Hotel Aurora Plava Laguna

As usual, I had a good read of a lot of negative reviews before we booked and ignored most of them . Hotel is a bit old fashioned in places but it’s kept so clean you don’t mind. People complain about no sun beds but I’m writing this pool side in 30 degree heat and there are plenty of free beds if you get out of bed before 10! Staff at front desk are as friendly as any I’ve met and if you actually take time to engage with some of the others it’s the same. Food, yes it’s busy at peak hours but if you don’t like it busy, eat outside these times. Some have commented the food is the same but you get a good choice all day. My only negative comment would be the aircon in the bedroom wasn’t good and I couldn’t sleep but would just have a long nap poolside. So if you come here and look for negatives you’ll find them but as I’m here on holiday I thoroughly enjoyed the positives.

Nice hotel ( old but nice ), with own garden, beautiful see, pool, bikes......Hotel is old and would need a renovation, but it is clean incl. hotel rooms. There is nobody cleaning the garden ( full bins the whole day ), nobody cleans sun beds and umbrellas....Restaurant is huge - meal is not very good - quite a good choice of everything, but cooked in very bad way ( all the meat - even a tuna fish - is very tough and dried....), the restaurant staff is very unpleasant ( there was just one older man - do not remember the name - that was very nice and a lady called Elena - she was the only one who was able to make a good coffee at the lobby bar ), the rest of the fb staff ignores you, never smiles and starts cleaning and closing part of the buffet 40 min before the end of dinner.... the reception staff and housekeeping is very nice and kind.

We had a great stay for a week. 5 people in 2 rooms. Nice and clean all the time and great location. Really close to the beach and pool. Perfect All inclusive hotel. Food was ok and beer and drinks was good. All though. Water you had to ask for at the bar all the time. Was hard for the kids to keep hydrated. Beer was available all the time, but water you had to ask for. A little noice at the rooms, but nothing major. So a great stay and we enjoyed it very much.

Location- excellent. This is old (socialistic) design - spacy! Hotel is tucked in pine forest. Other hotels are far apart, and hard to see from thick forest. very rare "commodity" these days. Beach is not from "dream beach "pictures , since in entire Istria there is no natural beaches, so , long time ago, someone just made a - concrete block. Sing level, looks more like dock, than beach . But it works. As long as you want to be roasted. If not, there is little crowded pool area, with mix of natural and sunbrella shade, or , natural, pine shade huge area. actually an entire park ! Amenities : whatever you want . From bike to almost all water toys Hotel : built long time ago, but properly. Hotel is refurbished, (estimation) in the begging of 2000's but, partially. For example: door-wing is new, door-frame just painted ! Cleanness : excellent . Even walls are fresh painted ( no foot marks, splashed bugs..) Rooms: correct. Furniture is new , simple but sufficient. Bed quality- average. Balcony : big enough . But! Not even a piece of cord, rope to dry swimsuit! I was forced to improvse with car tow-rope! It is so often in Croatia, that look like some (insane ) EU recommendation ! Bathroom. Spacy, correct, clean, with tub (!) . But , some extra shelf and few hooks more will be nice . Staff: Excellent ! Most of the staff is young, season-workers and/or school students on summer practice . But , they work hard. In dining room you do not need for clean table more than 30 seconds. They speak languages, basically. On both bars (cocktail and beach) staff are pro , and multilingual . Food: average. If you looking for a la carte dine , with sommeliers, and flying waitress-forget it .This is vacation, family hotel , with average food, an d self service. But it is All-Inclusive. sodas and beverages from drink-o-mate are fake . But kids do not care anyway. On the other hand, beer (Ožujsko) is great , white vine is fine, red- not so good. Food quality : can be better. Too much ready-made industrial products. But, if you are not typical western tourist ( looking just for pizza, pasta, grill, pancakes and filter coffee ) with some imagination, you can make your mix. visiting almost all Istrian hotels for decade, my reference for kitchen is -fish. And fish is correct , even good. Cakes- nice, with reduced sugar ! Fruit- fresh and of good quality ( I never try cherries so sweet!) AI: comparing with some ( Turkey, Tunisia) "AI" where you need to pay for drink, Aurora is real AI. Not of higher class ( sodas are not original, cocktails are made by cocktail-o-mate ), but coffee on beech is excellent ( real espresso machine) . And service starts at 7a.m. and have one short break of only 1 hour (10-11 a.m) . At 11 a.m. beach bar is open, and around noon they bring some light lunch , if you do not want to go to main dinning room. end of service is at 23.00 when cocktail bar close. Entertainment: during day, there is some pool -fun, but not too

Very large hotel. When we arrived it was not full but more people arrived daily. Although there were queues for the bar and food they coped very well. Room was basic but clean and all we needed. Food was delicious. Lots of veggies, salads, fish,pasta and meats. Dessertslooked lovely but not so tasty.. although plenty of variety andnice hazelnut icecream. Good staff. Loved the free bike hire. The wine on all inclusivewas perfectly drinkable. Evening entertainment was a bit hit and miss but all in all had a great time.

