Alana Beach Club - Croatia, with Neilson

[ChristmasLightsLover]

Has anyone been to the Alana Beach Club in Croatia with Neilson? We've booked as we're keen to try them out - we usually go to Paleros with Mark Warner.

Do people dress for dinner? Or is it more casual? Or a mix?
How is the food? We've seen mixed reviews.
Is there an excursion that's great/to be avoided at all costs?

Thank you in advance!

I've not been to the hotel, but given it's location you should definitely go to Plitvice Lakes National park if they offer a trip. UNESCO world heritage site, absolutely breathtaking, although busy I imagine in summer.

I went a few years ago (2019?). People changed for dinner (whereas at lunchtime they'd throw a t-shirt and shorts over swimwear type attire or come in their tennis gear) but I wouldn't say they dressed for dinner. I took some summery trousers and t-shirts/vest tops and a couple of summer dresses.
The food was good but quite repetitive after a week - breakfast was the same every day, there was a huge salad bar at lunch and dinner. There was always something being cooked to order at lunch (stir fry, mussels), and a grill with freshly cooked meat or fish at dinner. It was nice and there was a lot of choice but I think you'd get bored of it if you were there for more than a week.

Food was great, not too dressy for dinner. The national park trip was cool.

Sadly I have read some dreadful reviews of going here in summer (July/August) - so many people allowed in that you are basically shuffling along an inch behind 1000 other people the whole way round, with long waits while everyone takes a photo in the insta spots. Would love to go at another time though, or if they start putting a cap on numbers.

We are currently in Croatia with Neilsons. The food is good especially the salads as we are vegetarian. My DS is 12 and in surf squad and loving it. There is a good choice of activities and he has made plenty of friends. We are staying in the tower block , my preference would be the cabins but we are hardly in the rooms and they are perfectly fine.
Have biked up to the national park which was beautiful and kayaked into town.
I love the olive trees to make a base and would recommend wet shoes as the beach is pebbly. Also make sure you queue for wakeboarding/waterskiing at the welcome meeting as it's gets booked up very quickly. It doesn't seem too busy, Mark Warner at Levante years ago seemed much busier. We will come again.

I preferred the tower block. We were high up
with a sea view which was fab. Beautiful to have a coffee on the balcony outside first thing. People we spoke to in the cabins said it was very hot.

I thought it might be useful to come back and post the feedback I gave to Neilson after this holiday...

• Jacob, Lou and Hayley (long hair with an undercut) were outstanding on waterfront.
• The setting is incredible. We loved sitting by the sea. More recliners there please. Definitely a huge asset relative to other holidays.
• It’s our first Neilson holiday. We’ve done 15 years with Mark Warner. Here’s some thoughts.
• The food is not to the standard we expected. Repetitive. Sliced beef stew, then two days of chopped beef stew which was clearly recycled. The sliced potatoes are inedible. Salads are beautiful. Cakes beautiful. The BBQ was the highlight.
• The underage drinking culture is new to us. We haven’t seen it before and were surprised at how drunk people are at 13. They are buying it in supermarkets and drinking in bars where staff are who turned a blind eye. Apparently the week we were there was particularly bad.
• If you’re a professional or experienced with your sport or water sport the water sports team are interested and social. If you’re new it’s a cursory conversation. I asked someone on the tower on Friday morning for what was essentially reassurance only to be told that if I was nervous about falling off my paddleboard I shouldn’t go “too far out”. At this point I cried. At MW you’re helped on and off the boards. And reassurance is always given.
• Jacob is a wetsuit hero. Not the swimming registration person on Sunday night. She told me I’d need to hire a suit and also, that she couldn’t help me with doing that. Jacob on the other hand helped me dig through a box, reassured me that the water would be warm and did it on the Sunday night as water opened at 9am - after the swim on Monday at 8am!
• Can’t comment on childcare for smaller kids. But it looked really good. Was impressed at how they pivoted on the day of the sewage spill. Seems like older is done well… lots on.
• We only met for one other state school kid. Everyone else was independent school. Apparently lots of only children who love these holidays.
• Horrified to hear kids telling staff “my dad didn’t pay for me to do that” when asked to lift a SUP.
• We were unimpressed to see adults being rude to your team. It should not be tolerated. My teens were looking at me to see if I’d make a comment when we saw it happening.
• With the underage drinking, parents come back because teens promise to do better but apparently it’s a a shit show. So relieved that we only experienced Neilson once our teens were 16 and 17. We only had one night where our teen was near water with alcohol. Hugely worrying.
• Are we likely to do it again? Yes, for the range of activities. We will book private tuition at the start of the holidays that it is not an issue if waterfront aren’t so keen on our skill levels. Our teens will be 18 and 17 so the drinking won’t be an issue.

