Ocean Blue & Sand - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

20572 reviews

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  A wonderful holiday as long as you like getting up early to reserve your sunlounger

  We had never been to the Caribbean before and we spent a long time looking at different hotels and islands before we found this gem and it sounded like exactly what we needed. We had a wonderful time here. The hotel is set in fabulous grounds. We loved the huge swimming pools and the warm turquoise sea. We loved seeing the exotic birds and wildlife that have made their homes at the hotel, a real novelty for us to see a pelican flying overhead, a flamingo living in the grounds, and to come out of breakfast and be enchanted by a moat full of turtles, baby coots and lots of colourful birds. We went to the main buffet every day for breakfast and evening meal, and ate at the Marina Villa during the day, or helped ourselves from the barbecue buffets. We were very happy with the food and all the different choices. We had intended to try out the restaurants but queuing up seemed like a hassle, people said you could wait ages, so we decided we were never going to get bored of all the choices in the main buffet, so we were happy to go there every night instead. We did enjoy having an ice cream at the ice cream parlour at the end of the day, if we could squeeze it in after all the lovely desserts at the main restaurant. A small point which won't affect many, but which was a huge big deal to me, so I am writing this not really for other guests but in the hope the hotel managers read this - on my first day I was disappointed to discover that almost all the drinks contain artificial sweeteners which I am allergic to. There is no full sugar Pepsi or Coca Cola which I always love to drink on my holidays, there was just Diet Pepsi which I would have a bad reaction to if I drank it. When I inspected all the soft drinks in our hotel room fridge, they all contained artificial sweeteners so I couldn't drink any of those, only water! I tried to talk to bar staff, reception staff and the man who fills up the hotel room fridges about my situation, but nobody understood what I was trying to explain to them. In the end I just drank water, and the pina colada sin alcohol as I had asked to see the ingredients and knew it was safe. But it was hugely disappointing to be on an All Inclusive holiday and not be able to drink the drinks! Please consider stocking full sugar Pepsi or Coca Cola in the future. Not everyone wants to drink diet drinks and some of us are truly allergic to them. Whilst we loved the hotel very much and felt like we were in another world, we currently would not return because of the sunbed situation. If you want to get a sunbed with an umbrella, you need to get up early and reserve it. We regularly holiday in the Canaries and Balearics and have never had to do this before. Even at 8am on a rainy morning, people were out in their pyjamas putting towels on sunbeds! I really wanted to have a sunlounger on the beach just once, but it never happened as they were always gone by 7am! After 9am you can still find a sunlounger but none with umbrellas, and it is so hot over there that you do need to have that shade. We are not early risers, we especially don't want to get up early on holidays, but we found that if we wanted to enjoy the day and not be too hot then one of us had to get up just to go and reserve a sunlounger. We stayed at another H10 hotel in December 2024 (Hotel H10 Timanfaya Palace) and they have a policy that anything left unattended on a sunlounger before 9am is taken off the sunloungers. It really worked! Nobody had to get up early to reserve a sunlounger, and everyone knew that from 9am it was ok to put your stuff on them. If you could adopt this policy we would totally come back! We also were very aware that some people left stuff on sunloungers early in the morning and then never came to the sunlounger until late afternoon when they took their stuff and left. This ruins it for everyone else. I don't know why they do this? But they totally shouldn't be allowed to! Everyone is given a wristband to wear for the whole holiday, and it has a key chip in to open your door. After a week at the hotel, I discovered to my horror that mine had fallen off! I don't know how, I had been to aquaerobics and then in the sea, but only to float around, nothing strenuous. I retraced my steps, even snorkelled the whole of the pool looking for it, but couldn't find it. I went to reception to get another one and the first thing the man says was not "Where did you last find it? Have you retraced your steps? Are you sure it's definitely gone?" but "you must pay $150 for a new one!" I was so upset about this, I hadn't done anything malicious to lose it, the hotel staff had put it onto my wrist a week earlier and now it had fallen off and they were charging me $150. Luckily we spoke to our TUI rep who was able to talk them round and explain it wasn't my fault, but the man on reception himself was so unkind and horrible about the whole thing. It ruined my day, made me cry and for the rest of the holiday I was obsessed with looking at my wrist and making sure the band was still on it. We luckily had some string with us and so we tied an extra layer of string onto the chip so that if the hotel wristband failed again, the string wouldn't. The craziest thing though? When you check out, they cut the wristband off and give it back to you! They don't even keep the chip to recycle it! And yet they wanted me to pay $150 for a new one? So if you are still reading this, would I recommend the holiday? Yes - we did love it! BUT be prepared to get up early to reserve a sunlounger, take some extra string to secure the wristband properly onto your wrist, and if you can't live without full sugar coke, take some with you!