Hotel is built in beautifall place, full of green. Main area of lobby and reception is nice, modern, wellcoming. It is contract to quite retro furnished room. However, we dont mind, room was big enought and clean. We got room with terrace on groundfloor. There was retro fridge and little damaged bath tube but it was working. I recommed to add some holder for wet clothes and towels to balconies. Area of hotel is very nice, spacious and always clean. Nice pools with lifeguard, mini club with very friendly girls. Food was perfect. Dining room is little bit old fashioned but as I say food is tasty, good variety of fruits, deserts. In restaurant you can draft also drinks. What management can improve is position of main - warm tables buffet. It is on the beggining od dining room, and very quickly there is a line of people. Cold buffets were on 2 or 3 places, there was no waiting. During day from 11 to 5 there is also snack bar close pools. Some cakes, fruits, waffles... we really enjoyed nice and warm see. Sunbeds, umbrellas around pool and in garden. Nice animation for kids and evening program. I would only suggest to change bar management. In the morning bar was open only i lobby. During day poll bar was working but only to 5 pm. It was quite strange that they spend time to clean that bar and transfer everything inside. And again only lobby bar was working. People were waiting in hotel hall what i consider very strange. We have to leave earlier than we planned therefore i couldnt try thai massage and cycles which are for free. I would like to come back and i recommend hotel and area for my friend and also in travel groups. For your money you get nice serviece.

We spent summer vacation in rhis hotel with our 7yo daughter. Hotel is all inclusive so lets start : Food was great, all inclusive serving only domestic products has totaly diffrent meaning in Croatia, all the drinks were excelent... Animation team was excellent Valentina and Ivan esspecialy our daughter love it. Hotel offers bikes to rent for free which we found very convinince and we ware changing the beaches every day by bike. There is a lot of nice beaches in the sorruonding. Rooms ware very clean and nice. Furniture was a bit oldfashion but we did not mind it. Parking was big enough and most important it has a shade :) Overall expirience was totaly fine.

We where here for three days to relax, so we choose the all in package. Price is okay, but don't expect much. First point goes away for their coffee supply: Dark liquid comes out of a tap in the wall.... Disgusting. Outside they have expensive (looking) coffee machines, but whatever you order they serve espresso. Double they call Americano, a lot of foam on top its their Cappuccino. Second point goes away for the overall cheapness. Restaurant is a canteen, loud, uncomfortable. Food is okay, but that's it. Why not cut the the pizza in even slices???? Drinks are terribly sweet. The cocktail bar is a Desaster, as they have no clue on cocktail. No, whiskey-cola is not a cocktail. Adria is directly at the hotel, see picture from the outside Terrasse. Beautiful, the outside pool is nice, they serve food nearly all the time somewhere. They have an outside stage and entertainment but really keep the noise under control! Typical resort for German retireds (I'm German, too).

We stayed in the hotel for 3 nights with 2 children. Fistly, I checked in online as per the email sent to me by the hotel but that was of no use because the hotek said that we anyway need to check in and provide all documentation again. The room was on the firts floor with a nice view of the pool and sea. The staff hardly speak english so you may struggle to even get a drink. There are so many negative sin this hotel that I do not even know where to start from. The room was not cleaned properly and had hair strands in the bed, bath and floor. There was dust on the radiators. The curtain had come off. WHen I complained I was told that nothing could be done until the next day. They did eventually fix the curtains and when I tried to talk to a manager, i was told that the manager is unavailable on weekends. The food is definitely the worst I have ever had.It is seriously the worst food you can imagine. The drinks are rubbish and their cocktails ie pre built cocktails which come from a tap are a joke. By the second day, all 4 of us were sick after eating the food. The pool looks nice but is not cleaned properly, I would seriously advise against staying in this hotel and would actually rate this hotel to be the worst hotel I may have ever been to