⁃	Neilson have a real opportunity at the moment. Sue, the matriarch who ran ME Levante / Paleros and trained other managers for so many years, has retired. People like us are looking for where we will go for our next 15 years of holiday. Get rid of cheap crappy sliced potatoes, keep fries at every meal for fussy eaters, and encourage the team to ask how the holiday is going. Feedback is so useful and yet, no one asked us for it or how our week was going, all week long!

Thanks for the feedback OP, useful!

Tangent, but has anyone been to the Neilson in Sardinia??

Thanks so much coming back with the update OP! We’re thinking of booking Neilson for August 2025 as by then we’ll only have our youngest with us. He’ll be 14 by then. Were there a good amount of 14-15 year olds? Also, were there lots of toddlers running amok? 👀

I have, I went for a week in Aug 24 with my husband and 7&11 year old sons. Happy to answer any questions.

Ooh thank you- I will PM you if that’s ok.

We’re going this July and will have a 15 year old, 2x 13 yos and 2x 11yos in our party so rather alarming to hear about the underage drinking.
Also not great that staff aren’t encouraging to all levels of a sport. I always think MW and Neilson holidays are good opportunities to try sports you wouldn’t normally do.
I’d be interested to know how it compares to other Neilson and MW restores I. Terms of facilities and food.
Is there a sea swimming race?

Hello @DebhenI only just saw your post. Sorry for the delay in replying. With the ages you have mentioned I’d agree boundaries before you go, and be stricter than you actually plan to be so that you have wiggle room when you’re there.

I bought data before we went. Meant I could track our teens. I wasn’t the only one - each night there were groups of parents in the bar using find my phone to track them going up and down the bars on the coastline.

I’d be interested in hearing how it goes for you with the sports stuff. I feel MW is safer, and more engaged.

We’ve actually decided to go back to the same place this year. But we are doing at the start of September so there are less teenagers. Ours didn’t really enjoy it and said they prefer having cocktails with us and arguing over UNO!

I do not remember a sea swimming race. But there were group sea swimming activities of different lengths. Hope that’s useful. You need to take your own buoyancy tracker thingy, as they don’t provide them.

@Debhen How did you find your holiday? We are booked to go soon and I wondered how it went…

We went to Alana in July and had a fab time. This is despite a storm knocking out water and power one day!

Our teens loved it and they were fairly on the ball about drinking (there was some). There were staff on the beach at night. DH and I were a bit 'lost' on occasion - having to eat on our own.

The activities were amazing and staff fab. Actually I thought the food was better than we've had in other higher star rated resorts. The pool was freezing!

Debating whether to go back next year. DD is desperate to return. There is nothing we didn't like.

Sorry, my response was for you @ChristmasLightsLover

Did you have a strong view on the accommodation, cabins versus family rooms in the tower? (And did you book to go back?!) Think we'll go this year and am weighing up the two accommodation options.

@Brackla We stayed in the cabins which were perfect for us, although are only glorified static caravans! They had the space and two bathrooms which were great. We would love to go back this year but some challenges with my job mean that I can't risk spending the money - we would go back if that hadn't been the case and in fact got very close to booking before things at my work went a bit wonky!