We stayed at the Hotel Janeiro in early August 2011. We were a party of 5 - one couple, plus a separate room for my three sons aged 20, 18 and 14. My girlfriend had been to Mallorca before, but for the rest of us this was our first visit. We went on a bed-and-breakfast basis, which was unusual for this hotel as most guests were clearly on an All Inclusive option.

This hotel is overwhelmingly occupied by Germans, with the odd Dutch or French visitor - we were the only English family there, as far as I am aware. This wasn't a problem at all, as most of the staff spoke reasonable English. However, we didn't have small kids so didn't make any use of the Animation team, where the dominant language was German - this may clearly be an issue for some.

The rooms were of a reasonable size and clean and comfortable, if a little basic. The bathroom was of a decent size, though beware of having a lie-in as the hotel tended to run out of hot water after 9am! The portable TV in our room was fixed to the wall in a ridiculous place - I lost count of the number of times I hit my head on it as I walked past the end of the bed. The TV itself had just one English TV channel (CNN) which was a disppointment - everything else was in German. The aircon in our room worked, but wasn't that effective - in the boys' room it worked so well that it made the room too cold, with the result that they turned it off at night and ended up too hot when they woke up! Our room had a balcony, though the view wasn't too enthralling - straight across the street to another hotel (Hotel Sarah). Our sons room was bigger (3 single beds, as opposed to 1 double), but they didn't have a balcony at all, just a view out of a window. This wasn't a particular problem for any of us, but I would recommend that guests should request a balcony with a view of the pools. The rooms and bathrooms were cleaned regularly (as was the hotel generally) and fresh towels were always available if needed.

The pools themselves were very good - one shallow one with a couple of jacuzzis for families with small children and a separate larger (25m?) pool for adults. Despite all of the jokes about Germans and their reserving of sunbeds with towels there were never any issues on that score for us, though getting a parasol to shade yourself from the intense heat was a different matter.

The Spa was excellent - as a bloke I wouldn't normally bother, but as our stay included 3 free visits I went along and found it to be very good indeed. An excellent sauna, steam room, plunge pool, hot jacuzzi, etc. Some of our group also used the small gym a few times - not bad but not great, disappointed that the treadmill wasn't working.

The food was good. Everything was buffet style, but the selection and quality were very good. Of course, the hotel tends to cater more for its German guests - so lots of hams and cheeses, but there were also hot food selections (German sausage, scrambled or fried eggs, streaky bacon, etc) and cereal / fruit combinations. My girlfriend wasn't a big fan of the tea - I stuck to coffee. I deliberately didn't choose to go All Inclusive as I generally prefer to eat out at restaurants and am always concerned that All inclusive dining can be too repetitive. However, we did have lunch at the hotel on several occasions, paying a 9 Euro supplement per person, which was good value.

The bar staff were bloody great - Evet and Sergio in particular deserve an award for their great service and terrific sense of humour. They were great fun to be around and made "the crazy English family" feel very welcome.

The evening entertainment was mixed - everything from traditional flamenco dancing to a parrot show. Again, language barriers could be a small issue. The only one we really made an effort to see was the "We will Rock You" show, based on Queen - it was total crap, just a bunch of people dressed up in weird costumes (somehow based in the distant future, God knows what they were thinking) miming to the lyrics and prancing around with air guitars. Other entertainers on other nights were, thankfully, much better but generally we only got back from restaurants in time for the last half of their acts.

The hotel Janeiro is at the quieter, southern end of C'an Picafort. This is both good and bad - generally it's quieter at night when you want to sleep (though we did have some issues with buses pulling up and one weekend when the locals all seemed to go out on the raz until the early hours), but it can be a 20-25 minute walk to the livelier parts of town where the better beach and most of the bars and restaurants are. Again, this didn't particularly bother me as I was able to walk off my dinner on the way back to the hotel. Maybe I am naive, but I found the restaurants to be more expensive than I had expected - the bill regularly exceeded 100 Euros for the 5 of us. Nasty credit card bill when I got home. Try the Su Cova restaurant (about a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel) if you get a chance - traditional Mallorcan cuisine and the best steak I have had in some considerable time. A bit pricey, but well worh it. And no, I'm not on commission . .

C'an Picafort itself is a pretty nice place, but be aware that many of the larger attractions such as Aqua parks, Sea Life marinas, etc are to be found on the western side of the island. This meant that they were at least a 90 minute bus journey away, and added to the cost. In the end, we stayed mainly around C'an Picafort, with two trips to Alcudia where we went on the large beach there and hired the pedalos and banana boat / sofa, which were great fun.

All in all, I would say that the hotel was very good and we had a great time. What improvements could they make? Well, tea and coffee making facilities in the rooms would be very welcome. Some more English TV channels would also be a help, as would a few more parasols around the pool / sunbathing areas.