Ibiza Holiday Review Including The Resort Of Portinatx and Club Hotel Portinatx

From: Mark Graham

Club Hotel Portinatx Main Pool

After looking for the best deal I could possibly find during the October 2012 school half term week, we finally settled on going to Ibiza and trying our first ever 'all inclusive' holiday at the Club Hotel Portinatx.

When you think of Ibiza, you inmmediately think of San Antonio, 18-30 holidays and everything that goes along with it, but Ibiza has so much more to offer including quiet, unspoilt resorts with beautiful sandy coves that slope gently into the warm Mediterranean waters at resorts such as Portinatx and Cala San Vicente and great 'hippy' markets such as the islands largest at Es Canar. Their are beautiful traditional villages to visit too, such as Sant Joan. 

We were a bit apprehensive about taking an 'all inclusive' holiday as we have always booked self catering in the past, but on a recent holiday to Corfu we seemed to spend a small fortune just on feeding ourselves for the entire holiday so decided to give all inclusive a try!

We carried out a lot of research on different hotels as we had read some bad stories about the quality of food at some hotels and didn't want to waste our hard earned cash on an all inclusive holiday only to find the food was awful. Being forced to eat elsewhere defeats the object when you have already paid for all your meals!

I have to say we were very pleasantly surprised, all the food was prepared by French chefs and was very good! 

Breakfast was served from 8-10am, lunch was 1-2.30pm and evening meal was served between 7-9pm. The choice of food at each mealtime was very extensive and did vary from day to day. 

There were occasions when we went out for the day and wouldn't get back till around 4pm but if we were hungry, it was no problem as the bar served snacks from 12pm to 6pm which included  soup, pasta dishes along with salads and hot dogs and beefburgers and chips etc. Other all inclusive hotels operate in a similar way and in fact some, if you tell them you're going out for the day will prepare a pack up lunch for you!

As a family we couldn't believe the quality of food and choice on offer, I've never eaten so much in my life!

The Resort of Portinatx:

Portinatx beach close to the El Greco Hotel

The resort of Portinatx will be just up your street if your looking for a quiet getaway. Having said that, if you have children, and you are staying at one of the Portinatx hotels, there's plenty on offer for them with a kid's club and activities such as Kayaking and nightly entertainment provided by the hotels hard working entertainment teams.

The Club Hotel Portinatx has it's own small beach (accessed down a sloping path from the Hotel and around 40 steps) but the resort of Portinatx also has two larger beaches that gently slope into the sea. The largest beach is right next to the El Greco Hotel should you choose to holiday there. There are a also handful of very pleasant shops, bars and restaurants if you do want to eat out. 

Our Visit To Ibiza Town:

Ibiza 'old town'

On two different occasions we made a visit to Ibiza town which was on a direct bus route from Portinatx and was about 30 minutes journey time and costing just under 3 Euros per person (one way).  Ibiza town is a contrast of the more modern and medieval. There are plenty of modern fashionable shops but we enjoyed a visit to the harbour with it's expensive yachts and close by, the 'old town' with it's beautiful traditional narrow streets. Although it's the islands biggest city, there's also a lovely beach nearby with a palm-lined walkway along much of it's length and you will find a handful of beach front cafe's and bars.

We booked our holiday through LowCostHolidays and I can honestly say we couldn't find anyone that could beat the price! First you can choose your flight from quite a selection of airlines including Thomson, Monarch, Easyjet and Ryanair to name a few, then choose your accommodation, and then choose whether you want to take their travel insurance and bus transfer or not ( we had read somewhere that a taxi was cheaper so removed the bus transfer option from our booking).

Do look at the reviews such as those found on TripAdvisor, but I think it's important to take an overall view of what they are saying. You can always find some bad reviews and I guess that's inevitable when you have a large number of people taking a holiday somewhere, there will always be those who have had a bad experience for whatever reason and I believe some negative reviews could be simply down to individuals expectations rather than serious shortcomings at the holiday destination itself. 

Whether you want all inclusive or not, I can highly recommend the Club Hotel Portinatx and the resort of Portinatx itself if you want a quieter, more picturesque resort. LowcostHolidays have a number of locations you can book to stay at in Portinatx including the Club Hotel Portinatx, El Greco Hotel and the Bahia Vista Hotel to name a few. We did visit the other two Hotels and would be happy to stay at either of them looking at their location and facilities.

It would be unfair to reveal our exact holiday cost because there can be so many variables when booking, but we did discover that for a family of four we had paid exactly the same as a couple on their own who had booked with another company!