A hotel worth a long journey

Hotel Botanico claims to be a leading hotel in the world. From my experience – this was our fourth stay – I can agree to that. The service you are met with is very discreet, very smiling and extremely professional. From the moment you hand over your car key to the bellboy to the reception at the hotel, the restaurants, bar pools etc you are met with people who seem to be pleased to serve you. We normally stay at the fourth floor but were this time given a penthouse room with a 50 square meter terrace on the fifth floor. From the terrace we had a wonderful view of Mount Teide, weather permitting. Elephants and birds decorate the room and the cleaning was perfect. I could suggest however, that the very nice TV set be hung on the wall to give more space. A complimentary computer was a nice thing to set up, but I doubt if nowadays the guests like us do not bring their own electronics. Just some suggestions. A huge bathroom has a very good shower in a separate cabin and a separate bathtub. I would suggest a handle placed outside the shower as the floor tends to get slippery when you have showered. We used the spa on a daily basis and in addition to that took a swim in the big outdoor pool. There are plenty of towels at the poolside and we always found a vacant sunbed when we wanted it. There is a fantastic garden at the hotel, with a lake with turtles and black swans. In addition, notice the herbal garden in the back of the garden area. Fascinating. We observed more guests in part of our stay than we normally do, perhaps because there was a big wedding ceremony one night. The management was capable of running the hotel smoothly and at the same time have a wedding party with 100 guests, compliments to that. Breakfast is extremely good and varied buffet style with a cooking spot where you can order eggs, omelets any style to your taste. Probably the best breakfast I now from any hotel. We only went to the bar a couple of times – mostly to have a drink in the garden - and visited the three restaurants once. The restaurants are good but competition is hard as there are many good places to eat in Puerto de la Cruz. We will return – I am already looking forward to it. It may not be a hotel to bring our grandchildren, but for us to relax and be pampered it is worth a long journey.