Hotel El Paso

We loved this hotel and its location so close to Portaventura Park - which was brilliant and the main reason for our choosing this holiday. We stayed all-inclusive - this also included lunchtime meal passes for Portaventura park which was great as it meant we didn't have to pay theme park prices for our midday meals. As it was on our doorstep, we went to the theme park every day - sometimes twice a day as it stayed open until midnight (once until 2am) and riding rollercoasters in the dark was a novel experience for us! If you only take one thing from this review, it's this: it is absolutely definitely well worth budgeting the extra EUR75 per person for a week-long express pass to jump the park's queues which in August could reach 2 hours for a ride on Furius Baco! You can buy the express passes when checking in, leave your luggage in the hotel's secure luggage room and head straight to the park to spend your first day enjoying the rides. The Caribe water park was hugely busy - it was still worth a visit but would have been far more enjoyable if less crowded. Ferrari land was altogether a quieter experience than the main Portaventura park, but very enjoyable and we ended up spending a whole day there when we thought we'd only be there for half that time. You must do Red Force - preferably at the front! On our visit, the queues were much shorter at the end of the day so it was possible to ride it multiple times. As for food, week-long all-inclusive guests are allowed to eat in the hotel's a la carte restaurant on two evenings, but the food choice and quality was so good in the self-service buffet restaurant that we never bothered. From our experience, we have no idea why the hotel has had negative reviews as there was nothing about the holiday that we could fault.

Hi - The El Paso has some mixed reviews, but after 10 nights there I only have excellent feedback! Rooms - Basic - YES, but also clean and comfortable and with everything else to do at the resort it really was just a place to sleep. Food - We went All Inclusive, the food & drink was excellent, remember it is buffet style, so if you are expecting a quiet sit down meal then this isn't the place for you. Breakfast - You are given a slot for breakfast - but they didn't enforce it Lunch - Pool bar offered Salads, Pasta, Burgers & Hotdogs again the usual lunch for all inclusive and good quality. Park Food - As all inclusive we had vouchers for food in the theme park - it was a great perk! One tip - Ignore the Chinese Buffet night - EVERYONE GOES, you wait ages for food and it isn't worth the wait Pool - OK so at 1st the No Inflatables rule made us think they were killjoys, but we think it actually worked better, we still had loads of fun in the pool, yes you have to wear a band on sunglasses, but 4 euros from the little shop in reception and you have a band - The pool was great as were the lifeguards. Entertainment - BASIC but very good...Also you do have a theme park just minutes away and lots of shows to see there - the Dance to Musicals show was outstanding. Staff - We always had good service, but the team in the Pool Bar were exceptional, especially 'Sunday' the barman, nothing was too much trouble for any of the team, but he also went the extra mile to make us feel welcome.

I was so worried about going with negative reviews. PLEASE dont let them put you off. This was an amazing holiday and the hotel made it. We stayed in the armadillo block (we requested this as was told it was a good block) and it was right near the pool and was cleaned daily. The hotel is very clean. We ate lunches mainly at snack bar was fantastic for us. We did the a le carte twice and cant say how good this was enough, deff visit. We ate a lot of evening meals in park using our vouchers and again was very impressed. Not much activities at the pool but our kids aged 9 andn12 are water babies and just enjoyed the massive pool anyways. However they did the daily water aerobics at 11. The theme park was fab and we went in evening as we were just too hot during the day. Ferrari land was good for my son and husband who love rides, and for a free visit certainly cant explain. We paid to go to water park which was very good, been to better but this had a lot of play areas which was fab. Overall we came back and said what an amazing time we all had. Please dont let reviews put you off, inreally dont know what people can complain about. Fantastic hotel and would recommend to anyone wanting best of both worlds with the all inclusive and the park. Plus it is soooooo close to the park you can just come back and forth. Oh and the night time show and fireworks is amazing and that's coming from a family that has been to Disney Florida a few times. FANTASTIC