  Apr 09, 2025
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  A few small annoyances but Would go back!

  This resort was great. Better than our expectations. Below is my review: Towel exchange hut - There is only one located on the beach. There should really be one near the pools. Not everyone wants to get covered in sand to grab a towel if they’re not visiting the beach. Rooms - Modern and clean. However our room in block 8, had no hot water the whole trip. The AC would shut off after 30 minutes and revert back to 23 degrees, which meant that the room was constantly humid and damp feeling. Our phone also did not work. Resort is beautiful and clean. The restaurants and night life are all in the same area, the boardwalk, which is lovely. Food - Excellent. From the Buffett to the A La Cartes. Delicious. There is something for everyone Pool and beach - Beautiful and clean. Chairs by the pool were hard to come by if you weren’t up early. But that seems to be a normal thing at resorts. Service- Staff members were fantastic almost everywhere. In some restaurants drinks took a little longer than expected but no big deal. The hostess at the a la cartes (Italian) should hold the door for the guests, as she let herself in first and the door slammed down on one of my friends thumbs Entertainment - Shows were nice and the daytime pool entertainment was great Coffee shop - awesome. Like a Starbucks. Spa - excellent. The ladies who did the massages did a great job. I loved that they did a “trial” massage for us at the pool as part of their sales pitch Night club - fun, great music and the bartenders worked quick Casino - was empty the whole time we were there. However we heard one man say that he got scammed some how, during a game of roulette. So we avoided the casino. WiFi was great, worked well except in some of the restaurants All in all, I would recommend this place as it was a great trip.

  Apr 08, 2025
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  Some first time info

  Fourth day here and things are going very very well. check-in was quite smooth compared to what other reviewers have said. I anticipate writing a better review after I am home but for now food is amazing and the Japanese experience was great . They do Get you in and out fairly quickly .I do have some concerns with Pinky the flamingo as he is alone and he should have a friend there are a number of stray cats , wild , some friendly and some not or they are scared !!please give them tuna or a good protein ! There is only so many months people will feed them . The beach and pool are beautiful!! Stayed tuned

  Apr 07, 2025
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  Amazing vacation!

  This was the best vacation I had in a long time. The food was very good. This hotel us clean, the room was very comfortable But the best of all was the staff and entertainment I will be going back for sure I highly recommend this hotel The pool chairs would need to be updated

  Apr 07, 2025
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  Best of the best

  Stayed January, May, August, October 2024 and January 2025 feel in love with this Hotel from the very 1st visit, nothing is ever to much trouble for any member of staff, everyone is always polite, food always amazing and plenty of choice, rooms very spacious and clean, plenty of drink choices -best bartenders Johan down at the pool bar and sexy Black in the lobby, amazing shows, entertainment team you guys are amazing you work your butt's off in that heat, morning noon and night making sure the guests are happy, always have the best time with guys, your like family now, big shout outs to chipi jamer, shaggy, drama queen, chicken legs, wilkin, gabriel and rudy miss you guys, will be back soon

  Apr 05, 2025