Overall, the hotel is nice, recent and the rooms are very spacious. Family suites made of two connected rooms are just perfect. The hotel crew if very friendly (remember : try to speak a few words of spanish and they'll be happy ; that's just a matter of politeness). The swimming-pool is very nice and everyone loves it, kids and adults. The hotel is not on the first line in front of the beach, but it's really at 150 meters from it and 400m from the golf ; overall a very nice location. The club for kids is great and kids do love it. The downsizes are the following ones :

Diversity of food for dinner is low (no enough variety for vegetables, meat too cooked, fruits too young and green, no yogurts for children). Breakfast is excellent. Lunch is much better than dinner, with wider diversity. The food at the pool's bar is too expensive for what's it's worth. Price of drinks is ok, very affordable. We did not take the "all inclusive" program, thiking it's far too expensive for our needs. Of course, if you're on a booze trip, it's made for you.

The hotel is VERY noisy and you should strictly refuse a room facing the swimming-pool on the first or second floors. If you really want to sleep before 2am and have a family room, request a room on road's side and 4th floor... Otherwise you'll have to deal with music starting in all the hotel lobby at 8am, and noise of the bar or shows between 8pm and 2am. Nice when you're used to live at spanish hours, but awful if you come from northern Europe and all you need is vacation and rest. First floor on pool's side is so noisy even children cannot sleep. Warning, the concert room is just below the 1st floor of the left aisle...
If you're without children, ask for rooms 354 or 454, they don't see the pool but see the beach and the sea :-)

The space around the pool is clearly insufficient given the number of rooms in the hotel. There are not enough sunbeds and umbrellas. During our last day, we left our towels and stuff for 45 minutes for lunch and the hotel crew removed them to give our sunbeds to another family ! That means you cannot even go for lunch (or even stay in the pool!) w/o risking to lose your sunbeds !!! Because many families (from UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Ireland) complained about it that day, all rooms received the day after that a sheet of paper explaining reserving sunbeds is forbidden before 9am, and sunbeds can be reassigned by the hotel crew if nobody's on them ! How to turn something simple (you have no seat around the pool ? No problem, you have the beach at 150 meters away only) into a gigantic mess. Seriously, this is a shame and abnormal for a 4 star hotel...

The sunbeds and umbrellas at the swimming-pool are of poor quality. They're not replaced at all when broken, even when they are dangerous.

The swimming-pool is not cleaned enough. One day, there were papers and insects floating between waters and despite of our remarks, the pool crew did NOT clean the pool until the next day.

The safe available in your room is not free of charge. It's even too expensive, about 14 euros per week !!! There's a deposit of 10 euros per beach towel ! Access to the internet through the two computers in the lobby costs 4 euros per half-hour. Soaps in the room were not replaced once in two weeks, but showers contain a liquid soap dispenser.

In conclusion, this Iberostar hotel is probably an excellent choice for mid-may or september. Probably not for july and certainly not for august. Just in front of our hotel was the Puerto Antilla Grand Hotel, on the beach front line, and that one is clearly a better if more expensive choice. Islantilla in itself is a great place, quiet and lovely, not far away from Portugal (don't miss the incredible Tavira island).

Stayed here for a week on all inclusive basis and thought that in general hotel was very good. My two young kids certainly enjoyed it and hotel is very much geared towards families with young children. Majority of people staying at hotel were spanish and many staff did not speak English which was a bit of a pain but we got through okay.
Food is repetitive but good quality. rooms are excellent in size and well maintained - we had a family suite (two connecting rooms) and found facilities excellent. Pool is massive but area around is too small at busiest times with limited numbers of sunbeds. Weather was very hot so did not do too much exploring except to say that resort seems to lack a centre and everything seems to happen around the hotels. Beach is great with excellent facilities - about 400 metres away. Golf at Islantilla is nearby but course is difficult. Tip - book direct with Golf course as they offer better rates than hotel. golf courses are better standard in algarve. All in all i think Royal Marina Palace in Bulgaria (we went last year) was better and i would go their before Islantilla. however if you have booked here you will not be dissapointed!

Stayed here last week with the family. Facilities are fine, and there's a good choice of food. Cleaning was excellent and staff friendly. The location is good, not far from some brilliant, if busy, beaches. Also, the resort itself is quite "Spanish", great if you like that kind of environment, rather than the British and German influenced other Costas.

There is a downside though - the property has many clients on all-inclusive and can't cope: meal times are extremely busy and there's no room around the pool, unless you are up at 7am to claim your sunbed. Entertainment is patchy.

I'd say it's good for families, not so good for couples wanting some peace!

We stayed at this great hotel for 10 days with our 3 year old daughter. Booking direct with the hotel, arranging our own flights and hire car was still several hundred euros cheaper than with a holiday company. It is a large, very clean, modern hotel. For the price we paid we couldn't believe the quality. The rooms were huge. We opted for half board and we were very impressed with the food. Lots of choice, lots of Spanish dishes which we enjoyed, also excellent for little ones.

We didn't venture much out of the hotel as it had everything there. A great spa (60 euros for the most amazing Thai massage), fantastic kids club (my daughter stills talks about the staff now) and entertainment if you wanted it every evening. (It wasn't tacky!) There isn't much to do outside of the hotel but there is a commercial centre with a choice of half a dozen restaurants about a 5 minute walk away.

If you need a complete rest and just want to do 'nothing' on your holiday this is the place to go. Not the place if you want loads of bars and tourists.

I would love to go back and I have recommended it to my friends with young chldren.