Our Holiday at Hotel Port Aventura, Salou, Spain

Last Christmas, with two newborn babies, we decided to avoid Christmas fuss and treat ourselves to a holiday in Salou, at the Port Aventura Theme Park, staying in Hotel Port Aventura.  This was right on site and we could not have been closer to the white knuckle rides, restaurants and shops.

We flew from Belfast to Barcelona airport with Jet2 dot com, and the hired a car.  This airport was easy to get through, well signposted and the car hire depot was just outside the door.  After leaving the airport, we followed the signs for Salou, and off we went.  Just before Salou, there were signs for the theme park and we were there, less than forty minutes after leaving the airport.

On arrival to the hotel, the extremely friendly porters took our bags, which were immediately left to our rooms.  We checked in with the bi lingual receptionist and were given keys and theme park tickets and maps.

Off we went to our rooms and we were happy to see that we had been given two adjoining rooms, each room with two double beds and a travel cot. The rooms had each a desk, television, air conditioning, fridge, plenty of wardrobe space and a bathroom. Our rooms had a full length window over looking a pool, but, as it was winter, it was closed. One could imagine that during the warmer months, it would be very nice. The rooms were clean and warm and comfortable and we felt safe in the fact that the rooms opened up to each other, so that our whole family was sleeping together. After the Madeline McCann story, this was a big concern for us, with 2 adults being responsible for 6 kids!

The hotel staff were extremely friendly, and at several times of the day, there were opportunities for photo shots with the Park mascot, Woody Woodpecker. All the shops sold all the usual mascots and clothes themed with the characters.The Breakfast in the hotel catered for every taste, from a full fried breakfast, cereal, toast, coffee, juice, fruit etc. The kitchen staff were fantastic and every day sterilised the eight baby bottles that I required to feed the three babies (I had twins and another baby) However it was a heftily priced evening buffet, "all you can eat" which is good for some people, but not us with picky and tired kids.

The facilities were very good and there were plenty of ramps for pushchairs, prams and wheelchairs in the hotel. At night, there was a kids club with singing and dancing and activities in all languages so that everyone was included. There were many restaurants surrounding the hotel and for picky kids, there was a MacDonald’s in Salou, a five minute drive away.At night, we would get take a drive around the area, visit Mac Donalds and come back in time for an hour at the clubs and then head off to bed.It was a long and tiring days but worth it to be on the rides, Furious Baco, Dragon Khan, just to mention a couple!

Every day the room was cleaned and clean towels were brought in. The hotel was fantastic, the staff was brilliant and I definitely would return! However, it would be better to return in better weather when the water park is open although the prices would naturally rise to reflect this!