Hesperia Isla Margarita Hotel

This is a lovely hotel. Has a spectacular lobby area!! It is very much a Venezuelian hotel, but that isn't a bad thing. The hotel is very clean, no complaints there. The food is good, especially the Fogon, and the Beach Bar. The buffet can get a bit busy. The beach is also beautiful, and has lovely surroundings, set in the mountains.
The rooms are lovely, we stayed in a standard room - the bathrooms are huge! Three rooms - toilet, walk in shower and the bath and basin room.
The beds are comfortable, I certainly slept well in it! We had inter-connecting rooms, so the children were able to come in. All rooms had satellite TV (but not much English TV), two chairs, table, dressing table, two closets and huge TV cabinet, and bedside cabinets - and the rooms are a good size. We had a fantastic view over the pools and sea.
Housekeeping leaves you a bottle of water in each room every day, and is cleaned daily.
There are two pools, a small children’s pool, but the big pool isn't too deep and the children are fine in it.
Three normal restaurants - and an al a carte, which you can book into once each week. Although I wouldn't recommend it for children. We ate in there alone.
There isn't much to do in the evenings, which we did miss. The show outside is just dancing and lasts just over an hour. There is a pub but it is too dark! We liked to play games in the evening with the kids so we couldn't sit in there. So it was the lobby for us, although the lobby bar is great, and does nice cocktails. Although I did miss English alcohol! You do get huge measures though, and the fruit juices are gorgeous. The kids recommended the Bora Bora, and the fruit punch (good mixed with vodka or white rum)
Anna Maria the Rep was good. We had a 24 hour delay coming home, the flight was cancelled. And she kept us in the hotel and sorted out us getting our same rooms back etc, she didn't want us waiting at the airport.
There is a lot to do around the pool in the day. Bingo, darts, skittles, water games, basket ball... once they know you're name, you will be called up!
Our kids had a great time, the body boards and peddloes are free with all inclusive, and they all made friends and were busy doing things all the time. There are also two tennis courts.
Only complaint - there was a problem with things being stolen in the rooms while I was there. There was three other English families, they all had things go missing, and I had an MP3 go missing - which was placed back in my closet when I complained, the security put pressure on housekeeping to put it back. I was told that the member of staff had been dealt with the next day. So hopefully this problem is over with now.
Margarita - is beautiful. And it is amazingly different in the North and South. Where we stayed, it was lush and green, set in mountains. The part they call the other side, is desert like.
Excursions - you just have to use marcostours!!!!! - Don't book with anyone else. I had contacted Marco just before we went away. And he contacted us at the hotel after we arrived. The day before we was due to go on the around the island tour with him. I broke my tooth at breakfast on bacon (ok - that part of the food I wasn't happy with!). It was a Sunday, the hotel told me they couldn't do anything, I phoned my Rep, she said she couldn't do anything until the Monday. My tooth was broken bad, and part of it was hanging inside my mouth. I was in a bit of state, scared to talk, let alone eat or drink. We phoned Marcos to tell him we couldn't go on our tour. He said 'no problem, I will find someone' - within ten mins, he had phoned our room asking us to go downstairs and meet him, he was outside. He took us to a dentist in Porlimar, he had arranged for a dentist to come and open up and sort it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He did all the translating, which was great, and waited for over an hour while the dentist worked (which was an amazing job, reconstructed my whole tooth - which wouldn't be done in the UK with a resin kind of stuff) this cost just over £100 - which you would probably pay just for an emergency appointment in the UK. He refused to take any money for doing this for us. Beyond the call of duty, he is great.
The around the island tour was fantastic, the best day of our holiday. We got to go on a boat ride around the Restinga Lagoon, we held starfish and sea horses, then taken for our best meal of the holiday! We fully recommend this trip, and it is far cheaper than First Choice, and you see far more. He also combined this for us with the swimming with dolphins at Water world.
We did also book a snorkelling boat ride with him too. He really is the man to know in Margarita, and is so interesting.
Shopping - we did go to the mall, but found it a bit expensive, I think maybe we should have tried the avenues instead - but the Sigo market is great value.
A truly amazing holiday, wish we was back there. Wait till you hear how cheap their petrol is!!!