Hacienda del Mar
Hacienda del Mar is a five-star beachfront hotel on the western Costa del Sol in southern Spain, about 3 miles (5 km) east of Estepona town and 20 minutes from Marbella. It's one low-rise, terracotta-coloured building in 45,000 m² of subtropical gardens that step down to the sea, with the pools sitting between the two. It ran as the Kempinski Hotel Bahía for 25 years and reopened under Meliá in spring 2026. Families come for the gardens, the pools and a kids' club built around the hotel's own organic vegetable garden.
On this page
Is it worth it?
Who this hotel suits, what you pay for on top of the room and the facts to skim before the detail.
Hacienda del Mar is a five-star hotel rather than an all-inclusive, so meals and drinks are charged on top of the room, and families consistently say food and drink here are expensive even by luxury standards. What the money buys is the setting: acres of subtropical gardens on flat, beachfront ground, three outdoor pools between the building and the sea, and a kids' club whose staff are the most consistent praise in every family review of the place. That club takes children from four to twelve. Under-fours can only join with a parent or a babysitter beside them, so with a baby or a toddler there's no childcare break unless you pay for a sitter. The hotel's own beach is stony at the waterline, and most families with young children swim in the pools instead.
Best for
You want a characterful five-star beach hotel with big grounds, a praised kids' club for four to twelves and real outdoor activities, and you don't need everything folded into one price.
Maybe not for
You're travelling with a baby or a child under four and want supervised childcare, you want good sand straight from the hotel, or you want all-inclusive.
Best ages
Four to twelve, the kids' club band. Younger children have the pools and the gardens, but one of you stays with them.
What stands out
An organic kitchen garden that supplies the restaurants and runs through the children's programme, in big subtropical gardens on flat ground.
What to check
Whether the kids' club runs on your dates, and that your room faces the sea or the main gardens rather than the A-7.
Where is it?
On the beach at Km 1066 of the A-7, about 3 miles (5 km) east of Estepona on Spain's western Costa del Sol.
Quick facts for families
What the resort is like
Where the hotel sits, how the site is laid out and the change of owner that shapes everything you'll read about it.
Hacienda del Mar is one large, low-rise, terracotta-coloured building in a Moorish-influenced style, on a beachfront plot on the western Costa del Sol between Estepona and San Pedro de Alcántara. The address is Km 1066 of the A-7 coastal motorway, about 3 miles (5 km) east of Estepona town. For the coast as a whole, its beaches and when to go, see our Costa del Sol guide.
The gardens are what guests remember: 45,000 m² of them, stepping down from the building to the beach, with the three outdoor pools between the two. They're lush and jungly, with lawns, palms, fountains and exotic planting, and there's enough of them that nobody reports feeling crowded even when the hotel is full. Around 130 ceramic works and paintings by the artist Stefan Szczesny are set through the property. Under Meliá the look has moved towards warm rattan and bronze, though it still reads as a warm resort rather than a minimalist modern one.
The site is broadly flat, with paved paths throughout and no steps or awkward terrain flagged in any family review, so a pushchair goes anywhere on it. A 16th-century watchtower, the Almenara Watchtower, stands in the grounds.
The building sits between the A-7 to the north, with the car park in between, and the Mediterranean to the south. Rooms facing inland towards the motorway can be noisy from the traffic, and it's a consistent complaint in reviews. Sea-view and main-garden-facing rooms are meaningfully quieter, which is the single thing worth getting right when you book.
Twenty-five years as a KempinskiFrom Kempinski to Meliá
The hotel opened in 1999 and ran as the Kempinski Hotel Bahía for 25 years, consistently rated as Estepona's highest-rated luxury hotel over that time. Kempinski closed it in September 2024, Meliá bought it, and it reopened in spring 2026 as Hacienda del Mar, part of the Meliá Collection, the group's luxury tier. It's the same building, the same grounds, the same pools and the same beach, and most of the original team stayed on, which is why returning guests report being recognised after a two-year gap.
What changes is how you read everything written about it. Nearly all of it covers the Kempinski years, so the restaurant names won't match what you find on arrival: the four Kempinski restaurants were El Mirador, Alminar Wine & Steak House, La Cabaña del Mar and La Trattoria, and only El Mirador carries over by name. The TripAdvisor score is the combined record across both eras on one continuing listing rather than a verdict on the hotel as it is now. For the current rooms, restaurants and board options, use melia.com.
