Esmeralda Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

Last year me and my freinds family went here and found it a very nice place to stay.
As all the people on the holiday were 16 and over we had a good time.I think this was because we just wanted a chilled out holiday.So The pool in the day and food and the bar on the night was good for us.The pool was salt water which wasent very nice for the first few days but you got used to it.
In the days we also went to the beach a few times.It was so easy to get to the beach as the bus stop was right outside the hotel.The town centre was like a ten minute walk and the town centre was nice.
The hotel rooms were always cleaned in the day and left clean and tidy.
The pool side bar was nice as you could get food and drink as often as you like.I think our family got on well with all the staff as we were older so got in more activities on the night and in the day.
The food at the poolside bar was nice just chips and nuggets ect.The food on the night however was not as nice.Chips were served everyday and then diffrent meat and pasta ect.We dident really enjoy the night food so ended up going to the town centre shops buying crisps and chocolate as we dident want to eat out.You could also eat baguettes or sandwhiches in the day by going to the bar inside the hotel which was good.There was also a vending machine with crisps and chocolate in and a drink machine.
Overall we had a brilliant holiday and would deffinatly go to this hotel again!!

I loved the Esmerelda the food was great and the staff was very helpful and polite ok the entertainment was not the best but on the whole it was fun. My family loved the Esmerelda we went a 2nd time to find out that the management had changed about.
The Esmerelda was the best holiday ever in my life I am 13.
GO YOU WILL LOVE IT !

i am 13 and i went here last year,
at that time my little brother wasnt yet 1,
i have quite a big family
with 2 brothers and 2 sisters, a mum and a step dad
there wasnt really much to do in the day,
except the pool,
although there was a kids club, but except for my brother who is 1 now, we were all over the age of eleven and found these clubs boring and childish,
the pool was salt water and abit hard on the eyes for the first couple of days, you soon got used to it though
there is a pool side bar, but the women in there wasnt very helpful to me or my brothers and sisters and so it seemed pretended she didnt know english,
every morning me and my brother and sisters missed breakfast becuase it was 6 - 8 pm, which in english time would be 5 - 7, and at that time we would still be asleep,
lunch and dinner, was just the same food over and over again
we ended up just eating chips and ice cream for our entire stay
becuase all of the food just had that same taste we ate out most nights, adding cost to our holiday which is a bit stupid seen as though we payed for an all inclusive break.
when my brothers and sisters got up at around 9, you had totaly , missed the boat for a decent sun lounger
the rooms were okay, the air conditioning was a big help,
although you have cards instead of keys
and if you left them in the sun,
they didnt work
and you left them inside your room
and coulnt get back in which was a big pain
id give it 7 / 10 becuase it was a good holiday and the enteratinment a night was good,

2 readers found this review helpful

Returned back from hotel Esmeralda in August, will try to give an honest review.

The hotel appears exactly like it does in the brochure, rooms of a reasonable size and generally clean maid service daily.
Pool area nice and pool cleaned daily; beware that you will need to be up at 7am to get a decent sun lounger.
Food - the bookable restaurant is good and we ate there most nights and also for breakfast it is not as busy as the "canteen" and much much cleaner.
Staff - I think the most miserable and unfriendly staff in any resort my friends and I have ever been to.
The hotel toilets are not very clean and are very smelly this includes the pool area ones.
Children attended kids club on several occasions and enjoyed what they did.
Ciutadella is a lovely place and we took many walks down the harbour front and ate in several good reasonably prices restaurants on the harbour and in the town centre, where you will find lots of shops and bars
Overall we had a fantastic holiday and the hotel Esmeralda was a good base, and the grumbles that we did have where only little ones
Go open minded and not expecting too much and you won't be disappointed!

I'm 13 and me and my mum have been to this hotel 5 times now and we are about to go again, and we have just got back from America but we had to come back to hotel Esmerelda because it is just such a nice play to stay at. and if you get the right room ( 331 - 339 ) the views are spectacular, from their you can look out on the harbour and still be able to look out on to the sea and the swimming pool below.
I got to admit the food hasn't got much to choose from but you don't really go on holiday and worry about the food and besides the entertainment and the pool make up for the lack of choice when it comes to the food.
their is a little town of Ciutadella about 15 minutes walk from the hotel and if you take the wood walk past all the yachts and boats it turns out to be a very nice walk. In the town their is a lot of restaurants witch are all very nice. if you walk a little bit further the are some steps where all the best shops are in my opinion anyway and in the town you can always find what you are looking for. The staff back at the hotel are all very nice people and will help you with anything that you need.
in all this is a amazing play for a holiday ( that would explain why i am about to go for the 6th time ). if your looking for a holiday in Menorca this is the place to go it is fantastic.

