IFA Buenaventura Hotel

I booked this hotel as a late deal and after I had booked it I looked at some of the reviews................. I was terrified at what I might have booked! I can honestly say it was a fantastic hotel! Everywhere was clean and bright, rooms were very spacious and comfortable. The restaurant was big and had a lovely buffet, I can honestly say I didn't eat the same meal twice! As for the pools, they were great too, never too overcrowed and always managed to get a sunbed. There were many Germans but all very friendly. I would recommend the british pub located inside for any men that prefer english beer and owners were friendly too! Would definately go back!

hey!! what can i say!!! if you stay in this hotel, you will totally fall in love with it, just like we did! I went there with my partner for my summer holidays in july 2006!! not knowing what to expect, we arrived into a truely sumptuous reception to be greeted by a quite pleasant receptionist, she was quite polite althought a tad stressed at the time, in the space of 10 minutes we had our room cards and were in hotel room. our room wasnt situated in the best position(ground floor) we didnt like this as there was trees directly opposite as we looked out of the balcony, in which case it was constantly in the shade!!!! when we got our luggage unpacked, we decided to take a stroll around the hotel, to see what sorta resort it was! and we were not disapointed, it was totally spottless and there was always plenty of staff around cleaning and availiable for any residents questions!! The pool area was simply perfect and may i add huge!! there was the large communual area, along with 2 huge jacuzzi's and a chillout pool(kids pool) there was always plent of sunbeds, although you had to be up early before the germans nabbed them all! The entertainment in the hotel was mainly catering for the germans althought the nightclub in the hotel was top class!!! and i must mention the drifters night!! it was bloody class, i was pleasantly surprised!!! Havent much to say about the food, was just ok!!! a tad boring going to the dining room each night to the same old thing and the bar staff where not the most pleasant at all. But when you just want something to fill a hole, the food was grand!! try and eat out a few nights as it helped to make it less tasteless! there are several great mexican restraunts in the resort (tex mex- under the the koko apartments) was simply amazing and the frozen sangria was strong and nasty!!lol There are some good steak houses, but stay away from the chinese food, it really aint the best! and by the way the hotel is great for breakfast, so thats a must when you have a stinking hangover!! the hotels down side is that it can be quite expensive to hire different facilities e.g: it was 70 euro to hire a fridge and 30 euro to hire the safe, although the fridge was a must have and very glad we got it, dont just do without it, just take extra money with you for the extras, its all worth it. As for the resort itself, just go!!! you will love it!!!! its stunning in the day time and its party party party time at night( the irish court kareoke bar) in the the irish centre was great craic and the clubs were brill too!!! if your gay go to the yumbo centre, there is around 50 gay bars, full of friendly bar staff!! a must for all the gays in the villiage!! lol. We loved the holiday so much we are going back to do it all over again, in the very same hotel as last year!!!! it was superb, would not have changed a thing about it apart from where the room was situated! but hey!!! dont just take my word for it, get the holiday booked, although the hotel is extremly popular, so i would advise you to get it booked sooner than later!!!!!

Just came back from Buena Ventura with a very good impression. After reading some of the reviews (above) we were very disappointed and prepared for something dreadful. We arrived with a baby and requested a quiet room and such room was provided. The hotel has two buildings and I guess the building which is next to the tennis court is usually reserved for folks with children. The room was spacious and very clean. I must admit that this was no comparison to what you get in the 3-star hotel in Spain (Costa Brava). The restaurant only offered half board but with a quiet good variety of food. As someone mentioned the German/English ratio was too big, this disproportionate ratio is almost everywhere in Playa de Ingles.

