We have just spent 4 nights at the doñana blues hotel, in matalascañas. The hotel is lovely and quiet, the standard room for the children was nice and warm, but the suite had major humidity problems, and by this I mean water comming up from the floor, which never went away, so a very damp atmosphere not helped by 2 missing tiles on either side of the door which let a nasty draught in. The first night was spent trying to get warm as the air-co was not on prior to our arrival, and it took 2 days for the suite to be warm enough, having rolled one of the rugs to put behind the door, for us to venture a shower. A great shame.......... Maybe better in the summer. The towels were changed regularly and were nice and clean. The cleanliness in the suite was so-so, maybe because of the 2 holes letting in bits and pieces and durt, and the obvious lack of personel.

The cafeteria was closed even for breakfast because although it was a holiday week, it was out of season. On the phone I understood that the cafeteria was closed for lunch and dinner, but I thought breakfast would be in the hotel - after all it is not very difficult to offer a simple breakfast, the most you could get from the bars and other cafes was a hot drink and toast with either a sweet or savoury topping, one had other sweet breads, but that was all- obviously I missunderstood.... We were told there were lots of retaurants and cafes close by. Unfortunatelly, the area where all the bars and restaurants were was depressingly quiet, over 80% of everything was closed, and we had to walk a lot as the few which were open did not stay open from one day to the next. We found a restaurant with an inside area on the 3rd day, otherwise everything is outside, high bar stools etc...so not very practical or nice when travelling with children and the temperatures at night drop to around 10 degrees, not al fresco temperatures.........although one of the restaurants had heating outside. It is a bit of a ghost town out of season. Just stay there to visit Doñana's national park, or come in the summer would be my advice. Lovely restaurant in el Rocío, next town inland, overlooking the swamps and bird wildlife.
One lovely excursion was a 2 hour horseride through the dunes and on the deserted beach inside the national park, which was the highlight of our week, magical....... The oficial 4 hour tour of doñana national park in a 4x4 bus was way too long, and uncomfortable, all our children aged 10 to 2 fell asleep towards, the end.