"We were very much looking forward to staying at this hotel. We booked this for just before our children returned to school from the summer break, we were looking forward to a mix of chilled days together with theme parks days. Having visited Salou before I had children I could not wait to show our children what an amazing resort Salou can be for doing as much or as little as you like in Costa Daurada.
We chose H10 Salauris Palace based upon its location to the theme parks and local attractions and having previously had great food and experiences at H10 hotels. Upon emailing staff before we travelled they promptly acknowledged our request for a quiet room with a nice view, away from the lifts and entertainment area and on check in we were thrilled to receive a room on the top floor with a great view of the theme parks.
Sadly, from night one this hotel was a disappointment, it was incredibly noisy. The hallways are laminate/vinyl and you can hear every footstep. The walls are paper thin; every cough, conversation and tv can be heard through the walls on all sides.
Night one, we had a family on one side whose child was screaming endlessly from midnight, at 1am we knocked on the door and politely asked if they could keep the noise down. The noise stopped on this side and we finally got to sleep. We did not mention anything to the hotel as the matter had been resolved amicably between ourselves.
Night two, new guests arrived on the other side of our room. Their child was up and down, crawling/running and screeching until 12.40am, we knocked on the door and asked if the noise could be kept down as we were catching a very early train in a few hours and we could not get to sleep due to the noise. The man, said “yeah”, they were “just checking in late”. His wife then knocked on the door stating their son was autistic and therefore there may be noise, however they would try to keep the noise down, but they “couldn’t promise anything”.
Nothing noted to reception as the noise then did quieten down and we went to sleep.
Night three, the child in the second room was climbing up and down and shrieking until gone 1am, every time we started to doze off the noise started again, we knocked (once) to suggest we could hear the noise again. The nan then came to our door with the child that was making the noise, stating that he was non-verbal and it was difficult to control the noise, there was “nothing we can do”. She suggested they would speak to reception the next morning to change their room.
That evening I messaged on instagram; which had been the way we had previously contacted the hotel in relation to room allocation and events, I also emailed the hotel requesting next door to move rooms, as they had suggested they would do so. We were booked for the theme park all day and night the next day; therefore we would not be at the hotel and we did not wish to have to pack up all of our belongings in the middle of our holiday and move into another area of the hotel due to other guests behaviour. The nan smoked on their balcony and this smell was coming into our room. We could not hang our clothes out to dry on the balcony and could not have our door open, we therefore raised this point in addition to the ongoing noise. At this point, we added the lack of sleep with the first night’s noise, the lack of seating at the indoor entertainment the night before (none of our family could sit for the evening show, so we therefore left without watching the entertainment). I also raised the lack of vegetarian options available at meal times, a family of four vegetarians, we had tomato pasta for 3 nights off the kids section due to the lack of food labelling and the general lack of vegetarian food, these points were raised in the hope that they could be looked at for the remainder of our holiday.
The next morning the receptionist explained nobody had been to see them from the adjoining room and that we would need to move rooms instead. I explained we were not happy with this, we had not been an inconvenience to anybody and that we were not around from 10am until midnight as we were at the theme park with dated pre-purchased tickets. Reception suggested we would need to agree with next door for them to go to reception to enable them to facilitate the move.
I knocked on the neighbour’s door, the nan answered, i politely requested they ask reception to move rooms as the hotel needed them to do so, and they had said the night before they would be prepared to move, the tone changed, the mum of the child came to the door, stating they would not be moving and accused me of being discriminatory towards their son! Explaining we had not been discriminatory to anyone, we merely wanted to sleep. The mum was aggressive in nature, telling me to f* off & slammed the door in my face.
I went back to see the assistant manager, Ceci, prior to rushing off for the theme park, which was about to open and we had paid for tickets for. She asked what we needed to “discuss first”, as we “appeared to have new issues every day”! This was quite insulting, we had genuine reason to address the 3 nights of no sleep, the lack of food, the smoking around our room & being unable to sit at the indoor entertainment, resulting in us not watching the show. We had not been back and forth complaining, we waited nearly half of our holiday before raising anything, in the hope that we could resolve matters ourselves or that the food would change nightly and improve. I explained that next door were very difficult, we had been polite and patient, yet they were stating we were being discriminatory because we had asked them to keep the noise down! Nothing was said at all about their son, just that we could not sleep.
Ceci, to her credit, moved the family during the day, as we were not at the hotel, however she did suggest that there needed to be “mutual respect”, stating that the family had complained about us raising a complaint about their noise and us being aggressive in our manner towards them, this is utter nonsense, my husband was beyond reasonable, barely saying a word when they knocked on our door and I had merely said we had a train booked very early and could not sleep and that our childrens heads were against the wall where the child was running up and down screaming & could they please keep the noise down. The neighbour did not like the fact we had complained and were throwing discriminatory accusations to cover themselves for their lack of manners and consideration for other guests. We would have complained if the neighbour the other side had been screaming at 2am. We paid a lot of money for our holiday and needed a week of rest and recuperation as a family before returning to work and school, not feeling exhausted, as we were!