Every restaurant and bar
Each restaurant and bar, which of them suit children and what closes out of season.
There's no all-inclusive option here, so meals and drinks are charged on top of the room unless you've booked breakfast in. Under Meliá there are six places to eat and drink.
El Mirador is the main breakfast restaurant, with a garden and sea-view terrace, and it serves the breakfast buffet. Breakfast is the most consistently praised thing about this hotel in family reviews: a wide spread with made-to-order stations, and children well looked after. It may also be used for dinner.
Baltazar Bar & Grill is the indoor-outdoor bar and grill overlooking the gardens and the pools, open for lunch and dinner. It's Spanish, built around grilled meats and seafood from local and regional producers, with an open kitchen.
Spiler Beach Club is the beachfront restaurant, open through the summer, serving Mediterranean and international dishes with a raw bar and a seafood focus.
La Cocina de Mi Abuela is new under Meliá: traditional Spanish home cooking and tapas. It's listed as seasonal.
Spiler Pool Bar handles drinks and snacks by the pools through the day.
Black Rose The Bar is the cocktail bar off the lobby, with a terrace. It's an evening place rather than a family one, it's open to non-guests, and dogs are allowed on the outside terrace.
Under Kempinski, children's menus ran across all the restaurants and on the 24-hour room service, with high chairs available, and both are assumed to have continued under Meliá. If either matters to your week, confirm it with the hotel when you book.
Some of the restaurants close outside the peak months, which leaves a shoulder-season stay with fewer choices at dinner than a July or August one.
Rooms and suites
Every room and suite with its size, then the three pools, the indoor one and the beach at the bottom of the gardens.
There are around 145 rooms and suites in the one building, from a 42 m² Superior up to penthouses over two floors. The table below is the full line-up with sizes and how many each sleeps; the guidance after it is which of them work with a baby or a toddler. These are the categories and figures from the Kempinski years, which Meliá may have kept or renamed, so check the exact room on melia.com when you book.
| Room or suite | Size | Sleeps | View and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superior Room (Garden View) | About 42 m² | 3 | Garden or inland view; king or twin |
| Deluxe Room (Lateral Sea View) | 42 to 45 m² | 3 | Gardens or partial sea; terrace with seating. The room most reviewers stay in |
| Deluxe Room (Frontal Sea View) | About 45 m² | 3 | Full sea view; balcony |
| Junior Suite (Sea View) | 80 m² | 2 to 3 | Larger terrace; separate seating area |
| Grand Suite (Ocean View) | 100 m² | Flexible | Separate living room; sea views |
| Grand Suite with Jacuzzi (Ocean View) | From 100 m² | Flexible | As above, with an outdoor jacuzzi |
| Suite del Mar | 150 m² | Flexible | Sea view; outdoor jacuzzi; large terrace |
| Presidential Suite | About 165 m² | Flexible | Kitchenette; sunbeds on the terrace; can interconnect |
| Royal Suite | About 170 m² | Flexible | Interconnects with the Presidential Suite |
| Penthouse Suite | Multi-storey | Flexible | Top floor; panoramic views; kitchenette |
| Penthouse Duplex Suite | Over two floors | Flexible | With a kitchen |
| Family Suite | Not published | Family | Listed as a category under Meliá |
| Superior Connecting Room | 42 to 45 m² each | 4 to 6 | Two adjoining Superior rooms, with a kitchen |
| Junior Suite Frontal Sea View (Connecting) | 80 m² each | 4 to 6 | Two connecting Junior Suites |
| Two Bedroom Grand Suite (Ocean View) | From 200 m² | 4 to 6 | Two bedrooms; ocean view |
The useful thing for a family is that every Deluxe Room interconnects with the Deluxe Room next to it. A connected pair is the standard family set-up here: one room for you, one for the children, each with its own balcony. That's a different thing from the Superior Connecting Room and the connecting Junior Suites in the table, which are named products you book as one item. A Deluxe pair is simply two adjacent standard rooms opened up.
Superior rooms and above take three guests, so a connecting pair is the route once a child needs a bed of their own. A travel cot for an infant, from newborn to five years, fits in the room beside your bed. There's a Family Suite listed as a category under Meliá, though no size is published for it.
