Hotel Victoria Playa, Menorca: Review

When I say ‘we’ I mean my myself, husband, our three year old twin girls, my step-son and my mother-in-law.

We went to Menorca two years ago with Thomson and although the hotel was lovely, there was no kids pool or parks for them and the beach was too far away. 

When looking for a hotel this time around I wanted something that adhered to the following points:

1. Not hilly as my mother-in-law is 87 so hills are a no-no! 

2. A beach within walking distance so that we didn’t have far to go from the hotel

3. More toddler friendly in terms of entertainment, pools, parks etc

In doing my research and after chatting with Thomson online I found Hotel Victoria Playa in Santo Tomas, Menorca.

It looked perfect! They have a splash pool for children which has some slides in, a big main pool which has a small shallow section for children. There’s also two parks on site, as well as a soft play area.

There is a kids club, but we didn’t use this service so I can’t comment on it!

Arrival and Check In

We arrived around 8.30pm local time. The Thomson website says that it’s a 90 minute coach trip from Mahon airport to the hotel, but it only took 20 minutes.

Check in was quick and easy. We were told what rooms we were in and given some bands to wear at all times to show that we were all inclusive.

We headed straight to our rooms to leave our luggage before heading straight to the restaurant for food as it’s only served until 9pm.

Accommodation

We requested connecting rooms and that’s exactly what we got!

Our room, 302, had a double bed and a single bed. 

The rooms had a TV, air conditioning, balcony, some wardrobe space and all the usual things you’d find in a hotel!

I wish I’d known that the bathroom had a hairdryer in as I wouldn’t have packed mine, although it’s not a very powerful one!

The rooms were clean, modern and quite spacious, but there wasn’t much storage space. I managed to squeeze one suitcase between the wall and the desk and the other on the floor next to the single bed.

Our room overlooked the pool area which also meant that we had an amazing sea view.

The beds are a bit too firm for my liking, but I still managed to have a fairly good nights sleep!

I didn’t hear any noise from outside which was an added bonus!

Facilities


Swimming Pools


As mentioned above Hotel Victoria Playa features two swimming pools.

The splash pool which is shallow and has some slides in, as well as a fake palm tree waterfall. This pool is ideal for children, but the one thing my girls, aged three, weren’t keen on was the water spraying everywhere.

There was an arch which sprayed water everywhere and then above the double slide was a barrel which filled with water and then tipped the water out, all over the slide when it was full.

The fish slide also sprayed water inside.

I think it would be a good idea to have the water on intermittently throughout the day, as our girls never really went in the splash pool because they don’t like getting water in their eyes.

Shame really as it’s a lovely pool.

The bigger pool, was split into two sections. The smaller section was shallow and again aimed at children. The main thing that I really liked about this pool is that children were allowed to bring inflatables in there.

The last Thomson hotel we stayed in didn’t allow this, so it was great to watch the girls play in it with their inflatable rings!

My one concern about the whole swimming pool area is that there was only ever one lifeguard on duty and it was the same one all day. I’m not what the safety regulations are, but I felt one lifeguard wasn’t enough to cover the pools.


Soft Play

Situated outside next to the bar and in view of the splash pool is a small room with some soft play blocks and a ball pit.

It’s only a small room, but it’s a great facility to have. There’s a sign inside which says it’s for the use of children 36 months and under, but some of the older children did play in there as well which was a tad annoying as there were very boisterous and way too big to be in there!

Parks


There are two parks alongside a large grassy area. The yellow park is the bigger of two and features three slides.

The pink slide is smaller.

Shop

Ideally situated in the hotel lobby is a shop which sells bottled water, newspapers and magazines, as well as toys and swimming pool inflatables.

You can either pay in euros or by card. If you pay card you’re given the option to pay in euros or pounds.

The staff were friendly and the service was great!

Lounge

The air conditioned lounge was really nice. It had two TV’s at either end. One was on ITV and the other on BBC, so if you did want to watch a bit of TV this was the place to be!

