Viva Cala Mesquida Resort Hotel

Great for family holiday (2 adults 2 children aged 5 and 8). An aparthotel complex - apartments include a twin room/sitting room (sofa beds) incorporating a basic kitchenette, an adjoining large double room, plus decent bathroom (shower over bath) and a balcony. Everything clean and in good condition, maid service 5 days/week. The extra room space given at the Resort helped make this holiday very relaxed. Beware some apartments bigger than others, although smaller ones still fine. Brilliant sea view available at extra cost.
Children enjoyed the kids club, not the best organised, but okay. Main swimming pool clean and reasonably sized, but very crowded. Lots of sun beds but sometimes ran out especially late am/early pm, and sometimes difficult to find space to put one! Second pool, much smaller, looked busy too. Towel removal system in operation, but not carried out often enough to be particularly effective. Local horse riding centre, pedalos on beach, trampolines on site (not in operation during our stay), plus other activities for adults such as archery, football, spinning, etc. Also crazy golf on site. There is also an indoor pool which rarely seemed to be used.
Lovely wide sandy beach with lifeguard/flag system, although even in August the wind was quite strong and there were several days when we were unable to go in the sea. Adults can walk out a long way into the clear sea (great for snorkeling, swimming), but water did go to waist/chest height quite quickly so perhaps not as good for small children, although water's edge great.
Food in the Resort was good. A bit repetitive, but always hot. With HB you get wine/soft drinks included with evening meal, plus one meal per week at each of the on site Italian and Mexican restaurants (don't forget to book) at no extra cost. The Mexican was a disappointment (we only went once), but the Italian was superb. I heard complaints from people who had booked on a self-catering basis that there was nowhere else to eat in Cala Mesquida so they ended up paying to eat in the complex anyway - so if you don't want to use your kitchenette and like to try different restaurants, this might not be the resort for you. However, Cala Ratjada is only a short bus/taxi trip and does have plenty of restaurants.
Cala Mesquida is small tourist resort with a few small shops mainly selling seaside stuff and groceries. No nightlife apart from in the hotels, which varied in quality from night to night - musicals and magic to drinking and singing competitions. The Viva complex, which seems to take over most of the resort, includes the Suites (most expensive and quiet with fewer children), the Resort and the Club (both middle of the range) and the Park (cheapest). The Resort and the Club blend into one another (easy to lose yourself!) and seemed to have similar dining, swimming and entertainment facilities. Apart from the fact that the Club visitors don't get meals at the specialised restaurants included (although can pay extra to dine there), I'm not sure what other differences there are. The Viva Park is on the other side of the fairly quiet road, but further from the beach, can't tell you anything else about it.
Various trips round the island were available via our tour operator, although with such hot weather we stayed in resort, which might be boring for some! People who went on coach trips complained that travel time was excessive due to numerous pick-up points, especially for the water park trips. Car hire is available, even last minute, and many families with older children took up this option.
We were expecting to greatly outnumbered by Germans, but there was a real mix of nationalities, including a few Spanish.
Overall we had a great holiday. The kids were happy and that's half the battle won! One last thing, Sovereign were a great tour operator. Maybe we paid a bit more than if we had organised our holiday DIY, but with 2 young children and 2 grandparents in tow, the fact that we had no queues at airport check-in due to their 'priority' system and private taxis (limo for the return journey) to/from the airport helped make our holiday hassle-free.