If you're looking at a Superior Room, the view matters more than it sounds on a booking page. The garden-view Superiors can face inland towards the A-7, and those are the noisy ones. Every room has a balcony and the suites have terraces, and the bathrooms are marble with a separate bath and shower. Rooms were refurbished in 2018 and Meliá's renovation is still running; one family who stayed in early 2026 found their bathroom not yet fully updated.
At the very top, under Kempinski the Presidential, Royal and Grand Mediterranean rooms could be interconnected into a 626 m² three-bedroom Imperial Suite. If you need a party that size housed together, ask Meliá what the equivalent is now.
Pools and water features
There are three outdoor pools and a heated indoor pool inside the spa. The outdoor ones sit between the building and the sea, which is where the hotel's day happens.
The main pool is the large free-form one facing the sea, ringed by palms and a wide lawn of loungers, and it's the one most guests treat as the hub. The upper pool is the heated one, for the cooler months. The lower pool is split between an adult-only side and a child-friendly side.
There's no separate children's pool, no splash pad and no water slides. The child-friendly side of the lower pool does that job, and the heated indoor pool in the spa, about 0.90 m deep, is mainly used by children through the day. One family in 2026 found even the heated water too cold for their toddler, both in the heated top pool and in the indoor spa pool.
Loungers are the thing nobody complains about. Reviewers consistently report no shortage of them even at high occupancy, and there's a towel service at the pools. One guest reported the pools closing around 6pm rather than staying open to dinner, so it's worth checking if you're planning a late-afternoon swim.
The beach
The beach is directly off the hotel gardens, under 50 metres from the building, with no road to cross. This is a beachfront hotel in the literal sense.
The beach is where the hotel is weakest. It's a thin ribbon of Costa del Sol sand, roughly 0.6 miles (1 km) of it, dark brown rather than golden, and the waterline is stony and pebbly, so getting in and out of the sea is uncomfortable without water shoes. It isn't a beach for toddler sandcastles, and most families with young children swim in the pools and use the beach as somewhere to sit. Large loungers are set out on a grassy area above the sand. For a proper sandy morning, Playa del Cristo is about ten minutes away by taxi and is covered further down.
The hotel's own stretch isn't on the Blue Flag list. Water sports run from the beach in season for a charge: jet ski, water skiing, canoe, stand-up paddleboard, banana boat, parasailing and kite surfing, and there's beach volleyball. Check what's actually running for your dates.
On a clear day you can see Gibraltar and the coast of Africa from the resort, which guests mention again and again.
Babies and toddlers
Who the kids' club takes and when it runs, the baby kit, the garden programme, everything to do on site and the days out beyond the gate.
The kids' club takes children from four to twelve. Under Kempinski it was the Bee Kids' Club; Meliá hasn't confirmed a name for it, so you may just see it listed as the kids' club. The four-to-twelve band is the same under both owners, and it's the fact that matters most for anyone travelling with a younger child.
Under-fours can join in, but only with a parent, guardian or babysitter alongside them. There's no supervised crèche. So if part of what you're buying with a five-star room is an hour or two to yourselves while a two-year-old is looked after, this hotel doesn't offer that, and paid babysitting is the only way to it.
The club typically runs from July to September under Meliá. It opens at around 11:00 and runs to about 18:00, with the hours moving with the season and how busy the hotel is. Under Kempinski it ran from Easter through to October, so a shoulder-month booking is worth a call to the hotel before you commit. There's no price published for it, so ask what it costs when you book.
What the children do there is more outdoors than most hotel clubs manage: visits to the hotel's organic vegetable garden, beach time with their own lunch and dinner menus, baking and cooking classes, clay workshops, water games and water polo, Spanish lessons, treasure hunts, football, dance, shell painting, swimming games and archery. The club room has games, books and craft materials. The staff are the most consistent praise in every family review of this hotel, by a distance, with children not wanting to leave at the end of a session.
The hotel arranges professional babysitting. It's charged by the hour, roughly the price of a couple of coffees, and needs 24 to 48 hours' notice. Under Kempinski there was also a private doctor on call at the hotel around the clock.
Under Kempinski the baby kit ran to travel cots, high chairs, bottle sterilisation on request and infant car seats for the hotel transfer, which cost extra and have to be booked ahead. The paths are pushchair-friendly throughout. Baby baths, weaning food and swim nappies aren't part of it, so plan to bring your own. Meliá hasn't published its own kit yet, so confirm anything you'll depend on when you book.
