Beautiful and calm oasis, lavish spa, good restaurants, pleasant staff

We enjoyed another return visit to the Botanicó, this time for nine nights. The hotel is a calm and elegant oasis at the edge of downtown Puerto de la Cruz and close to its famous Botanical Garden, established in the 18c. The hotel continues the botanical theme with its beautiful garden whose Asian ambience is continued in the décor of the spacious public areas. The luxurious spa is on a grand scale and has many options. There are several bus services close by and taxis to downtown (or elsewhere) are inexpensive. The hotel also offers a (somewhat limited) shuttle service to the city centre. Our ‘double de luxe’ fourth floor room and bathroom were adequately sized but the general ambience was more four star than five star and reflected the hotel’s mid 20c construction. And the floor of the walk-in shower in the ‘renovated’ bathroom was only c. 1 sq m and would have been a challenge to anyone over 175 cm in height. Breakfast is a sumptuous buffet with attentive staff (and the best croissants we can recall). There are three elegant restaurants and we enjoyed several dinners in two of them (the other is designed to assist guests on a slimming programme). WiFi was free and easy to use but rather slow. All the staff we met were helpful and friendly. While expensive by local standards, we thought the Botanicó generally good value – but some offerings are seriously overpriced e.g. the laundry service and private airport transfers. The clientele is mainly 50 + in age (we did not see a single child!) and the atmosphere is correspondingly sedate and quiet. Staying in the Botanicó is a relaxing and pleasant experience, close to five star in most respect and it’s also a good base for touring the interesting historic towns of northern Tenerife. Recommended subject to the comments above.