Islantilla Apartments

We had a 7 day vacation at the golf resort. We were recognised as gold member and received an upgrade to a ‘villa’. It was nice for the four of us my daughter and boyfriend stayed in the main building. In the villa there was no storage in the bedroom and a bathtub on the second floor with a shower, I would update this to a walk in shower there is plenty of space. Breakfast, dinner and 5 rounds of golf were in our package which was great. A bit more different themes during the week for diner are welcome but overall good. You can rent a buggy for 5 days with a package price of €160. We played padel 5 times which was a nice addition activity. Renting a court and rackets is €27,00 for 90 minutes. The golf course is challenging and with 27 holes has a lot of variety. Greens are really well maintained. There is a little train to the beach club that is a nice activity for a day or two. Plenty of fresh fish restaurants.

The Estival Islantilla is a hotel of contradictions. It's asthetically stunning, but at the same time, it has no atmosphere. The staff are exceptionally professional, yet seem joyless in their roles (no one smiles). The place is spotlessly clean, but shows signs of disrepair and age. Rooms are nice and spacious, but there's very little storage space. The beds are doubles (not twins like many hotels), but are about as comfortable as sleeping on rocks! There was aircon in the room, which didn't work. The balcony has an outside light, which turns of at midnight so no late night sitting outside to read when you can't sleep because of the rock hard beds. There are plenty of sunbeds, but no easy bar access from most of the poolside. The restaurant is well organised and the food is mostly good, but after a few days you realise choice is somewhat limited. The main bar has a lovely outside seating area, which is only available to sit in during mealtimes. The hotel is a complete smoking and vaping free zone, apart from a tiny section right at the far back of the hotel grounds, which has no access path. It's just a dirt area behind some trees with a few stone chairs. It's away from everything and really not easy nor convenient to get to. Definitely not accessable to those with mobility issues. One night (around 10 pm) my partner and I were sitting alone, 50+ feet from anyone, at the far back of the hotel grounds, outside. We decided to vape as it would hurt no one. Suddenly a security guard came stomping over from about 100 foot away and started shouting at us in Spanish. Fortunately, I know enough Spanish to tell him we were all alone, with literally no one else around. He replied (in Spanish) that he didn't want to suffer our vape! I mean, he was initially over 100 foot away and so was only ”suffering' because he stomped over to us! I could understand if we were being inconsiderate of others or smoking, but we were vaping and literally bothering no one! I'm totally fine with the hotel being smoke and vape free, but the only concession is a hard to access dirt spot nowhere near anything except an outdoor bar that closes at 5pm. After that, you're out of luck if you want to relax with a drink and a vape. Better concessions need to be made or the travel agent (TUI) needs to be clearer about this policy when booking! The absolute worst thing is the desperate lack of atmosphere. No music by the pool. No real day time activities. Hard to access bars from the poolside and if you decide to accept all this and lay back to relax, you'll then become the constant target of kamikaze flies with no concept of fear. Constantly landing on you. Oh, and these flies bite! We ended up covered head to toe in bites. Overall, the Estival has a lot going for it, but it's ruined by badly though out policies, zero atmosphere and joyless staff. It's not been a terrible holiday, but it's also just not a place we'd recommend! You can get better for less money. After two weeks