My husband and I stayed at the Bellamar from the 14th Sept - 21st Sept 2011. It was our first time in Ibiza. We had always been put off my stories of drunken teenagers and were aprehensive about going. Anyway, we went to try it and see how it was. The answer we found was BRILLIANT!! The island is soooo beautiful. The Bellamar is a lovely 4* hotel and is worth every one of it's stars. We checked in and the reception staff were really efficient. They all spoke good english as well which was a bonus. The reception area was a clean, bright and impressive start to our holiday. Our room was also lovely. It was clean, confortable and bright. One thing that I could'nt believe was, that we were in Ibiza and managed to get some sleep!! The hotel was so quiet on the evenings. No loud teenagers or drunks in the early hours which was great. The rooms were cleaned on a daily basis and always smelled so clean. The food in the restaraunt was varied and very tasty. For the week we were there it was something different every day for dinner. The hotel could'nt have been any closer to the beach unless it was on it. It was straight out of the frot door of the hotel, turn left and over the road. Took about 3 mins to get there. The pool area of the hotel used to get full really quickly by people who booked their sunbeds with towels from early in the morning. This did not bother us as the beach was so close. If fact we preferred the beach to the pool. We did not sample the entertainment in the hotel on an evening as we found lots of friendly pubs with a variety of things to do and watch. My favourite pub was the Funky Lizard. A great guy named Carl was in charge of the entertainment in this pub and he was excellent. He had me in stitches time after time. All in all, this was one of the best hotels I have ever stayed in. The hotel and San Antonio Bay were a brilliant holiday and I will definitely go back next year to the same place in the same hotel.

Stayed at the Bellamar as a surprise for my birthday, had an excellent time. Hotel is in great location, most of staff very helpful except one particular man on reception who was extremely rude, most arrogant and could not have been less helpful and looked at us like we were dog crap. Avoid him and you can not fault the hotel.

I had the misfortune of staying at Hotel Bellamar for two weeks this summer (last week of July, first week of August). This hotel is one of the highest ranking in the area and I’m not sure if the reason is because it's close to the beach or something else is going on. It certainly has nothing to do with the quality of the hotel itself, as you’ll see…

Alarm bells should have started ringing for me as soon as I got in touch with the front desk for the first time. I sent a polite e-mail asking about the best way to get to and from the hotel and was a little surprised to receive a curt and unhelpful one line response that there’s a bus every hour from the airport - but with no details on which stop to get off at etc. When I wrote back and asked for more information, I received an even shorter and curter reply, with just a few words telling me what the stop was. Bearing in mind the positive reviews Bellamar had on Trip Advisor, I didn’t dwell on this too much at the time, putting it down to cultural differences. I wasn’t prepared for what I was letting myself in for - but you can be. So, without further introduction, I reproduce here the highlights of what you can expect during a stay at Hotel Bellamar based on my experience:

Enjoy the opportunity to step back in time, to rooms transported directly from the 1970s: The room was extremely outdated. A large cathode ray television with a dodgy antenna dominated the space in front of the bed. In addition to its appalling appearance, it presented two slightly more practical problems: a) it only had one channel in English (Sky News) - surprising given that about 60% of the guests at the hotel were UK / Irish / American (though after interacting with the staff, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional); b) the reception was appalling, so even Sky News came through a bit fuzzy. If you’re feeling a bit underwhelmed by the room, you can always pop out onto the balcony. The direct view into the apartment block next door and over the roof of a deserted building will soon make you appreciate that TV.

Expect to pay extra for everything: In addition to the already full price I had to pay for my room, there were a host of hidden extra costs. Internet cost €1 for 30 minutes, with no Wi-Fi availability in the rooms. A significant daily fee and only partially refundable deposit were required to use the safe in the room. I went half board, expecting to have some control over my expenses by fixing my food costs, but little did I know that while water is provided at breakfast, no liquid of any sort is provided at dinner. When I asked for tap water at dinner, I was told that the hotel’s tap water was undrinkable, that I couldn’t bring my own water into the dining room and that if I wanted to have water with my meal I would have to purchase their water at egregiously inflated prices - a petty money making scheme if ever I saw one. Repeated written reminders not to remove food from the dining room are everywhere.

Experience the most stressful taxi situation imaginable: Fairly obviously, guests at the hotel need to get from A to B and I would expect a 4 star hotel to try to be helpful with this. Often, we had to call the taxi company ourselves to book the taxi, as the hotel staff refused to try calling on the basis that the lines get busy as peak periods. The obvious solution here would be to come to some arrangement with the local operator for guests - but given that hotel Bellamar really doesn’t care about the guest’s experience and repeat guests are few and far between, it has little incentive to organise this. I was often hours late to ticketed events as I struggled to book a taxi to get where I needed to go.