With a baby or a toddler, there's no crèche, no toddler pool and a stony beach. An older toddler will be happy in the pools and the gardens, which are as good as it gets for a child who wants to run about. What you won't get is a break for yourselves.
Grown on siteThe garden, and what the children do in it
An organic kitchen vegetable garden runs through the grounds and supplies all the hotel's restaurants. Under Kempinski a named gardener tended it, and it isn't decoration: the herbs and produce go into the kitchens.
For children it's the part of this hotel that isn't like other hotels. The club takes them into the garden, they learn how food grows, and the meals they eat at the club are partly picked from it. Across the reviews it comes up as the thing families remember alongside the staff. If you've got a child who likes digging things up and eating what they've picked, it's the clearest thing this hotel has that the bigger resorts along this coast don't.
On siteThings to do
Beyond the pools, the beach and the club, there's one tennis court, a gym with sea and garden views where you can book a personal trainer, and yoga classes.
Golf is a large part of what this hotel is set up for. There's a golf concierge on site who arranges cars and equipment hire, and more than 50 courses sit within 10 to 25 minutes' drive, Valderrama among them.
Nearby rather than on site: horse riding is about five minutes away by car, guided historical tours can be arranged, and adventure sports are available in the area. SIXT had a car rental desk at the hotel under Kempinski, worth checking it's still there under Meliá.
The spa has a heated indoor pool, a Turkish bath, a Finnish sauna, a steam room and an ice fountain, plus a relaxation room looking onto the gardens and six or more treatment rooms. Its unusual piece is a Bastien Gonzalez pedicure and foot studio, home to Spain's only Bastien Gonzalez quartz sand treatment table, and there's a signature massage on a warm quartz bed. The products are Ligne St. Barth, Terraké and OPI, and the fitness studio has sea views. In practice it's an adult amenity: no family review treats it as a highlight and one described it as short of a wow factor next to other luxury spas. The part of it your children will use is the indoor pool.
Off the parkThe area and days out
Estepona old town is about 3 miles (5 km) away, roughly ten minutes in a taxi. It's a compact Andalusian old town of tapas bars, ice cream, pedestrian streets and alleys full of flowers, with an orchid garden, El Orquidario, in the middle of it. It's the easy evening out.
Selwo Aventura is the attraction to know about, around 15 minutes' drive: a wildlife park with more than 2,000 animals across African and jungle habitats, a zipline network, treehouses you can stay in and a water park section in summer.
Playa del Cristo, about 3 miles (5 km) away, is Estepona's best family beach and the answer to the hotel's stony one. It's a sheltered horseshoe cove where the water runs 2 to 3°C warmer than the exposed beaches, with shallow entry, finer sand and weak currents. Playa de la Rada is the main town beach, 1.6 miles (2.6 km) long, with good facilities and chiringuitos, and it holds a Blue Flag for 2026. Playa del Padrón, about 2.5 miles (4 km) east of town, holds a 2026 Blue Flag too and has the best water quality, with upscale beach clubs at Sublim and Laguna Beach.
Marbella is about 13 miles (21 km) and 20 minutes away, and its old town is small and walkable. Puerto Banús, about 9 miles (15 km) away, is a marina and shopping district rather than a children's outing.
Further out, Ronda is about 37 miles (60 km) and an hour's drive, a hilltop city split by a gorge with the 18th-century Puente Nuevo bridge across it, though the cobbles are hard going with a toddler. Nerja, about 47 miles (75 km) east and an hour away, has the Cuevas de Nerja, caves with prehistoric art, and better sandy beaches than Estepona town. Seville is about 143 miles (230 km) and two and a half hours, and Córdoba about 118 miles (190 km) and two hours, so both are a long day or an overnight. Gibraltar is about 37 miles (60 km) and 45 to 60 minutes. Fast ferries to Tangier go from Tarifa, about 22 miles (35 km) and half an hour's drive away.
Loves and gripes
What families rate and what frustrates them, how it compares along this coast, the journey in and the weather by month.
What families love
- The kids' club staff, by a distance the most consistent praise.
- The organic vegetable garden and the children's programme around it.
- The grounds: room for children to run, and no crowding even when the hotel is full.
- Breakfast.
- The staff generally, a long-serving team kept on under Meliá who recognise returning guests after two years away.
- Interconnecting rooms as a practical answer for a family of four.
Common gripes
- Food and drink that's expensive even by luxury standards, with no all-inclusive option.
