White Sands Beach Club
Great resort hotel with family atmosphere in a great location.
Beautiful place with excellent apartments, well equipped and very clean.
Safe area for families, staff friendly and helpful.
We stayed for two weeks from 31st April 2017 and would recommend for a family holiday with the following considerations only:
1- Due to its Cliffside location, the area has a lot of hills and loads of steps. There are ramps available within the Hotel grounds however we found no ramps (steps only), down to the hotel itself. Somewhat problematic for parents with buggies and more than one young child and would be very difficult for anyone with reduced mobility or wheelchair users.
2- You will need a car! Unlike other resorts in Menorca, public transport to Arenal d’en Castell is extremely limited with only two buses per day that pass through – not wholly reliable.
3- If you are self-catering you will need to take your own food or take a trip to Mahon to the larger supermarkets which have a great choice and economical when shopping for a family. Local supermarkets are expensive and choices are limited (particularly if you have picky eaters in the family).
4- Cafes, Bars and entertainment locally – slow to non-existent during our stay. Given that the school holidays had started when we arrived we were extremely disappointed to find that nothing was open. Bars / Shops / cafe’s / restaurants / local entertainment were not geared up to start until after the 10th of April. This wasn’t advertised by either the resort or the agent we booked through and was a real let down in comparison to other areas and Hotels we had stayed in previously and even on the 14th of April there was little sign of any energy being generated to capture trade from increasing numbers of visitors to the complex. The entertainment program was somewhat lacking; whilst there was a good program outline which catered for most age groups the activities lacked sophistication and could have been better prepared and presented. One example – wine tasting during the afternoon with a selection of snacks and local hams etc – could have been much improved with a selection of stalls from local suppliers and a seated area for participants to have time to enjoy the experience. As it was people gathered around a relatively small table with limited food prepared and only 8-10 bottles of wine, having been asked to supply their own glass. This could have been so much better than it was and did not offer value for money.
5 – Car Hire – Do your homework before you go in order to get the best deal for car rental. We hired locally as we had no option due to everywhere being closed. We used Owners car hire and whilst the car was great, we were very unhappy with the service received from the franchise and have submitted a complaint to the company. Recommend pre-booking ensuring that pick up and drop off are arranged for the airport to avoid major surcharges locally. Taxi from airport to resort cost approximately 40 Euro for three people plus cases and are metered. Cost of taxi from resort to Mahon approximately 28 Euro one way.
6 – Banks and cash points / ATMs No banks locally within resort though there were between 4/5 ATMs we saw located within key areas close to shops etc. Unfortunately only one of these ATMs was working (over a mile from the Hotel), with all others reading as out of order as they had not yet been loaded due to businesses not being open.
7- There is a doctors service within the resort in addition to a pharmacy, though the nearest Hospital is located in Mahon approximately 30 minutes drive away.
8- Internet White Sands do advertise internet as an available cost of almost 6 euro per day. What is not clearly advertised is that this is limited to two devices only and cannot be transferred. A family with more than one child may encounter difficulties or at least significant additional cost to their holiday.
9- Serviced apartments are advertised and are as well equipped as stated; maid service was available though sporadic. When our bin hadn’t been emptied we requested additional black bags in order to ensure we could dispose of the garbage appropriately only to be informed that there would usually be a charge for such.
10- Reception service – Excellent service from Jacqueline who was always happy to help, very informative and knew all aspects of her role and the location extremely well. Unfortunately, when not available other reception staff did not meet the same standard and appeared to have major difficulties with language barriers which resulted in many people having repeated visits to reception.
All in all as a beach holiday, this was a lovely place to spend two weeks. We took one of our 5 children along (14 year old) and therefore from his 0erspective, having more to do / more entertainment / activities etc. would have improved his experience. One criticism if any would be that as a self catering resort we were not made aware of the restaurant / Bar being closed for the majority of our stay, prior to booking. With no facilities open within resort and no information advising travellers of the need to ensure car hire was arranged ahead of arrival we were more than a little unhappy and would have been completely stranded had we not booked car hire locally at significant cost.