1 reader found this review helpful

What can I say, booked this holiday without reading any reviews on the advice of a friend who worked in a travel agents.
Read all the reviews and was totally depressed.
Arrived at the hotel and had one of the greatest holidays of my life. Main points to consider are as follows:
1. Cosmos book the majority of this hotel out each year and all their rooms are based at the front and have been modernised fully. This includes full air conditioning but it’s the key card type where it switches everything off when you leave the room.
You need to take some cardboard with you that you can cut to the size of the key card to leave in the holder all day to keep the air con going. In the middle of summer this is all you live for.
If you book with another operator you will be put in a room at the book or basically the basement, this isn’t as bad as it sounds as the rooms are cooler but if you complain you can usually get moved around.
We had a room out the back but decided to keep it even though it wasn’t furnished as good as the Cosmos rooms, the air con worked better and the room was cooler.
2. The pool. A lot of people don’t realise what a salt water pool is like, very rough on the eyes for the first few days and a lot of kids can’t hack it very well. This pool is clean and cold but isn’t as big as it looks in the brochure but is a great focal point and nice to use.
3. Food. There are two restaurants but the best one works on a booking basis and you have to get in early 24 hours before to book a table. If you stay in the standard restaurant the food is very basic and doesn’t change a lot over the period of your holiday.
At the end of the day you have to think about what you are paying extra for in an all inclusive deal and if you have a few extra beers it makes everything palatable.
Personally after 10 days I was ready to get some proper home cooking not the usual greasy lot you were given here.
The food choice for kids was also quite limited and the labelling sometimes difficult...imagine the shock on my 2 kids faces when after having deep fried onion rings one night the next night in the same place was deep fried squid rings, who the heck thinks kids of 4 and 5 eat squid?
Best tip is to take some English cereals or go and buy some in the many local supermarkets so that breakfasts are covered.
4. Drinks. Plenty people say that you cant get drunk on these drinks because they put so much ice in the drinks... at the end of the day they are just doing the same as any of us and trying to maximise their profits.
We found a very simple way to solve this - tell them that you don’t want ice in your drink, you get a full glass and its easy to tell them you don’t want too much coke etc.
These are all locally produced so aren’t going to be your top quality kit so get used to it and just drink more if you want to get plastered, I’m just a social drinker and had a very good time.
5. Poolside Bar. Good for snacks throughout the day and simple food for the kids so you don’t need to go too far from the pool any day. Ice creams free for the kids throughout the day is worth at least £500 of the holiday price so make the most of it.
6. Staff. Found all of them friendly and approachable, cleaners work hard and have a laugh with you, can’t understand where some people complained about them.
All in all a great holiday, I'm not one of those people who keep going to the same place all the time, I believe in variety, but I would have no hesitation in going back to the Esmeralda again.

Well Well Well, this was the best holiday of our life, it was really good. Nice welcoming people especially the man at the reception desk we called him smiler as he never stopped smiling. Food- the food could have been better but it was eatable and quite nice it was just the variety. Also the pool was very nice and clean.
Everyone should go to this hotel forget what others have said it’s a well enjoyed holiday!

Well the first day you get there I recommend that they will send you down the basement to live as they did that to us 2 times when we have went there! After 1 night we persuaded the receptionist to change our room we pay 10 euros 2 get a different room then we had the best rooms there!
The food on the other had there are 2 restaurants, 1 that you have to book for. This is well worth it as you see the food cooked in front of you which is very nice! The other restaurant has a nice welcoming man can't remember his name but he is really nice, shame about the food in there you always have the same salads and same deserts but I suppose they were alright!
The first time we went there was in 2003 & we had a really, really good time but the second was a let down! The first entertainers were absolutely so good and funny they were called David, Martina and Lilly. They were the best entertainers that we have seen in ages but then the second time we went there we were very sorry to hear that Martina and David left because of some reason. Then Lilly was leaving the next day we got there. There were 3 more entertainers who were really rubbish.
Overall the holiday was nothing with out the proper entertainers. I was sad to see what a let down it has gone to! I hope it does reach there standard again!

