Four and a half stars.

We booked Hotel Botanico through British Airways Holidays at relatively late notice for a family holiday to Tenerife. We had a family suite, which is two doubles with interconnecting doors, on a bed and breakfast basis. The hotel is located high in the town about a kilometre from the seafront in PDLC. It is about 20 minutes from Tenerife North (Los Rodeos) Airport. On arrival, at about 10pm, we were greeted in a friendly and helpful manner, and offered cool drinks. The receptionist took time to chat to our kids and remembered their names through the holiday. This set the tone for one of the notable features of the stay, the high quality and friendly service by staff, from door staff to pool attendants and restaurant staff, whether booking excursions, getting a lilo inflated or anything else. Rooms are mostly in two corridors, each one with rooms on one side facing the pool. The rooms were well finished, carpeted with a desk, small table, flatscreen TV on the wall, bottled water and fruit, a safe and a smallish but well equipped bathroom with twin basins, separate shower, bathrobes and toiletries. They have a small balcony with chairs and a table. The beds were either a king or two twins, either choice available by request. There was also a list of pillow choices which could be requested, and which were swiftly delivered when requested. I found the king bed rather uncomfortable, with a lot of the movement of one other sleeper transmitted to the other. I assume this was an older open spring mattress. My wife found it fine, though. The room has wifi, although we both found this rather patchy and unreliable, so I ended up using my mobile signal, which fortunately was with 3 so counted against my UK allowance rather than roaming. The breakfasts have a huge spread of choices, including everything you might reasonably expect, as well as some you wouldn't, for example a chocolate fountain with marshmallows one morning. Breakfast was never too busy and ran until 10.30. We tended to eat out in the evening, so didn't try the high end restaurants (Spanish, Italian, Thai). The menus liked rather expensive, though, and a certain degree of dressing up was required. Near the hotel there are a number of restaurants. After a tip from another family, we ate at Oliva (which I reviewed separately on TA), which is just across the street and round the corner at the side of the Jardin Botanico. There are a number of pizza/pasta restaurants locally, and a supermarket just around the corner. The hotel has a large pool and a small children pool. Unfortunately there is a bit of a gap in between. The children's pool is only 40cm deep, and the big pool is between 1.20m and 3.10m deep. So a child who is bigger than a toddler but not safe swimming alone in at least 1.20m water needs weather supervision or flotation aids. The pool area was never crowded and there did not appear to be a race for sun loungers in the morning. With the large late breakfasts, we didn't arrive until after 11, and were able to find somewhere suitable. The hotel also has an extensive spa area, with a variety of facilities, This is adults only, so although quite relaxing with nice pools and a large jacuzzi, we couldn't really have used them unless we boarded the kids off into the kids club. which we don't like to do. I think this is a little limiting for families. The hotel has nice gardens with interesting plants, koi carp in the ends and a herb garden. It also has a largish putting green and some golf mats and nets to hit full shots into. The green was rather slow compared to a decent course, though. One day a week, free golf lessons are offered by a visiting golf pro. Likewise tennis lessons on a hard court. Our kids enjoyed both. Housekeeping is very good, with daily service and evening turndown (with a chocolate). The hotel will happily provide towels to take to the beach or water park and the public areas are clean and comfortable. They provide newsletters describing daily activities, evening entertainment and other stuff of interest. One evening they were showed a Barcelona La Liga game, so the kids got to see that and enjoyed it. I played golf twice, once at Buenavista and than at Abama, both booked by the hotel. If you need car rental while at HB, I would recommend Europcar, which is about 5 minutes walk away. They offer a range of cars and the rates can be better than some of the local companies. We rented twice, once from a local company and the car felt like it had a moped engine, and struggled going up even the slightest slope, and later with Europcar and the car was very clean, and comfortable, and good value. The Europcar rental was a Peugeot 308 1.6 manual for 4 days for 166 Euro. I would choose this option. One thing to note is that car parking is limited at the hotel. The car parking area at the side is quite narrow and manoeuvring cars can be very tricky. The hotel will valet park for you. Overall, it is a very nice hotel, set apart by the staff and the service. It is categorised as a 5 star hotel. In my opinion, although the service standards are in this category, some of the facilities are not in the same category as a Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental or Ritz Carlton. There are a few small specific deficiencies. As noted, I found the bed uncomfortable and did not sleep well any night, although my family had no complaints, the wifi is poor in the rooms and the pools don't really work for kids who are not confident in pools over 1.2m. The car parking is tight especially when using unfamiliar (rental) cars. All that said, we had a good holiday and enjoyed Tenerife, and the kids want to go back.