- The stony beach.
- Traffic noise in the rooms facing the A-7.
- Décor called dated in older reviews, 1970s or 80s, with the refurbishment still running.
- A spa one family reviewer found short of a wow factor.
- Needing a taxi for the town and the shops.
Across the review sites it's consistently well rated. TripAdvisor has it at four out of five from around 1,496 reviews and third of the 27 hotels it lists in Estepona, though that's the combined record across the Kempinski and Meliá years on one continuing listing. Booking.com's Meliá-era score is 8.6 out of 10, worked out from the 11 of its 26 verified reviews that carried a numerical rating, with cleanliness, comfort and staff all around 9.6 and value the lowest at 8.6; the Kempinski-era listing sat at 8.5 from about 599 reviews. Treat the Meliá figures as a rough steer while the volume is still small (as of July 2026).
Against the other Costa del Sol resortsHow it compares
Ikos Andalusia, also at Estepona, is the benchmark for family depth on this coast: all-inclusive, three kids' clubs covering nought to seventeen, a Heroes Crèche from six months, nine pools and a full programme. Hacienda del Mar sits below it on all of that and above it on boutique character and the garden programme.
La Zambra Resort at Mijas is inland with no beach, but it has a Baby Club from six months and Kids Club Olé from four, which makes it the standout on the Costa del Sol for supervised childcare with an under-three. Hacienda del Mar is ahead of it on beach access, setting and scale.
Elba Estepona Gran Hotel & Thalasso Spa is the closest like-for-like: another five-star beachfront hotel at Estepona with no under-four crèche. Elba has far more Booking.com reviews, 3,447 against a couple of dozen here, and scores a little lower at 8.4, and it does have an all-inclusive option. Hacienda del Mar is the more distinctive of the two and rates higher on TripAdvisor.
Put together, this suits families with children from four to twelve who want a characterful, non-all-inclusive luxury beach hotel with a praised kids' club, big grounds and real outdoor activities, and who can manage without a crèche and don't need the beach to be where they spend their days. It doesn't suit families with babies and under-fours who need supervised childcare, families with toddlers expecting good sand from the hotel itself, or anyone who wants all-inclusive.
The journey inGetting there and when to go
Málaga airport is the arrival point, about 48 miles (78 km) away and roughly 50 to 60 minutes by car, longer in summer holiday traffic. Flights run from most major UK airports on several operators.
A pre-booked private transfer is the practical option with luggage and young children, at that 50 to 60 minutes. An airport taxi does the same run at a fare that shifts with the time and the season. The hotel runs its own transfer by luxury car, but you have to request it in advance rather than expect it to be laid on, and infant car seats for it cost extra and need booking ahead. There's also a coach, Avanza Grupo from the airport to Estepona, taking about an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters, and you'd still need a taxi for the last 3 miles (5 km); with young children and luggage it isn't worth it.
A car isn't essential if you plan to stay put, since the hotel works on its own and the town is a short taxi ride. It's worth having if you want Estepona old town in the evenings, Marbella or Selwo. Without one, the town and the supermarkets both mean a taxi each time. There's a car park between the A-7 and the building.
On timing, June and September are 27°C with a sea at 18 to 21°C, fewer crowds and better prices than the peak. July and August are hotter at 29°C, with school-holiday pricing to match, and they're the months the club is most reliably running. September falls inside the club's usual season and June doesn't, which is worth weighing if the club is part of why you're booking. May and October are warm at 23°C but the sea is cooler and the club probably isn't open, so they suit a family who'd rather explore the area than swim. November to March is mild at 16 to 19°C: a quiet, cheap winter week if the beach isn't the reason you're going.
Month by monthWeather
The hotel is open all year and has no seasonal closure, so the table covers all twelve months. The rainy season is November to March and December is the wettest month. The dry season runs from late May through September, and July has the clearest skies of the year at 93% clear days. The sea reaches 20°C and above from July through to October. Total rainfall is modest at about 505 mm a year, roughly what southern England's driest counties get.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 17° | 8.5° | 62 mm | 5 | 16° |
| February | 17.5° | 8.5° | 56 mm | 5 | 15° |
| March | 19° | 10° | 66 mm | 5 | 16° |
| April | 21° | 12.5° | 41 mm | 4 | 16° |
| May | 24.5° | 15° | 23 mm | 3 | 18° |
| June | 28° | 18.5° | 4 mm | 1 | 18° |
| July | 30.5° | 21.5° | 0 mm | 0 | 21° |
| August | 31° | 22.5° | 3 mm | 0 | 23° |
| September | 28° | 20° | 25 mm | 2 | 21° |
| October | 24° | 16° | 61 mm | 4 | 20° |
| November | 20° | 11.5° | 77 mm | 5 | 17° |
| December | 17.5° | 9° | 88 mm | 6 | 16° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The hotel is open all year.