Cici explained there was a vegetarian menu we should have ordered from. This was not explained on check in. To be fair, nothing was explained, no information about meal times, show times or where to source any opening times for bars or restaurants etc. We sought this out ourselves in the hotel once we had dropped our bags to our room. We were then provided with vegetarian menus at the next meal check in. We went back to order at the restaurant check in, as nobody came to our table to take the order, we tried to order for our family. The man on the restaurant check in was so lovely, however he could not understand anything, even when showing him the vegetarian options which were also written in Spanish on the reverse of the English menu. Explaining we would like two x protein nuggets and chips, pointing to two people and then adding two vegetarian burger meals with chips and pointing to two people, of which he noted two, we confirmed there were four people. Only one of each meal arrived, and the protein nuggets came without the chips and instead of two vegetarian burger meals, two burgers came on one plate. In total two meals arrived for four people. Instead of waiting a lengthy time and repeating the process, the two people without meals went to the buffet for tomato pasta again. We tried ordering from the vegetarian menu twice, again not receiving the meals ordered, which were listed on the menu and shown by pointing to the Spanish side of the menu in addition to the English side, we gave up, going back to the original tomato pasta.
The smell of smoke and weed increased upon the room change over, this was absolutely disgusting, you could not have your door open or sit outside at all. Our clothing on the airers outside had to be brought in and took ages to dry. We did not wish to speak to reception again to mention this, as we were made to feel like serial complainers with “several complaints daily”, however we had only complained once in combined correspondence in the middle of our holiday to have given matters time to settle or improve without raising things and making matters potentially worse with the neighbours by raising immediately with the hotel, after all, the first night’s noise issue had been resolved amicably. We contacted the hotel in order that these matters could be rectified whilst we were at the hotel and we then followed up with a further message requesting the room move, whilst the noise was still ongoing during the night, it was barely repeated and quite honestly these were genuine issues that the hotel should have been keen to resolve for all guests, without fear of feeling uncomfortable or being made to feel a nuisance. Cici complained we had not raised the first noisy neighbour with them and that the hotel were not aware of this, I explained we had resolved this ourselves and that the room then went quiet, so we did not feel the need to report anything, yet she insinuated we were serial complainers? We felt like we could not win and certainly could not then go back about the vegetarian meals. We felt staff were then made aware of our complaint and we were then made to feel uncomfortable when going to reception to order our taxi and when dining.
The hotel was too large for the pool and entertainment area, the images on social media must be taken on a wide lens camera. It feels crowded and there is not enough space for the sun loungers at the main pool at peak times and not enough sun loungers at the adult only pool. The lifeguard was more interested at staring at his phone rather than watching over the pool.
There were not enough seats for the indoor entertainment, the rooms and hallways at night time were noisy and there was a frequent smell of smoke around the sun loungers and outside rooms. Although, there were designated smoking areas, there was regular vaping and smoking at the entertainment.
In fairness, if you are lucky and have more polite guests, who are not smokers and are not vegetarian and are quiet, you may well have a more pleasant experience here.
On a plus point, the drinks at the hotel restaurant and pool bar were very reasonably priced & the pizza at Kyma snack bar was good.
Location wise, the theme parks are close by, around a 10-15 minute walk, well worth visiting. We thoroughly enjoyed Port Aventura Theme Park, although travelling in August we managed to get on many rides. We got there 10 minutes before park opening to clear security and went straight to the bigger rides at the back of the park, we were more or less straight on Shambala, then Dragons Khan and back on Shambala, then Furious Baco and Stampida without fast passes, we then went on the two water rides with our fast passes before returning to the hotel for a break from the sun, we never waited more than 45 minutes for the rides without fast passes during the morning/early afternoon. We saved the rest of our fast passes for the evening. We popped back to the hotel for a break and returned to the park around 4pm, again riding our favourite rides without the fast passes, this enabled us to ride our favourite rides in the dark with our fast passes, which was a totally different experience to the day, well worth saving your fast passes for! A great day here, we would thoroughly recommend based on our experience. Costa Caribe water park was great fun, again arrive just before park opening and head to the back of the park first. Queues did get long here, we needed to plan our day wisely, but we did have a great time and would definitely return. Ferrari Land had little for us other than the Red Force ride, which did have around a 2 hour wait at the time, although we did really enjoy this ride and we were pleased we went on, we would have felt disappointed to have seen this running daily from our room and not go on it!
Salou beach is around a 10/15 minute walk from the hotel.
Buses can easily be taken from Salou to other local areas including Tarragona & Cambrils. Buy a 10 pass ticket from Bus Plana ticket offices, which can be shared between your family, it can be quite a saving from individual fares.
A day trip to Barcelona is also convenient, you can get a taxi to Vila Seca, around 10 minutes away, to catch a train to Barcelona, this station is convenient as we were able to get seats on the train before it filled up at Tarragona and the busier stations. Book the train to stop at Passeig De Gracia, it stops opposite the Casa Batllo and is great to get on for the journey home, again to secure your seat, it did get busy and many were standing on our journey. We would return to Barcelona, lots to see and do.
Location wise we would rate this hotel, however we are really disappointed with this trip, we booked based on the many positive reviews of this hotel, however unfortunately this was not our experience at all. Sadly, we would not return here, regardless of the location."
