The Ravenala Attitude

Our family spend 10 nights here. I was awesome with the beach, 3 swimming pools, boat tours, friendly staff and good food

This hotel is marketed as a 4 star hotel with some amazing photos. These were likely taken when it was built and new. I’ve attached photos of our room, it was actually very dirty on close inspection. I had to keep calling Guest Service all week to fix issues. Cockroach in the room, again not the end of the world but not great. We were attacked by stray dogs outside of our room and another guest was bitten. I reported it but it was never followed up. Food is honestly average. On the first day we were told every other restaurant was fully booked at 6.30pm (kids) to their credit, the guest team eventually found us reservations. Strangely these restaurants were always quiet too? A 20 min round trip taxi to the supermarket cost £26. Surprising! As we checked out, I gave the feedback directly and they didn’t really want to talk about it. I also spoke to Hotels.com who were quite unhelpful and just referred me to the hotel. The kids club only had a handful of children in it. The reality is that your kids will just want to play by the pool, so I wouldn’t book this hotel on that basis. You will most likely eat at the buffet for all meals most of the trip. Just bear this in mind as it can get quite repetitive. If you get a good deal, it is probably worth it but I would not be happy paying full price for this hotel expected 4 star quality.

The staff really make this place, the bar, boathouse and activities staff in particular. It has a relaxed and charming atmosphere, rather than a sanitised 5star. Our kids (11,9 & 5yrs) didn’t go in kids club but the staff played table tennis, drafts and chess with them around the beach allowing us to relax. The Sunset on the beach at night is breath taking.

Having just returned from a lovely family holiday I don’t normally write reviews but thought I would share my positives and negatives. Positives: staff! They are wonderful, so friendly, always happy to help and share all of their top tips and fixed anything that we had an issue with which really made any of our issues no problem at all!! They moved our room as we were at the far end of the hotel to be closer to the pool which was great Great water sports facilities - snorkelling trips, glass bottom boat, kayaks, sups etc. Good choice of restaurants although food could be a bit hit and miss! Riveria was definetley worth the extra cost. Madame Ming was lovely. Kids club was great and so much on offer. Dolphin watching, swimming with turtles 1.5hr boat trip was great (4,500MR) Negatives - facilities are quite tired and cleaning in rooms/communal toilets could be better. Our air con was very noisy and leaked as well as the baths. Tick ridden stray dogs which are not looked after by the hotel. A comment we had previously read which didn’t affect our perception as already aware but to note the water can be less ‘Indian ocean’ due to the river meeting the sea, the sand is a little building sand but perfect shallow calm waters for kids to swim in. Quite a few restaurant choices although mainly all located next to each other and food was quite hit and miss. The pool was green and cloudy most of the stay which seemed to be due to an over chemical use. Overall a great stay

This is a lovely property and the staff is very friendly and really try to do their best to accommodate requests. The food is okay. There is a lot of variety, catering to many different tastes, and you should absolutely make every effort to book into as many of the restaurants covered by the all inclusive deal as possible. That said, they are a mixed bag. We really enjoyed Madame Ming and Kot Nou and wished we had managed to get into the Beach BBQ for dinner but were unable. We ate there at lunchtime however, which is pretty nice. We didn't have as great experiences at 'O', a Tavola or Bistrot - the last two relating to the food, but the first, to the service, which just left us a little underwhelmed at the end of the evening. The pools are super, the beach is pretty, and they are right alongside one another so it's easy to go back and forth between them. The room was comfortable though with there kids, we were a little cramped - that's probably our fault, not the hotel's. We may not stay there again, having done it for ten days, but we certainly would recommend others put this hotel on their list of ones to consider. The pictures do it justice and if you really want to just unwind and do nothing, the Ravanela Attitude will do the trick.

Nice all inclusive resort. Perfect for families. They offer also several activities for free (ie kayak, pedalo, windsurf, bottomglass boat) not enough advertised though. The best thing is the kids club from 9am til 10pm with tons of activities for the kids and super lovely staff.