Health, supplies and getting into Spain
Where the hospitals and the shops are, what the site is like for wheels, the entry rules and the questions families ask most.
Hospiten Estepona, a private hospital with a 24-hour emergency department, is on the A-7 about 3 to 4 miles (5 to 6 km) from the hotel. The main public hospital, Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol, is in Marbella, about 14 miles (22 km) and 25 to 30 minutes away. Both have English-speaking staff.
There's no pharmacy on site and nothing within walking distance. The pharmacies are in Estepona town, about 3 miles (5 km) away, and so are the supermarkets, Mercadona and Lidl among them, so a grocery run means a car or a taxi. That's worth building into the first day if you're planning to stock up on nappies, formula or snacks. The hotel has a souvenir shop but no chemist.
The paths are flat and pushchair-friendly throughout, with no problematic terrain noted in any source, and there's one wheelchair-adapted room. If level access matters to anyone in your party, contact the hotel about it before you book.
On entry, UK nationals travel visa-free in the Schengen area for up to 90 days and there's no FCDO advisory for Spain. Your passport has to have been issued less than ten years before you arrive and stay valid for at least three months after you leave the Schengen area. The EU's Entry/Exit System is now running, so you'll be registered biometrically on arrival; children under 12 may have their photo taken but not their fingerprints, and it can add time at the border. Travel insurance is worth having, and a GHIC covers some public healthcare.
The questions parents askQuestions
Is there any way to get a couple of hours off with a two-year-old?
Only by paying for a babysitter, and that needs booking a day or two ahead. The kids' club will take an under-four, but a parent, guardian or babysitter has to stay with them the whole time, so it isn't childcare. If a break is a large part of why you're paying five-star money, La Zambra at Mijas and Ikos Andalusia along the coast both take children from six months.
Can our toddler play on the beach?
Not for sandcastles. If a sandy beach is part of what you're paying for, budget a taxi to Playa del Cristo for the days you want one, or compare hotels with better sand of their own. On the hotel's own stretch you'll want water shoes just to get into the sea.
Will the kids' club be open when we go?
In July, August or September, almost certainly. Outside those months, ring the hotel before you commit. The season runs shorter than it did under Kempinski, and a shoulder-month week without the club is a different holiday. Ask about the hours while you're on the phone, because they move with how busy the hotel is.
How do we fit a family of four in?
Two interconnecting Deluxe Rooms is the usual answer, since any Deluxe joins the one next door and you each get a balcony. The named Superior Connecting Room adds a kitchen, and connecting Junior Suites add a lot more floor. Whichever you book, ask for sea-facing or main-garden-facing so you're not over the motorway.
Do we need to hire a car?
You can manage the whole week without one, though you'll be paying taxi fares for every trip off site, including the food shop. SIXT ran a car rental desk at the hotel under Kempinski, so if it's still there a good middle route is to take a car for two or three days rather than the full stay, and let the rest of the week happen on foot.
Where should we book and check the details?
melia.com, under Hacienda del Mar Estepona. It's the only place showing the hotel as it is now, which matters here because it reopened under Meliá in spring 2026 and most of what's written about it online still describes the Kempinski.
Is the spa worth it with children in tow?
Treat it as a babysitter booking. It's an adults' space rather than a family one, and the only part your children will really use is the heated indoor pool inside it.
How long is the transfer, and should we pre-book?
Roughly 50 to 60 minutes from Málaga, longer in August traffic. Pre-book it either way. The hotel's own car has to be requested in advance rather than laid on, and an infant car seat costs extra and needs arranging before you fly.
See more Hacienda del Mar photos
Open the Hacienda del Mar photo gallery →Useful links
- Hacienda del Mar on melia.com: the hotel's own site for rooms, restaurants and board options.
- GOV.UK Spain travel advice: entry rules and safety updates before you travel.
- The Costa del Sol with little ones: our guide to the wider coast, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 15 July 2026.
