AluaSun Costa Park

Lovely stay as a single parent, relaxing and able to get a sunbed. Food was delicious, generous with drinks on offer. Long period to enjoy meal times. Great shuttle bus service. Staff friendly and helpful. Room clean and looked after.

There's a reason why it has dropped from 17 to 25 for hotels in Torremolinos recently.

I'm writing this on my last day here. Let's start with the not so good.

The hotel is run down and seems stuck in 1997. Door frames are coming away from the room doors, only a few LEDs working in the corridors, lifts are battered, concrete cracking off everywhere, the decor is dated. This is common with lots of reviews posted.

The lack of staff is also an issue. Queues form at the pool bar as only one barman is working, and they have this ridiculous token scheme for cups (to save on staff costs collecting). When you have finished, you have to rejoin the queue just to get a token back for later use.

In the evening, the entertainment bar will open, again same issue but with a lot more people.

The evening entertainment is crap, simply put. Not catered for English clients, and doesn't start until nearly 10pm.

Sunbeds are at a premium, although not too bad has some reviews make out.

The pool areas look like something you see in an American film, set in the 1970s at a motel.

The guests are made up of French, English and the Spanish. You'll have the Spanish all smoking where they shouldn't, the English vaping where they shouldn't and the French doing what they do. It's definitely a certain type of person that comes here.

The food. Breakfast is hopeless, you'll get the croissants and toast. Dinner is the same every night, a small buffet of food. If you like chips, pizza and spaghetti, you'll survive.

The restaurant reminds me of an Ikea food hall. No real effort in the quality of the room. Don't help when they allow guests to walk in dressed how they like for dinner. What teenager needs to dress like a JD Sports model in a balaclava? Why pyjamas at dinner? Make some effort people.

The OK:

Our room. We booked one of the better rooms high up. The room was clean but basic. The view from the balconies were amazing! Literally one of the best views you can get of the whole area. From seeing the airport, Malaga, all the way down to Torremolinos, a beautiful 270 degree vista.

The staff do their best to smile and serve. It's not their fault there's only a few of them but they are nice.

I'm not saying it's awful here, you get what you pay for. This is clearly a 3* hotel, nothing more. There's nothing wrong with catering to that level and other people seem very happy here.

I expected more and was disappointed with what we got.

we have just returned from 4 nights here and it was long enough! *The room was ok nothing of major fault dated but clean, the kids chose their beds first and they regretted it said it was like sleeping on concrete however our beds were really comfortable. the lifts were rickety and didn't feel overly safe. *The pool didn't open until 10am which i think is really late having kids having to hang around for it to open is abit of a pain, if you didn't go early you were lucky to get a bed as people put towels out and didn't turn up the staff did occasionally remove towels. the main pool there was an awful smell of drains we tried our best to not be around that pool. the tiles around the main pool were porcelain and they didn't mop them until a grown man fell and smashed his head open and needed to be taken in an ambulance only then did they remove excess water off the floor on that 1 day. *The food, well that was shocking like others said if you like pasta and chips you are good as that was most likely the only edible at tea time, breakfast was the best meal as they had pastries and fresh pancakes fruit and yogurt and typical breakfast ( i didn't try the cooked at breakfast so cant comment) *The queues for drinks day and night was around 20 min every drink as only 1 staff serving most of the time. *The entertainment - well that isn't even worth mentioning apart from shocking !!! kids entertainment was repetitive for 45 min then evening entertainment didn't start until 9.45 and was the same 3 people just dancing every night awful !

• The area there isn't anything around but there is a free shuttle bus to the town and beach - the beach is really lovely so would recommend a trip

*the staff were all mostly nice and friendly. we did have a nice few days just shame about the food, "entertainment" and the smell wouldn't return