"This was our first stay in a 4* hotel abroad and although many aspects were of 4* quality there were a few negatives, some of which were acceptable in light of how reasonably priced the holiday was (a week here was about half the cost of what we usually pay for hotels in the Canaries) but others we feel need to be addressed. Firstly the lack of tea and coffee facilities in the room, you have to put down a refundable 20€ deposit to get a kettle sent to your room (we arrived at about 8pm and this wasn’t available till the next day, luckily we aren’t bothered about a cuppa before bed) and either buy a beverage package from reception for 17€ ++ (depending on your requirements) or bring your own. Regardless of your choice of board (we went all inclusive) I find it astonishing that this is not standard. We have never been anywhere despite the star rating that doesn’t provide a coffee machine, a kettle plus daily replenishing of coffee, tea, sugar etc and milk. This comment isn’t limited to holiday hotels solely, I’m including B & B’s and guesthouses in the UK and cheap chain hotels such as Travelodge as well, honestly we have never been anywhere in any country that hasn’t provided this! I notice from other trip advisor reviews that this was a criticism made often. The hotel should include this facility and even if they added say £10 a week pp to the overall price of the holiday no-one would even notice it, their ‘costs’ would be covered and this negative point not raised at all in reviews. The same as a bottle of water in the room, it should be available to all guests at no additional cost. The safe is 3€ a day or 17€ a week, again this should be included at no extra cost. After the initial installation of the safes there are surely no further running costs, it makes no sense to charge for this. Again this is raised as a negative point in many of the reviews. Other additional costs include a refundable 10€ deposit for pool towels, I can understand this in a way as maybe they have had problems with theft in the past, but you then have to pay a further 1€ each time you want a fresh towel. All of the above I would not expect from a hotel that rates itself as 4*. It’s worth noting that all these charges have to be paid in cash, despite I had a email from the hotel confirming cards are accepted. I think it’s very shortsighted of the hotel to add all these extra charges when they could be easily factored in to the overall price of the holiday for no more than a few euros pp. It’s clearly negatively impacted very heavily on their reviews. We had done our research in advance so we knew all this but a lot of people we spoke to at the time were unpleasantly surprised on arrival as weren’t aware. Another issue is the poor connection and intermittent wifi, it even drops out sometimes in the room, and when it is working is incredibly slow, which you would not expect anywhere these days.
Now on to the positives! The room was spacious and kept very clean, housekeeping came on a daily basis, plenty of drawers, shelving and hanging space. The bed despite being a standard double - the room could have easily accommodated a larger bed, it looked quite lost - was extremely comfortable. The shower over the bath was powerful with plenty of hot water although the bath towels were rather small and thin, they were changed daily if you wished. I did find this quite strange considering how the washing of the pool towels is so strictly monitored! Aircon very efficient and quiet. We had a third floor room with the good sized balcony catching the sun all afternoon and overlooking the gardens and Mount Teide. It’s definitely worth paying the extra for a mountain view, bring binoculars if you’ve booked a sea view room though, the sea is distant with loads of buildings, some high rise, mostly obstructing the view. You also get the added bonus with the garden and mountain view of lots of parrots swooping around and showing off in front of you, we also had a few land on our balcony! The food was good, plenty of choice at breakfast with a chef cooking omelettes, pancakes, fried eggs and bacon to order. Lunch and evening meals were perfectly adequate .. soup, salad choices, several hot hold meals, Canadian potatoes, pasta and sauces, desserts, cheeses etc and again a chef on hand grilling fish and meat to order, although pork seems to feature highly on the menu. After four consecutive meals of pork being the only grilled meat, we brought this to the hotels attention and the next two evening meals yielded steak, chicken and turkey, so they do listen to clients comments. There are no sunbed wars going on, any time of day there were plenty of beds available and most of them always in the sun. The pool area is relaxed, no animation team constantly requesting your presence for aqua aerobics or water sports, and no loud music just low key background tunes. It’s also spotlessly clean as are the poolside toilets and poolside bar. The all inclusive package is definitely worth the money - the red, white and rose wines are lovely, the beer perfectly drinkable (I think it’s Amstel), the spirits branded and the cocktails rather potent! The snack bar is ok too with meals such as hot dogs, burgers, paninis and salads available most of the afternoon if you can’t be bothered to leave your sunbed to go to the restaurant. The evening entertainment isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it’s commesurate with the general age range of the clientele. Ranging from a key board player, guitarist, saxophonist and singer. We enjoyed it.
The most impressive part of the whole holiday were the staff, they bend over backwards to be accommodating and friendly, always cheerful, always helpful, they simply can’t do enough for their guests. We’d particularly like to mention Jessica, Christian and Carolina, they were exceptional. Lovely location set up high away from the hustle and bustle of the town, we would definitely go back."
