Merton Hotel - St. Saviour, United Kingdom 

Would have turned my nose up at a "family friendly" hotel a few years ago but it seemed the ideal place to take our 5 year old. Merton ticked all our boxes and lived upto and beyond expectation. Extremely friendly staff, high standards of cleanliness, superb food and brilliant facilities. The Kids zone delighted our daughter as did the aquadome. I never imagined spending my evenings watching holiday entertainment but we all enjoyed the shows. We were very sad to leave and will definitely be going back.

We are a family of five, Mum 33, Dad 39 and children 9, 6 and 1. we travelled by car (4 hours) to Poole and went on the fast ferry to Jersey (via Guernsey) this took about 3 or so hours as I recall. arrival was smooth and as we know where the hotel is we were there within 15 minutes. Hotel has large car park you need to collect ticket for your windscreen at reception when checking in. We stayed in a family suite with the children having their own separate bedroom with bunk beds and a TV. rooms are clean and have an adequate amount of storage space. bathrooms are a little dated but have had a spruce up and are very clean. The main restaurant is buffet style and offers a really good breakfast with everything we could ever need - lots of variety for our children and all well cooked and presented. The half board option includes buffet evening meal which is very good with lots of starters, main courses and desserts. there is always a roast (beef, lamb, pork, turkey) and then lots of other dishes including fish (shark steaks one evening) and lots of vegetables. there is a childrens buffet served at 6.00 and this is also available all evening (burgers, beans, chicken nuggets etc) the hotel entertainment consists of magicians, bands (abba tribute) singers etc kids club - all children get a free backpack containing lots of goodies and the kids zone have lots of activities incluing a circus show and carnival where the children dress up and perform on stage. This was our 4th year at The Merton and we enjoyed it and love Jersey but my only complaints would be that the entertainment was EXACTLY the same as last year, the same acts on the same nights - it does get rather repetative and boring when you see the same shows every year. Also the food is great but the same each year, maybe shake things up a bit - the only change in the restaurant my children noticed was that previous years there had been iced donuts and this year there weren't any!! Bonettis is the other restaurant and on half board you get ?8 per adult towards your meal (which doesn't go very far). this was nice and made a change from the buffet options. The hotel is great, clean, good food, great pool but I think we need a change next year. One last point to make is that on departure I queried my bill as it seemed too high - I was spoken to rather rudely by the reception staff and told it was correct. I said I wasn't happy but the staff just spoke to each other in french and ignored me (other than a rude look). I felt rather intimidated so paid the bill and then asked my husband (who had been loading the car) to go back and discuss it further. When my husband went to the front desk he too realised that there was a discrepancy and asked for the manager, he immediately came out and spoke to my husband, apologised and arranged for a credit on my card. the manager even phoned my husband on our first night back home to make sure we were happy with the credit that was going through and to apologise again. mos of the staff - waiters and housekeeping are very polite and really helpful but the reception staff did seem a bit rude. I would give our experiences of The Merton and Jersey 5 stars and we do have great holidays and I'm sure you will too - a change of entertainment would be enough to get us back next year so lets hope it happens!!