Myself and a friend arrived at this hotel in the early hours of the morning in November 06-on arrival the staff were generally helpful if not a little bored looking. The room was clean and tidy with clean towels in the bathroom-if only for the first day!! during the week the maids got increasingly slack-to the point where we had blatant crumbs on the floor of our apartment for 5 whole days which wasnt so fantastic. Despite being on the seventh floor we also had a cockroach in our room on the second day which was the smacked to death by a maid who then left beetle juice on the floor next to our bed for the whole next day. Nice. I was not impressed with the food at all-I havent got a clue what vegetarians are supposed to eat whilst staying at the hotel-It was like the celebrity jungle as I lived on a plate of rice for dinner every day. fab array of meat dishes but samey salad bar for the vegetarians. hmmmm yum. The entertainment around the pool was fantastic though-the animacion team tried really hard to make it fun and interesting for both kids and adults alike and some of the games were hysterical!! The location of the hotel was also fab-the bars and clubs were only a couple of streets away just far enough for a drunken stroll!! One other downside was lack of english people- the ratio germans:english was roughly 15:1 and they tried their very hardest to make our stay as unpleasant as possible. One german couple even tried to take our sunbeds whilst we were leaning on them!!!!!!All in all I was glad to leave the hotel and probably wont be going back.

Having just returned from a week at this hotel, i have got to say i have had a lovely time!! i was slighly concerned reading some of the reviews before our departure and was unsure of what to expect!!! when me and my boyfrind arrived at the hotel, staff were friendly helpful and and made you feel very welcome. the interior of the hotel was clean and very modern looking along with the rooms. We were located on the sixth floor with a beautiful sea view, bewarned the bar over the road is open until 3am and can keep you awake at times, but after a couple of nights you get use to it!!! the food at breakfast and dinner was in a non stop supply and the temptation to try everything is always there!! (mare sure you feed the wild cats). the swimming pools are superb providing both a quiet area and a slighlty noisier area where entertainment and activities take place. The hotel reps were very helpful and very entertaining and try extremely hard to entertain all nationalities. This hotel is one i shall hopefully return to in the future as the time spent there was most enjoyable!!! Ratio: english 10% - germans 90%, if you are wanting a sunbed by the pool make sure you get up about 6am otherwise you have no chance, the germans are always in first!!!

just got back from this hotel after a tiresome week, the noise seemed to be 24hours a day with dire entertainment which was always aimed at rave loving germans. we are very open minded couple but we found the constant gay and lesbian anticts openly on show was quite offputting food was repetative and boring ,staff rude and unhelpfull. as you can quess we wont be going back and recomending the hotel to friends or enemys ps need another holiday

From reading some of the reviews when the holiday had been booked we were a little concerned about what we had let ourselves in for...then checked again a couple of days before we left and were relieved as they seemed much better. When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised. We had a triple room for 3 of us and there was plenty of room. The accomodation was plenty big enough, very clean (the cleaners came daily) and the shower was good (not like a dripping tap like I have experienced before). The only downside of the room was we had a couple of cockroaches, which unfortunately cannot be helped due to the heat. Even with then as soon as we told reception they sent someone to come and dispose of them for us. The food was great, yes it was a buffet and a little samey, but what can you expect when they are catering for so many, and there was enough choice to have something different each day and you could have as much or little as you liked. The beach was a few minutes walk away as was the nightlife, but nothing was heard from the room. The staff were helpful and friendly. All in all we had a lovely time and all said we would recomend it to friends and family.

I must admit, that after reading these earlier reviews, we were unsure as to whether we had made the right decision booking this hotel at the last minute. We had been to Gran Canaria before but were used to 4 or 5 star hotels, and I must admit that our expectations were exceeded upon our arrival. Lovely well lit pool, with floating flower shaped candles at night, secluded pool bar for cosy chats, and anotherpoolside bar for the livlier guests. Rooms were very clean, larger than we expected, well lit and maid service daily. The food was excellent, buffet style, but great selection which changed every day. From breakfast to dinner, the food was faultless. The only downside was that we had to queue for drinks prior to queing for food, but despite it being peak period, we never queued for long and always found a free table straight away. I agree with the comments about the entertainment there, it was a little dire, unprofessional DJ, who played what seemed like his own choices of Hard House mixed with old disco classics, the best night of cabaret was when the New Drifters performed, they were great! Plus there was plenty of Kids entertainment too. So, all in all, a great holiday, better than we had expected, excellent service from the staff,drinks a little pricey (apart from happy hour), naff entertainment (but you can always go to the Yumbo Centre for that), excellent pool area, tennis courts well looked after. In my opinion, as a regular holidayer, I would give this a well earned 8/10. I cant think of anything that would not make me recommend this to anyone. I would certainly go back there.