We have just come back from a very enjoyable holiday in Cuitadella Menorca. We stayed at the Esmerelda hotel. We found the beds very hard to sleep on.
The sun beds although free and plentiful were also very hard and uncomfortable without cushions and people had to purchase lilos to put on them. the food in the hotel supplied on an all inclusive basis left a lot to be desired and apart from breakfast and the two meals in the restaurant we ate out adding to the cost of our holiday.
All this however did not stop us having a great holiday and we will definitely return to Menorca, even stay at the same hotel if the above problems were put right the biggest being the food. Bed and breakfast would be the best basis as breakfasts were ok.

1 reader found this review helpful

Well, after reading all the various reviews about this hotel, I was determined not to get my expectations up too high. Well, good job I didn’t - this was a very disappointing holiday although, in fairness, it wasn’t helped by the high heat and humidity - still, who would book Menorca in July and not think about heat!!! Hmmmm.
Anyway, food was dreadful - booking for the little restaurant the day before was hit and miss - quite often the booking went missing and there is absolutely no room for discussion or compromise. The food in the larger restaurant was, quite often, disgusting. Salads same everyday. Uneaten food from day before was presented as something else the next day. My son could only find pasta and sauce to eat because everything really looked unappetising and didn’t taste much better. Children’s menu was diabolical. Puddings were the same every day - very sweet, sickly, dry cake, melon, ice cream, occasionally jelly and occasionally rice pudding.
Drinks? Don’t expect to get drunk here! So much ice in drinks that they were like water. If you want anything else, i.e. Baileys or even coffee in a proper cup (instead of polystyrene), you have to pay extra - and it is not cheap. Tip: Either chuck the ice out quickly or get the drink and ask for a separate spirit with no mixer and no ice and use it to top up your drink. It works. Don’t try and get a drink of anything other than water after 12 midnight - absolutely no leeway at all even if you have been out on a trip or have just arrived. All lights turned off on the dot! Sandwiches provided in the bar were nothing short of foul - produced daily from a huge bag and quite often children were shouted at for having one (which they were quite entitled to be having anyway)! Bar staff were dreadful with children - rude, sullen and aggressive, not at all like the Spanish are usually with children.
Accommodation? Not bad, air conditioning was a huge bonus. Tip - make sure your patio door is securely shut otherwise it doesn’t work - lock it preferably at all times. If you go out, slip a piece of card or something into the key holder and it keeps the a/c on all the time you are out and you have a nice cool room to return to. Negative: My 14 year old son found two maids together in his bed (yes, really!) but other than that the maids were fine and were helpful and did a reasonable job although had to ask for more loo rolls - 3 people, one loo roll a day!
Staff - bar staff - sullen, miserable and unhelpful. Reception staff - sometimes unhelpful, lack of English (or pretending not to speak English) did cause some problems. Nando, waiter in the restaurant, was lovely though, very cheerful and friendly.
Pool - absolutely beautiful to look at but oh boy does it sting. Can’t understand why it is salt water but it is and you just have to get used to it but it does hurt if you get it in your eyes (which you will!) - goggles not much help. Take plenty of moisturiser. Sea water less salty than pool - honest!
Entertainment - OH MY GOD, fine if you are 4 years old only. No entertainment for grown ups, same five records EVERY night for the children, one game of bingo EVERY night, occasional “professional” entertainers that wouldn’t win a local talent competition - even if they were the only contestants!, banal games for the kids and an English female (Karen) children’s entertainer who loves herself so much. The two Spanish (Marta and Sergio) entertainers are not much better -Sergio constantly refers to 69 (in bingo) as his “favourite” number??? What’s that about then? Is it necessary one wonders? Some of the stuff they do is slightly humorous but mostly a load of puerile rubbish fit only for children who are there for one night only otherwise same, same, and same! Daytime entertainment, games etc. for children are much better. If I hear that song “Ville, ville (I think)” one more time, I will scream!
All in all, a holiday that I would not want to repeat. It was not booked as a cheap holiday but that was the overall impression I am left with. The hotel needs a thorough overhaul/upgrade and the staff need training in customer service and presenting the right attitude. The shop inside the hotel always has a “back in 30 mins” sign up, even if she has just opened up! Definitely not a place I would go to again.