The Myramar Castle Beach (Myramar is a big construction company in the area) is situated about 15 minutes walk from the seafront of Fuengirola. Unless you really like having the beach on your doorstep, don't let this put you off, for us the location was fine.

The hotel consists of three buildings, which surround the swimming pools, all three buildings have apartments. Building One holds reception and the indoor pool, gym and sauna (Gym and Sauna have a daily charge). Rubber hats have to be worn if using the INDOOR pool, you can buy them there. Building Two holds the restaurant and Pub. Building Three is accommodation only.

The public areas are well maintained and we always saw hotel staff cleaning, sweeping, watering, trimming and generally keeping things looking good. The reception staff speak very good English and were always very helpful.

The pool area is very attractive with lots of trees, plants and water features. There is a children's pool and a main pool, which is huge. The pool is unusual in that when you look towards it, it is about 50 metres wide by 10 metres long. Along it's entire width the pool gradually slopes towards 3 large steps (just like stairs, not metal steps), which run the entire length of the pool before you get into the deep water which is only about 1.7 metres deep. This gives the effect of being on the beach. You can only get to the water via the 'beach' as the other three sides have subtle fencing which prevent them from being walked on which means there is no diving. There are lots of sun beds (even in peak season there were spaces) and umbrellas right along the 50 metre beach and a lifeguard. Also, no inflatables allowed in main pool.

Dotted around the grounds there is a football/tennis court, golf driving net, many pool tables, table tennis, crazy golf and air hockey.

We were lucky to get a ground floor room in Building Three facing the pool which meant we had a large patio (2-3 times bigger than balconies on other floors) and could sit out on the sun beds with a gate to the pool area - best of both worlds. There was a bedroom with plenty of wardrobe space, a little entrance lobby that had a small bed/settee big enough for a toddler, a lounge with two settee/beds, a kitchenette with hob, fridge and microwave, table and chairs. The bathroom had a bath (with shower head), WC, sink and shower cubicle. The room had good aircon, which was controlled by a thermostat in the lounge, but the patio doors had to be closed for it to work. There was also a safe that cost 15 euros a week.

The only minor issues we had were:-

1. The walls appeared to be quite thin so if you had noisy and inconsiderate neighbours on one side (not British) like we did, you could hear them shouting and sliding the wardrobes doors shut - take ear plugs!

2. 75% of the towels we got we very worn and about as effective as drying yourself with a plastic bag

3. There was no hot water on a morning but plenty after about 11am.

We put 2 & 3 on our Hotel feedback form.

The daytime entertainment was very good as the Airtours Team were enthusiastic, particularly Andy who was a bit camp, but great fun - think of a rotund Dale Winton. There was a mixture of activities for Adults and 11-16 year olds but in the main everyone took part in most things. In the mornings there was normally a table tennis/killer darts/killer pool competition, followed by aquasize in the pool (aquarobics), especially good if Andy was in charge, a Quiz at 12:30 to win a jug of Sangria and in the afternoon a game of Water Polo for 12's and over which has anything between 5 a side and 17 a side depending on who joined in. Then another game of something mid afternoon.

The evening activities started at 20.30 with a mini disco, Bingo or something similar at 21.30 and the main event at 22.00. This was either a show/singing/audience participation show done by the entertainments team or a magic/singing/flamenco act. We only attended a few which were fine. Based on the noise we could hear from our room, which usually stopped before midnight, the people that did go seemed to have a good time).

The hotel was about 5 minutes walk from a large indoor shopping centre (think Meadowhall, White Rose if you know Yorkshire). You had to walk round the hotel to get there but it did mean that the only people walking past the hotel reception were from the hotel, not people just passing through. The shopping centre had a large Eroski supermarket which sold everything you could possibly want.

Going further a field you had to cross the river to get anywhere other than the Shopping Centre. There are two bridges, the main road bridge and the footbridge. The reps advised us to use the road bridge owing to stories of unsavoury characters/muggings etc. To be honest the only reason that it would be quicker to use the footbridge would be if you were going to the Dunnes Store or the Wok Restaurant (highly recommended). All I would say is, use your common sense. We used the footbridge when it was light and when there were other people using it and never had a problem. A couple of times at dusk we did see people hanging about at one end and to me that would be a sign not to use it.

To get into Fungiorola, the road bridge is the quickest way. The route is not straight forward but the best way we found was to go over the road bridge, under the dual carriageway, past the SsaanYong/Kia garage, turn first right and go past the Red Cross office, cross over the road at the pedestrian crossing and turn left, go past the Mosque and then cut across the scruffy car parks until you get to the front. The front is not as nice as others in the area (Marbella, Puerto Banus) as although there is a good wide footpath next to the beach, there is also a road which brings the obvious traffic noise and smell which means eating on the front is not that tempting. The best places to eat are in Fish Alley, which is a series of back steets (walk down the bar side of the front until you see a sign for Maxis Disco and then turn left) containing eating-places. Ours favourites were El Castillo Argentinean Steak House and Shaafi's Indian where we ate twice, along with the Wok back near the hotel. There we many others but the ones we tried were nothing special. If you don't want to be approached by North Africans selling sunglasses, DVD's and watches ask for a table inside.

We also ate twice at the Hotel. It was pretty standard hotel fare but there was plenty of it and it was very reasonably priced, 44 euros for 3 Adults and 1 child with 2 bottles of water and a bottle of house wine thrown in. The three places mentioned above came in at about 65-75 euros.

We hired a car and visited Mijas, which was very picturesque with great views of the area; it was also very busy but somehow retained its charm. We also went to the Aquapark at Torremolinos, recommend that you get there before 10am, which is when it opens, hit all the rides early and you shouldn't have to queue. By 11am it was very busy and the queues were horrendous. They also have a bizarre money making scheme where as well as paying the entrance price (18 Euros each) you could hire your own rubber tube for 10 euros to save you queuing for rings as people came off the slides - IE queue for the ride if you hire a ring, queue for a ring AND then queue for the ride if you don't have a ring. That being said, there was a good selection of slides plus a wave pool.

In summary I would say that Fuengirola is very commercialised and built up and not as smart as other resorts we visited, but if you are a family looking for a good hotel based holiday in the sun, with good eating/shopping on the doorstep I would have no hesitation in recommending the Castle Beach.

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Castle Beach Apartments - Fuengirola

Operator and Date: (Airtours Direct) Airtours - June 2006