Hotel Garden Istra Plava Laguna

My family and I stayed for three nights and had a disappointing experience. The most important issue was that the A/C was not working properly. We visited in July so the temperature outside exceeded 30 degrees Celcius. Therefore, it was very concerning for us to find out that the temperature in our room was 28 degrees Celcius when we went to sleep. Moreover, I woke up in the middle of the night because the A/C was so noisy that I thought there was a thunderstorm outside. Next morning I contacted the reception and they said that they would reduce the temperature and that the room would be cooler when we returned from the pool in the afternoon. That was, however, not the case. I was in the contact with the reception on several occasions that afternoon/evening and in the end, at 23:15, they offered us to switch rooms. At that time our kids were sleeping so we agreed to switch the following day (our final night). We were told that we got the coolest suite in the hotel but at night the temperature in the sleeping room was 26 degrees Celcius and very humid - so we had another hot night. When I stay at a so-called high-end 4-star resort then the A/C MUST work flawlessly and the 10% price reduction we received cannot make up for the disappointment. In addition to the A/C issues we had all sorts of other bad experiences such as a dirty pool and the fact that we were refused access to the aqua park facilities even though that was emphasized as free in the hotel description.

We enjoyed with our small kids several swimming pools with tubes, club for kids, sport activities for adults and interesting evening animations (musical, magician etc).

This hotel had the potential to be fives all the way, but unfortunately they don't maintain items very well. Furniture was stained, towels were stained, even the napkins at dinner were worn very thin. The meals were cafeteria, buffet style, which we all enjoyed. The variety of food offered made it nice to try new things, but know there was something you could always rely on. The pools and slides were fun for all, and the kids enjoyed the kids only items! Overall, we probably would go back. The staff was very quick to make the sofa bed for us, and in general it was a great experience, just a bit under maintained!