Prepare to meet the rudest staff you’ve ever encountered: As soon as I arrived, the staff treated me like I was looking for trouble. I can understand that, based on their location, they may have had some very bad experiences with British / Irish / American visitors before, but to immediately jump to this conclusion as soon as I arrived based on my accent and the fact that I spoke English (as evidenced by their body language and level of friendliness) is just inexcusable. Some key experiences that stick out for me are: Staff at the front desk never greeting me (or any other guests passing by) with a good morning, good evening or good night - I felt like I was trespassing on the property. Staff directing me to a taxi rank that never, ever had a taxi at it - why not just tell me that taxi availability is limited at peak season? A waitress in the dining room asking me to sit elsewhere in a very aggressive way when I chose to sit at an unoccupied table (in fairness, the hotel manager did apologise about this when I flagged it). Items being slammed down on the table when the staff in the dining room brought them over (again, and on a subsequent occasion, the hotel manager apologised, but there are only so many apologies for bad service one can take when no effective action is taken to improve the problem). Also, as mentioned in a previous review, the waiting staff in the dining room are very keen to clear your table and get you out of the dining room as soon as possible - so don’t take too long away from your table at the buffet, or you might find everything gone when you get back. When I think back on the service in general, cold glares from staff, staff pretending not to speak English and later turning out to have fluent English and staff clearly talking about me in Spanish in an effort to make me feel uncomfortable / intimidated are what stick in my mind the most.

To unwind after your adventures, why not attempt a workout at the saddest gym you’ve ever seen: Featuring, and this, unfortunately, is an exhaustive list: 2 dumbbells, a rickety exercise bike and a weight-machine, thrown together in a small room in the basement. If you still don’t feel relaxed you might as well try the indoor pool - it’s tiny, but the sight of the small pool of water occupying 15% of the overall room, which is otherwise a concrete floor, will at least bring a smile to your face.

I was certainly not the only guest to experience considerable misery as a direct result of my stay at Hotel Bellamar - every other morning as I went down for breakfast I passed a hotel guest at reception making an official complaint - usually regarding the demeanor of the hotel staff. I’m very surprised that not many of these experiences have trickled back onto trip advisor.

I would never stay at this hotel again but really liked Ibiza. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

I had a brilliant week at the Bellamar Hotel this Summer. My boyfriend and I wanted a hotel that was far enough away from the San Antonio nightlife for us to be able to get away from the noise when we wanted to, but close enough to be able to walk into the town a couple of times a day and walk back easily after nights out. The Bellamar fulfilled this need perfectly - it's a 2 minute walk from the cheap bars (from 2 euros a pint, 7 euro cocktail jugs) and restaurants (£5 breakfast, 2,50 euros for a large plate of chips) that stretch along the beautiful beach. There is a supermarket next door to the hotel which sells cheap bottled water, snacks and toiletries as well as drinks which is really useful as you can't drink the tap water inside the hotel. We bought drinks in the supermarket as this was naturally cheaper than going to the hotel's bar.

The road that leads to San Antonio town is pedestrianised and well lit - we often walked along the road between 2am and 6am and felt perfectly safe. It's a 10 minute walk following the beach to the first set of bars and clubs, and about a 15 minute walk to the West End area. The 'discobus' that takes you to the island's superclubs runs from the San Antonio bus station (15 minutes' walk from the hotel). The 'Sunset Strip' (where Bar Mambo and other more expensive restaurants and bars are) is about a 20/25 minute walk away, but it's definitely worth the extra travel to see the sunset.

The hotel itself was beautiful and the food brilliant. Breakfast was a buffet with a great variety of food on offer - cooked breakfast, continental pastries, cheese, ham, eggs, cereals and fresh fruit were all available at breakfast. Dinner was also a buffet, with a show cooking station each night where food (swordfish, steak, etc) was cooked in front of you to your specification.

The staff were very pleasant - the cleaners were very understanding and did not disturb us when we were sleeping in after returning from nights out in the town, and the restaurant and bar staff were very pleasant and helpful. We were able to leave our key at the reception desk whilst we went into the town at night on 3 occasions, however the last time we tried to leave the key we were told by the receptionist that it wasn't an option the hotel offered! After telling the receptionist that we had been advised by our tour operator to hand in our key at night and explaining that it had been fine for the past 3 nights we were eventually allowed to leave our key, only to return at 5am the next morning and be told it had vanished! Luckily the hotel has key cards rather than physical keys, so the porter was able to cancel our old keycard and make us a new one instantly.

This was the only slight problem we had during the whole holiday, and the instant solving of the problem meant it didn't affect our experience.

Overall, we had a brilliant week and I would definitely recommend the hotel to couples and groups of friends who want to enjoy the 18-30 Ibiza lifestyle safe in the knowledge that they have a peaceful hotel to return to!