There’s also a bar which serves hot and cold drinks, as well as alcohol.

Bar

This bar serves sandwiches between 11am and 1pm, then again at 4pm-6pm. You can also get hot and cold drinks here, as well as delicious pots of fruit and ice cream.

This bar is also where the evening entertainment is held on the stage in the corner. It gets very hot in this room in the evenings. Although it is air-conditioned, the doors are left open so the air conditioning as has no affect which means it gets very sweaty!

Kids Club Area

We didn’t put our girls into the kids club so I can’t pass any comment on what the kids club was like, but the area where the kids club is has a few toys – two toy ride-on motorbikes (although the handle on one was broken), a coupe car, playhouse and sandpit (although this was empty).

I’m not sure if we were allowed to play them as they were quite hidden away in the kids club area, but no-one stopped us from having a little play there!

Location


Beach


The hotel location is perfect in terms of a beach holiday.

You can access the beach by walking out of the hotel behind the big pool, down a very short path and you’re at the beach in less than a minute.

You can hire sunbeds and an umbrella for 5 Euro’s each which is very reasonable.

The beach is clean, as is the sea, although depending on where the tide is the very start of the sea can sometimes have a lot of seaweed there!

The beach was my favourite part of our holiday and I have to say I think it was the girls favourite part too!

They were most entertained when on the beach building sandcastles, digging holes and playing in the sea!

Shops


Directly opposite the hotel is a small supermarket and three souvenir type shops.

Food


Breakfast: 8am-10am
Lunch: 1pm-2.30pm
Evening Meal: 6pm-9pm

The restaurant was modern and clean with tea and coffee facilities, but these were only available during breakfast.

You can help yourself to drinks from the machines.

Food is buffet style. You get your plate then see what takes your fancy!

Breakfast consists of cooked food such as bacon, sausages, eggs, beans, plus they also have a choice of three cereals: corn flakes, granola or coco pops.

You can make your own toast and they also have croissants and pastries too.

Lunch and the evening meal were a bit repetitive, but I did enjoy the food overall as there was a lot of choice between cooked and cold meals. The salad bar was impressive, as was the selection of desserts.

The biggest let down for me when it came to the food was the so-called childrens buffet. It was three trays. One was always filled with chips, another usually with salad and then the third had one choice of meat which was usually fish. Although one day they had fish fingers and chicken burgers which went down well with our girls.

It would have been great to have more than one meat option for children. Chicken nuggets would have been great as I imagine a lot of children like these! Ours certainly do!

Entertainment


Pants!

Sorry Thomson, but that’s the first word that comes to mind when I think about the entertainment.

We enjoyed one show which was a Disney Characters show. It was brilliant our girls loved it.

The other shows were all put on by the Thomson reps and they were poor.

All involved audience participation where some unwilling person would be dragged up to answer questions or take part in a task. Boring!

There was a one man act which was so unenthusiastic! The man came on as Elvis first and mimed in front of a cine-screen showing clips of Elvis, then he came back on as Tina Turner and mimed, again in front of a cine-screen showing clips of Tina Turner.

The kids entertainment was 90 minutes long, which was just too long because it was so boring. I struggled to understand what the reps were saying and the shows just didn’t make sense.

We later found out that it was the reps first season – this maybe explains why the entertainment was so pants!

I’d recommend binning the reps doing the entertainment and get some professionals in!

Overall


We had a fantastic holiday!

My favourite part was the beach! Watching our girls playing for hours was so enjoyable.

Would I go to this Thomson hotel again? I’m really not sure!


Pros


Right on the beach
Clean, air-conditioned rooms
Lovely swimming pools
Food was good
Parks were great for children and all well maintained
Soft play was again great for children

Cons


Entertainment is pants!
Children’s buffet could do with more options and variety

We paid for this holiday ourselves. All views and opinions are 100% our own.