Top Hotel Rooms

Honestly, it depends what you're after. If you're the kind of person who treats the hotel room as somewhere to sleep and nothing else, a standard room does the job. But if your holiday vision involves rolling out of bed and straight into a swim-up pool, soaking in a private hot tub with a sunset view, or letting the kids lose their minds over a pirate-themed bunk bed, then the upgrade pays for itself in memories (and Instagram content). The best hotel rooms turn "the bit between the pool and dinner" into an actual highlight of the trip.

Short answer: yes. Long answer: absolutely yes. A swim-up room means you can wake up, grab a coffee and slide into the pool without putting shoes on. No racing downstairs to bagsy a sunlounger, no navigating a crowded pool deck with a toddler on your hip. It's your own little slice of water, right there at your patio door. Most swim-up room holidays are available across Spain, Turkey and Greece, and they're particularly brilliant for couples who want a quiet morning or families who need that "just let them splash while I drink my coffee" setup.

Turkey and Greece are the two heavyweight contenders. Turkey's Antalya coast is packed with large resorts offering swim-up suites as part of all-inclusive packages, and the value is genuinely hard to beat. Over in Greece, islands like Rhodes and Kos have boutique and mid-range hotels with swim-up rooms that feel properly premium without the premium price tag. Spain has a strong showing too, particularly along the Costa del Sol and across the Balearic Islands. The trick is booking early, because swim-up rooms sell out faster than a Calippo on a 35-degree day.

Both give you your own private water, but the vibe is different. A swim-up room connects directly to a shared pool (usually a long, lazy-river style channel that winds past a row of ground-floor rooms), so you step off your terrace and you're in the communal water. A private plunge pool is exactly what it says: a small pool on your own balcony or terrace, completely separate from everyone else. Plunge pools tend to sit higher up the luxury scale and they're perfect for couples who want total privacy. Swim-up rooms are more sociable and tend to be better value.

Not necessarily. Yes, the top-end luxury hotels charge accordingly, but plenty of mid-range resorts now offer hot tub rooms as an upgrade option rather than a separate room category. That means you might pay a bit more per night than a standard room but nowhere near the "remortgage the house" territory. It's worth checking what's included in the rate too, because some hotels bundle the hot tub room with a half-board or all-inclusive deal that actually brings the per-night cost down. The real cost is convincing yourself to leave it and go to dinner.

Beyond thread count (which, let's face it, nobody actually counts), the things that separate a properly luxurious hotel room from a standard one are space, view and finishing touches. Look for rooms with a separate living area, a balcony or terrace with a view that isn't a car park, quality bathroom fixtures (a rainfall shower does more for your holiday than you'd think), and little extras like a Nespresso machine, a minibar that's actually full of things you'd want to drink, and blackout curtains that mean business. Luxury holidays across destinations like Majorca, Crete and Dubai have some properly stunning room options.

You can, and it's every bit as good as it sounds. Beachfront rooms (the ones where you open your curtains and the sea is right there, not "sea view if you lean off the balcony and squint left") are available across loads of destinations. Fuerteventura, Zanzibar, the Maldives and parts of the Dominican Republic all have hotels where the sand is genuinely steps from your door. Worth noting that "beachfront" and "sea view" are two very different things in hotel-listing language, so always check the room description and photos before booking.

Fair question. Some are genuinely both. Hotels with glass-floored overwater bungalows, treehouses, converted castles and cave suites can sound like novelty acts, but the best ones combine the "wait until you see where we're sleeping" factor with proper comfort. The trick is reading reviews and checking photos, because there's a big difference between a beautifully converted cave hotel with king-size beds and mood lighting, and a cave that's just... a cave. If comfort is non-negotiable (and it should be), stick with well-reviewed properties that happen to have a unique angle rather than properties where the unique angle is the only thing going for them.

Yes, and it's one of the fastest-growing room types in the On the Beach range. Private pool rooms (sometimes called plunge pool suites or pool villas) give you a small pool on your own terrace or balcony, completely separate from the main hotel pool. They're particularly popular across Greece, Turkey and the Canary Islands, where the climate means you'll actually use it every single day. They're ideal for couples who want privacy or anyone who's ever had their peaceful swim interrupted by a cannonball from a teenager called Kyle.