This is the best holiday hotel we have stayed in, and some of the comments about it are just plain wrong. There is one big minus which we'll come to shortly !! Firstly the hotel itself. We emailed the hotel just before we arrived asking for a quiet room and when we got there the reception people were aware of this and gave us a quiet room (294) we didnt hear any noise at all from the Buenaventura animation team but you do hear the entertainment from the Gran Canaria Princess next door, but it all stops at midnight anyway so it wasnt a realy problem. The room itself was fine. large clean and comfortable and the TV worked well ( the only english channel we could find though was Sky News) but if you take a radio with you there are several english channels on FM. The food could not be faulted. We usually had our breakfasts outside on the terrace and for dinner ate in the the restaurant. The menu was pretty much what you'd expect but it was well cooked and plenty of it and the staff there really did well. When you go in find a table with a green card on. There were never any queues either going in or coming out. When you go in you get a piece of paper which you show when you get a drink and you pay on the way out. It worked fine. One thing which was very good was that the chefs cooked steaks etc while you waited. in the morning eggs were cooked in front of you so if you like your eggs soft in the middle and crisp round the edges you'll really like it. A lot of the comments about this hotel talk about the number of Germans there. Yes there are quite a few I would say about 50% but there are also Swiss, Dutch, Spanish ( lots) Irish. After the Germans us Brits are the next lar gest group. It certainly isnt run purely for germans, but has a good international feel about it. There is a good free bus service to the beach which runs daily and was always on time but the last run back is at 1545 but you can walk it in about 20 minutes easily or get a taxi for under 3 Euro ( and if you havent been to Playa Del Ingles before the beach is SPECTACULAR ) I said at the beginning that there was one big minus and here it is. The entertainment at night was truly DIRE...........I agree with the comments about everything being said in 6000 languages but on more that one occasion it would have been more fun watching grass grow. We were there a week and it went like this 3 karaoke, a tribute to the Bee Gees ( pretty good ) a tribute to Chicago ( again pretty good if you manage to sit away from the Spaniards who talked loudly all the way throught it ) what seemed to be an advert for something called the Holiday Gym which from what we gather involved covering someone in chocolate and giving others a hair do. that isnt the worst. This award goes to some called " We Bet" It goes something like this. The animation team are supposed to represent all the nationalities at the Hotel ( I think ) they then come up with how many members of the animation team are there, if you think less than 16 take a short straw if you think more than 16 take a long straw. The animation team then bring straws round. The best I can say about this truly non event was that there were nowhere near enought straws to go round. When we have been to other hotels the evening entertainment is usually quite good and you needed to get a seat quite early. We wondered why there was still acres of empty tables about 5 minutes before the "show" started. !!. It truly was grim.One other thing which we thought was strange was in the mini disco, have you every been anywhere where "The Music Man" doesent play The Dambusters ? no neither had we till we came here......... Overall though we had a really good holiday in a good hotel in a good location in a great resort, I was there with my wife and teenage daughter and we would certainly go back to the Buenaventura, I just hope they do something about ""We Bet"" !!!

We stayed here for a week from the 14th august. What a great hotel. Very clean. Helpful and friendly staff. The food was excellent with a fantastic choice and we didn't have to queue once for breakfast or dinner.The pools were alot of fun and you could have a laugh. Plenty of bars in which to chill out, with happy hours! The only down side was the entertainment. If you are German it will be ok but for us british it was a bit boring. By the time the entertainment team (who seemed to do everything) went through 6,000 languages we got bored!! Gran Canaria itself doesn't have alot unless you want to chill out or go out on the p*** every night. We went to the Irish Centre a couple of times but there was no Irish music but a man singing depressing songs. Aqualand is a must for a fun day out and Palmitos Park has a bird of prey and parrot show which is a laugh. I don't think we would go to Gran Canaria again but we were certainly spoilt by the hotel. We have booked Tenerife for next year as we find it the best Canary Island. We just hope the hotel is as good as the Buenaventura !!