Holiday Village White Sands Hotel Reviews

WE stayed here 4/10/08 for one week (4 adults) yes there is a really bad mosquito problem that first choice need to sort out, I was severly bitten was in alot of pain on flight home. We found the pool really good the food was good staff were very friendly and helpful. Try and stay away form the guys who work for occidental hotels they will try and get you to go to a presentation to sell you a time share. I would recommend this hotel but don't go in rainy season (Sept Oct). rooms are very good if you keep air con on mosquitos don't like the cold!!!!!

We spent two weeks at the hotel but were quite disappointed by what we found. Although the food, staff and beach were excellent, the place was swarming with mosquitoes. It was so bad that my husband and I couldn't even sit on our balcony throughout the day and you had to rush back from the pool in case you were bitten. to begin with First Choice didn't do anything about it (despite constant moans from customers) and the reps' attitudes seemed to be "well there's nothing we can do". In the second week they started to fumigate but it was too late, we were already bitten to death and had spent a fortune of repellents (none of which worked). We also found the rooms quite miserable. they were small and damp and my youngest daughter picked up quite a bad cough from the room. But, you had no choice but to be in there as it was that or the mossies! We did enjoy our holiday and found that White Sands was pretty good - First Choice just needs to buck up its ideas in terms of dealing with the mossies. Telling paying customers that there is nothing they can do really isn't good enough.

We travelled to Holiday Village White Sands on the 14th september 2008, on a recomendation by the Holiday Hypermarket.The hotel its self is a Good 2 star not a 4 star what we booked and we were eventually told that it has dropped a star since we where there. All facilities are outside apart from an Indoor dining area and an adult only bar which is not good if you have Kids. The outside theatre and bar are Great if you like been eaten alive as they have a massive mosquito problem as the hotel is situated between two jungles. They have no music at the outside bars or the beach,the pools were very poor even though first choice spent a million on the splash park the paint around the pool was still wet and you ended up with white paint on swim wear and feet, the relax pool also still had wet paint in it and you got blue paint on you from there. The food was poor on several occasions in our opinion you were eating left over and reheated food from the night before. The bars were never re stocked before opening so most of the time the ran out drinks.They did not serve coffee after midnight. 90% of the staff were RUDE AND IGNORANT Very unhelpfull. We had several items of clothing stolen from around the pool. The room was allways clean and the maid allways left a towel animal on the bed, but the hotel didn't do enough to combat the mosquito and ant problem as you woke up with more bites on you. The room had to be fumigated more than once. We spent a fortune on mosquito repellant,afterbite and room repellant. There is no public transport on the Island only taxi's. It costs you $40 to get down town and back as drivers dont like to give you any change. When it rains there the resort cannot cope with it, we had three days before comeing home and the place was flooded the pools overflowed in to the grass areas and most walkways you had to paddle through. the worst of them took hours of pumping out in to the swamps as it was abouut 2 feet under water. The entertainment was very below average E3 is First Choice's entertainment, if you like bingo and a quiz you will love it as you get it everynight, the shows put on are poor not even as good as Butlins show and as i said earlier its outside. First Choice have a lot of work to do to bring the place up to a good Standed which was what we were told, the kids clubs were not allways open as advertised on notice boards. and due to lack of info you didnt know what was going on unless you where around the activites pool.

We have just come back from 2 weeks at white sands and i can say that it was fantastic, alot of the bad reviews on this site and others do come from americans who are not happy with the hotel being very orientated towards the british. We booked our holiday before we looked at the reviews and we were going to change the holiday because of this, i am very glad that we didnt. The hotel, the grounds, the staff, the food, entertainment, watersports, beach everything was excellent and we could not find anything to complain about. The hotel offers a fantastic selection of entertainment, food and people, there is a main activity pool and a splash pool for the kids(you wont get away from it) the one thing that wasnt perfect was that the relaxation pool was closed, it should be open now and you dont miss it at all. we have a 3 year old who had the time of her life, it was a dream holiday. The excursions that first choice offer are great value for money and the reps and entertainment team were fantastic, the creshe is great fun for the little ones and also good value as were the swimming lessons. The staff are extremely nice and helpful, you can have a giggle with all of them and the food quality and variety was amazing. We also had the chance to go scuba diving which i strongly recommend the dive palancar staff are great and you wont want to come out of the water. Every part of the holiday from the welcome meeting to checkout was organised so that you dont need to worry about a thing. The added extras like the wildlife and the staff that will make you hats if you ask and take drinks to your room for you, the maid service was exceptional and there was not one peice of litter on the ground anywhere, these things just added to the holiday. I no that it sounds too good to be true but we are just soo happy that all the bad reviews were wrong. I do believe that some people just go on these holidays and look for things to pick at, we are normal working class people from the north of england and i think this review site needed someone to tell the truth, we had a fantastic holiday and would go back again. If you have booked to go dont let the bad reviews put you off, go and make up your own mind and im sure you will love it. louise x

We have just returned from the White Sands resort and I do not recognise where we have been from the other reviews. The complex was well maintained, the food variety and quality was good, the facilities were what you would expect for a family resort and the entertainment was excellent. We have always been very particular about where we stay and we would certainly go back again.