rated the Fiesta Palladium Palace as follows:| Cleanliness |  | | Location | | | Staff |  | | Food | | |
| Entertainment |  |
| said: We just got back from 2 weeks at the Palladium Palace hotel in Playa D’En Bossa, Ibiza and here’s what we thought.
Hotel:
The hotel itself is very nice, it’s located right on the excellent beach at the quiet end of the resort well out of the way from all the clubbers etc. which is what I’d expect from a quality, family oriented hotel. There are 3 bars in total, the pool bar next to the main pool, the beach bar which is in the Portofino restaurant on the beach and the Lobby bar that also serves the outside seating area. Waiters will bring you drinks in the lobby bar and outside seating area if you are too lazy to go to the bar yourself. There are 2 pools, the main pool is nice and big and has plenty of sun loungers (with cushions!) around it. The “chill out” pool is smaller and is only just over 1 meter deep in the deepest part I think. There are also plenty of sun beds around there too but you still have to be out early to get one at any of the pools.
Hotel Restaurants:
The main restaurant is large and spacious. We were there for the last 2 weeks of July and didn’t have a problem getting a table although you sometimes had to wait for one to be made up but that’s not a problem. There’s also a bar in here and again, its waiter service but you can go to the bar yourself if you like. The food there is all buffet style so you help yourself and was very good although we preferred the food at the Fiesta Palm Beach which is the hotel next door and is only a 3 star hotel instead of a 4. The main reason being that we felt there was more variety there as that hotel catered fully for British, German and Italian guests whereas the Palladium Palace seems to cater mostly for the Germans and then for the Italians. This didn’t bother me as I enjoy eating different foods but it started to become a bit of a problem for my “less adventurous” fiancé and 9 year old child. Also, the Ibizans seem to really enjoy their pork so different pork dishes were on the menu every single day, both at lunch and dinner so if you don’t like pork then your choices will be a bit more limited but I love pork so I was happy! There’s also an a la cart restaurant on the beach, you have to make a reservation to go there and only get 1 visit per stay (or per week, not sure) but we didn’t bother and only used it at lunchtime when we were on the beach when they serve a basic (but perfectly adequate) buffet of salad, pasta and a grill where you can get grilled meats, burgers and fish.
Rooms:
The rooms are air conditioned and quite spacious with a huge queen sized bed, our 9 year old son was provided with a decent camp bed which he said was very comfortable. The room also contains a small fridge, a TV that picks up sky news and the bathroom has a hair dryer and whirlpool bath with a shower over it – all very nice. The rooms, as was the rest of the hotel were spotless and cleaned daily. The bed linen was also changed every 2 or 3 days.
Beach:
Excellent!
There is no Thomsons rep on site. You’re given a card with a phone number on that you can call if you have any problems. To be honest, we weren’t bothered as they only want to sell you trips anyway. Details of your departures are in the Thomson folder on the desk in reception, that’s all you really need.
All in all, this is a very nice hotel but here are some of the bad bits:
Some of the Spanish bar staff and waiters were quite ignorant and would sometimes just throw the drink on the counter and walk away. We also got the impression that some of the waiters only wanted to clean up and not bring you drinks. They also seemed to favor the German and Italian guests when there was a bit of a queue (not that the Germans and Italians queued that much). That said, the Eastern European and Asian staff were very pleasant and polite and seemed to have a totally different attitude. Perhaps this was due the hotel being totally all-inclusive so they didn't get as many tips?
We (and the other handful of British guests who were there) found the Italians to be very ignorant. They’d push through doors if you opened one, wouldn’t dream of queuing and were generally first class @ssholes to be honest. I’m lucky as I’m a big guy and wouldn’t let them push in, walk in front of me etc. but it all became a bit tiresome in the end to be honest and I got a bit sick of confronting them all the time (although they soon back down and fall into place - every single one of them as they're all front!).
The kids clubs there are only really for the German children. My 9 year old son went along a couple of times but hated it as he didn’t have a clue what was going on.
There aren’t many British guests at the hotel, we spoke to one of the reps (when we eventually found one) and they said that the hotel had over 400 rooms but Thomsons only had 40 and they were the sole UK supplier. The majority of the rest were let out to German and Italian operators. This is really only a problem if you are traveling with children as we found it difficult at first to find some kids for our 9 year old son to bother with.
The evening entertainment at the hotel is "ok" but after being to a Fiesta hotel 3 times previously, you get used to the same shows all the time. All the shows we saw were performed by the animation team (who work hard and were very nice), no "outside" artists were used during our stay there which I thought was a bit poor for a 4 star hotel.
Don’t let this put you off though, simply leave your manners at the front door and you’ll be fine as this really is a very nice hotel with very good facilities but it in my opinion, it doesn’t really cater for British families too well, especially families with just the one child.
I won’t really say much about the resort of Playa D’En Bossa other than it seems to have gone downhill quite a bit. This was my 4th visit to the resort and will be my last as it now seems to be geared up for gangs of young, single people instead of families – a bit like San Antonio.
Would I recommend it? Yes but only to people that I didn’t know and who weren’t a family with one child as the child could have problems making friends due to thr lack of other British children there.
Would I go back? No.
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SANSBY FAMILY from PETERBOROUGH travelled to Fiesta Palladium Palace with
THOMSON
on a family holiday.