Ocean Club - Reviews

This was our first MW holiday and we had a lovely week. Our apartment was clean and comfortable with the added bonus of Sky TV so we could watch Olympics Closing Ceremony. Staff friendly, food tasty, pool great. Our boys (12 and 10 ) enjoyed the kids club particularly as there was a good group of boys staying at the same time. BUT as with so many MW clients it was the flights that nearly ruined the week. We had an 8 hour wait on the outward journey from Gatwick with the airline Small Planet, so basic that it did not even have a logo on the departure board. When you are only going for a week 's holiday, spending one of those days in the airport is a sizeable chunk of it. Information about causes for delay was non -existent and we were pretty much tearing our hair out at the end. Really annoying too as we had forked out a large chunk of money to stay at hotel the night before to catch the 0630 flight only to be told AFTER we had checked in that it was delayed by 3 hours (and then another 3, and then another 2).Not a great start to the holiday. Reading other reviews it is obviously a recurrent problem with MW hols - so MW need to make some serious efforts to sort this out.

Mark Warner Say:
We are pleased to announce that for summer 2013 we will be using Monarch and British Airways and that all the departure times are in the early afternoon.

A combination of rundown accomodation, with an easy cop-out of several barbeques and staff that came across as having an indifferent attitude made this a disappointing holiday. We have travelled with MarkWarner before and they CAN do better than this. If ever the CEO/Managing Director needed to go 'back to the floor' as a mystery guest and experience himself how frustrating this MW resort is - then now is the time ! If anyone from MW wants to discuss points in detail we would be glad to go further.

We feel relaxed after a lovely week at the Ocean Club: fantastic weather (luckily I'd been warned to take a cardigan for the evenings when the wind gets up); breakfasts fine but evening dinner was excellent (first night BBQ excepted); great pool (some people still hogging sunbeds but not really an issue when we were there); lovely sandy beach; comfortable apartment (fantastic view but why is it considered acceptable to put a camp bed up for the child? Ours ended up taking it in turns to sleep in it as it wasn't long enough nor particularly comfortable). None of our children (12,14,16) chose to join the clubs available but that suited us: we played tennis, did various fitness classes (Dominique, the instructor, has such a calm voice and is lovely) and took the bikes out (we hadn't picked up from the website that the rep wouldn't let children under 13 yrs join his rides). One major gripe: we flew with Small Planet (no, no-one has heard of it so why are MW using them?) and the plane on the way out was Aeroflot circa 1970 and did not inspire confidence; on the way back, despite MW staff knowing of a potential 3hr delay (was 8 hrs in the end!), they still dumped 2 coaches of travellers at the airport and effectively washed their hands of us which was a surprising failure in MW's customer service

I had never been on a Mark Warner holiday before and the Ocean Club seemed a good option for me and my husband as it offered a bit more independence, while at the same time offering the great Mark Warner tennis we were keen to get stuck in with. We would eat breakfast and dinner at the main restaurant and at lunchtime we utilised the local supermarket and the kitchen in our appartment. The Ocean Club itself is set in a very quaint fishing village and is a great place to explore, further afield we visited Faro and the coastal countryside around the resort. A great holiday for all.