Iberostar Club Cala Barca

“Family fun with lots of facilities and entertainment”

Just back from a great week at Club Cala Barca. The facilities are great for families and adults, with an endless agenda of entertainment for all. The complex has lots of swimming pools and great areas for kids (we travelled with a 4 and 2 year old and both loved the slide and kids pools). Food... more

Just back from a great week at Club Cala Barca. The facilities are great for families and adults, with an endless agenda of entertainment for all. The complex has lots of swimming pools and great areas for kids (we travelled with a 4 and 2 year old and both loved the slide and kids pools). Food was really good, with a choice of four restaurants for lunch and dinner, and lots of bars and snack stations around the site. Staff were extremely helpful and friendly and were always saying "ola" to our children and giving them high fives which they loved! We upgraded on arrival to a central room (block 52) and whilst the location was amazing and so handy for grabbing food and drinks, a warning that it's very very noisy!! The ground floor hosts two restaurants and the noise associated with running these seemed to run almost 24 hours a day. We were woken early morning (4/5am) everyday to deliveries arriving. Whilst I appreciate this needs to be done, it would be good to give guests a heads up before they pay for an upgrade that the room is going to be very noisy. Only final issue, and more to be aware of with children, there's lots of staff cars parked up in between pool areas and hotel rooms so it's a bit of a hazard when walking between locations. I was surprised to see so much staff parking right in the middle of the complex and meant you had to be much more aware of traffic moving around than other all inclusive resorts where that would be located in a "behind the scenes" location. Overall, a really fun week at Club Cala Barca, with something to do for every age and traveller.

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“Family Hotel not for Adults without children”

I chose this Hotel in error as thought it would provide quieter areas what with having 10 pools. The 1.9m deep pools always attracted families with children so couldn't get much peace there either. The main restaurant was horrendously loud and i had to revert to my earplugs at breakfast . Whilst ... more

I chose this Hotel in error as thought it would provide quieter areas what with having 10 pools. The 1.9m deep pools always attracted families with children so couldn't get much peace there either. The main restaurant was horrendously loud and i had to revert to my earplugs at breakfast . Whilst admitting my error in booking i think more could have been done for adults travelling without children. Our junior suite 2nd floor was to far from complex for us at our age and physical condition to enjoy trekking back and forth not that we would have liked to have been central either. Air con never worked first day. Key card never worked had to ask for mini bar to be stocked which never got refilled. It was to remote as well. Positives were the staff.

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“Mixed experience”

We were initially in an 'apartment', in the furthest block. As lots of others have said, this is quite far away if you have small children or any mobility issues (normal walking speed would say only 5 mins, but with a 3 year old much longer, and not doable to just pop back if you've forgotten som... more

We were initially in an 'apartment', in the furthest block. As lots of others have said, this is quite far away if you have small children or any mobility issues (normal walking speed would say only 5 mins, but with a 3 year old much longer, and not doable to just pop back if you've forgotten something). We were on the 2nd floor, and the room was TIRED. Cracks everywhere, very old fashioned and tiny bathroom, incredibly poor aircon. Balcony was absolutely tiny. The block has its own (tired) swimming pool; my guess is that this used to be a completely separate hotel that Iberostar has bought, which is NOT the same standard as the main hotel, and definitely not 4* (3 at best). We asked to be moved, were told we couldn't be that day, but could be the day after, and this was free of charge. This was obviously great, but I met several people that week who were told they had to pay to be moved, so very unsure of the inconsistency. My sense was that they expected complaints about these rooms, which is very telling. The distance itself wasn't my main issue, it was more the standard of that complex, but neither issue was at all clear at the point of booking and this needs rectifying. The second room we were allocated was lovely, air con not great but good enough. We had a view of a car park, but it was worth it for the better location/standard than the room we were initially in. Check in/communication with reception wasn't great. We arrived at 1, room wasn't ready until 3, which is fair enough, but then had to wait 15 mins for a golf buggy to drive us there, and when we got there the key didnt work, so were left half an hour on a 2nd floor tiny corridor in blazing sunshine waiting for them to come back with a working key (apparently reception was busy!). It took phoning reception 3 times before someone answered so I could raise the above issues with the room. The following day we got inconsistent info about when our new room would be ready and had to do lots of back and forth checking. We agreed to the 'green' room thing, which involves you only having your room cleaned every other day, and in return your mini bar gets filled for free - great idea, except we never got the free drinks! (I think us moving room confused it, and by this point couldn't face speaking to reception again!). The pools are great, lots of choice, 2 specific kids pools, my daughter loved the one with the climbing/bouncy thing(!), and loved the days they put the inflatable obstacle course/bridge to run and jump off in one of the bigger pools. Were also quieter pools if you wanted to chill more. We could always get loungers and umbrellas. The playpark was nice. Beach attached to the hotel is beautiful, did morning yoga there which was lovely. Not the greatest for kids as lots of seaweed and not great sand, but you can take a lovely walk through the national park to 3 other beaches really close that get progressively bigger/nicer. We also walked the other direction to Portopetro and passed another couple of nice beaches. Food was exactly as you expect for an all inclusive, decent in quality and choice, we could always find something, but not much variety day to day, especially if you don't eat meat. There are 3 additional restaurants, which had appealed as I find always eating in the same place gets old fast, however the food served in all of them was pretty much identical! (With extra nachos in the Mexican!). That said, the other 3 all had much nicer ambience, quieter and more of a real restaurant vibe. The food at the vans by the pools was ok, nice to have as an option but not great quality. The alcohol offered was good for an all inclusive, the beer was Mahau, the cava good and the rest of the wine drinkable, and it included some branded spirits like Aperol. The staff were lovely, entertainment staff clearly work really had, although the quality of the entertainment was definitely lower than we've had other places. The main annoyance was that the timings were just off, at least for our family. The kids mini disco was 5.30 - 6.15, which meant you either had to go and shower/get ready really early (and then get hot and sweaty again as it was outside!), or go and shower afterwards and end up having a late dinner (for a toddler). There was then no entertainment until 8.30, which was an adult aimed quiz, and then the 'main' show (better suited to kids than the quiz, e.g. one was a Frozen show) was 9.15. We either had to keep our 3 yr old up very late, or she didn't really get to engage in any of the entertainment. We've been other places where there are things going on more like 6-9 which works much better for little kids. All in all, we had a lovely week, but have definitely been to better places for the same money.

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