To not expect a resort described as family orientated tp be given awful reviews in Trip Advisor.

[happyclapper]

After much deliberation I have just booked our first family holiday abroad. This is a real stretch for us and I have now seen some dreadful reviews on Trip Advisor. It's an AI in Play D'en Bossa called Club Bahamas.
some of the reviews are great some awful.
The most worrying ones saying what an awful place the resort is unless you are a clubber.
That is not the impression given in the broucher.
I was sooo excited and now I just feel like canceling.
Can anyone give me some reassurance?

I always take the trip advisor reviews with a pinch of salt. People look for different things in a holiday.
Ibiza is both a family resort and a clubbing resort. Clubbing only starts in the small hours so familys are unaffected by the nightlife.
I have always taken young children there and had fab times

Some people like to moan. Most people who have a good time don't bother posting reviews, but people with an axe to grind love to share.

Read the reviews, they often give you a mental image of the people posting. If they don't seem to be like you, you'll be wanting different things from your holiday.

We went to Ibiza in 2009 and did AI at the presidente in portinatx. It was a Thompson hotel and was great, lovely location very quiet, hotel and entertainment were good and the beach was great lovely sand and clear shallow water. Was my first AI and I wasn't too keen on the food but that's me.

trip advisor had a lot of bad reviews of the hotel I stayed near London - and I was nervous about it. Turned out to be the best time ever and my children and I felt it was very luxurious - the things that had bothered people had clearly been dealt with when they could be, the noise levels on weekends didn't effect our stay at all and my sister teased me mercilessly because every morning I tried to rush everyone out of bed to get to the breakfast 'before the big rush and they run out of everything' because every day the breakfast platters were piled high with hot foods and plentiful options, with just a handful of people around the room. She would say 'oh, I guess we just missed the big rush then!'

Try not to let reviews bother you. Unless you are a very picky person, and remember people tend to write more reviews about bad holidays than good ones... would you think to write about your holiday if it was fine? We are a nation of moaners, so unless you are very hard to please, stop worrying.

People only ever write to complain.

people love to moan, just look at MN lol

ignore it, i have frightened myself before with Trip Advisor and its been fine in the end

i went to maldives once, it was paradise on earth

some people moaned on trip advisor there wasnt a dvd player in the room or satellite telly

As I previously said I did look before and read some fab reviews but there were hundreds. We want a lively resort so I don't have a problem with that.
TBH AI was my idea of hell too but with 9 and 5 year old sons and having holidayed in soggy uk for last 4yrs we fiqured it was the best way of actually being able to relax a little.

most people don't do positive reviews, only negitives.

AI is great for that age, my dds still rave about the "free" ice-cream and chips salads they were able to get at the pool They had more fun ordering and talking to the staff than any other part of the holiday

charlearose Santa Eulalia is where we go, its great.

We went to Cuba last year - on TA people were giving negative reviews based on the fact that there was no WiFi in the bedrooms, and that the buffet spread was a bit repetitive.

I mean, it's Cuba FFS, did they really expect WiFi??

And the buffet was immense, the most enormous spread of food I'd ever seen and they did it 3 times a day every day. Just how much variety did people expect?

You really have to read between the lines with reviews on there I think.

(Oh and AI is the way to go when you have young children IMO, makes the holiday so much easier!)

We go in June, last year we went for a week AI with 2 children and the baby for about £1600. Not sure if we can make it this year , but are doing our damdest - infact this thread had made me even more positive that we are deffo heading away - off to see what I can flog!

One of the reviews said they gave the good rooms to the Germans Bastard swines!

The clubbing isn't too much of a problem anyway, I find. Most clubbers are high on ecstasy, not falling around drunk on alcohol, so even if you chance upon any, they're not a threat.

charlearose - were you off school the day they taught punctuation?

SubC, no, charlearose just has more exciting things in her life to have fun than the dd full stop :)

We had great family holidays in places with mixed trip adviser reviews. If you are going to look at trip adviser do it before booking or after your holiday though.
Some people get amazingly worked up at lack of British TV, others don't like tatty furnishings or places on hills where you have to walk.
I look at noise levels, location and pool cleanliness.
Most of Ibiza is going to have clubbers, that's what the island is famous for so I've never been there with kids.

Just to let you know I have changed location to Port D'es Torrent in a beautiful hotel with fab reviews. Feel much better now.
For those of you who think I was mad to book Ibiza in the 1st place, most of Ibiza isn't full of clubbers and I find it a much more beautiful place than bland touristy Majorca for instance.
You should give it a try!

I LOVE IBIZA

I stayed at that hotel last summer and the crowd wasn't clubby at all. The hotel was lovely and food was very nice.

Oops, hadn't read the full thread. It was Club Bahamas I stayed at.

A good tip with Trip Advisor is to click the person's username and see what other reviews they left.

If they've left quite a few you can see whether they always moan; some people would complain their food was too fishy if you gave them smoked salmon and caviar .

You can also see where they went previously; some people who complain tend to be used to 5 star resorts and boutique hotels, and booked somewhere a bit more cheap and cheerful.

Some have booked rural villas and sedate resorts and find anything with more than two bars and noisy families a bit busy.

Others seem to have unrealistic expectations of anywhere outside Western Europe.

I'm sure it will be fine!

I love trip advisor reviews and admit that I have once (and once only)changed a booking after reading a TA review; usually I just laugh. FWIW DH and I have done some holidays on a shoestring with ?15 per night hotels etc and the TA reviews have been awful but I have always found the hotels absolutely fine. We researched location, knew what to expect in terms of not being near the city centres etc and did not expect 5* spa hotels for the money which some TA reviewers seem to.

DH and I are also (now that we have DS1) huge AI converts after being a bit snobby about them before and do now actually manage to holiday without blowing our budget!

Glad you have some piece of mind OP now that you have made the change.