaped. It was split into two levels. The top level was deep but also had some shallow walk-in areas incorporated so my child could dive in and surface safely in front of it. The main level was mainly shallow so children could stand safely but also deep enough to swim easily. It was gently sloping on most sides for easy entry by the little ones. There was also a small baby pool for the very little ones but our kids enjoyed that too. There was plenty of space around for sunloungers, with and without parasols. We didn't always get one but we didn't mind leaving our stuff in a pile on the grass. After all we were there to swim rather than to lounge about. The kids liked to go to the room afterwards anyway as they liked to play inside and on the balcony.
There is an official lifeguard on duty but seeing his inactivity, he is not to be relied upon with your kids, so always stay alert.
There was a nice playground set in a giant sandpit, which the kids enjoyed very much especially with its shady location during the hotter parts of the day. On site there is a poolside café and restaurant. We didn't make much use of these as we bought most things from the shops. There is a pretty well stocked shop on-site where we could buy day-to-day stuff. However not far away there was a local shop with more things to buy and a bit cheaper. It was a little bit further to walk into town where another shop had more variety of things to buy.
There was supposed to be an indoor pool and spa area available but we were informed on arrival that this was not available during the summer.
There were also a table tennis table, pool table and pinball machines.

This hotel is a very good location for a kids-orientated family holiday in the sun. However, if you are looking for an experience of Spain then it is not the place for you.
 

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