Mixed experience

Apologies for the length of this review but our stay at this hotel was so mixed that it is hard to summarise in brief. The good points: There is no doubt that this is a lovely hotel. The grounds are beautiful and the spa area is fantastic for adults. The main pool is heated to perfection and lovely to swim in. But it is worth noting that the deep end really is deep and there is not much of a shallow end if you have small children. Our children are older but I would say this is not a hotel really designed for younger families. The rooms are very clean, comfortable and quiet. The staff, on the whole, are polite, helpful and attentive. We hired a car, for example, and that was very straightforward, and we also borrowed pool towels from the front desk. Gary was also excellent at explaining the lives of the jellyfish in the tank in reception to my son. Thanks Gary! The negatives... The big problem for our family of four was the food. We paid a supplement for half-board and were very, very disappointed with what we were offered. The breakfast was fine: standard buffet fare. For the evening meal, however, there were supposed to be three options: Italian, Chinese/Thai, and a buffet. But without being told on arrival, let alone explained why, only the Italian was open. This was a problem because a). eating in the same restaurant every night really became tiresome; b). the standard of the food was not great. The pasta isn't as good as in most half-decent Italian restaurants and one night my wife ordered gnocci only to be told half an hour later that there was a 'problem' with it and she needed to order something else. Sorry, but how hard can it be to prepare and cook a plate of gnocci? c). The choices on the menu are quite limited unless you want to pay a supplement, and there were no specials so every night we had the same choices - potatoes, soup etc for a starter and so on. d). The atmosphere in this restaurant was, well, non-existent. Every night they had the same awful muzak with a woman covering pop songs in the most awful way. Dear God, please change that and at least play some Spanish music or something local from the Canary Islands. In the end, my daughter was close to putting her fingers in her ears... The evening meals got so repetitive that we asked if we could swap it for lunch instead. The hotel said yes, of course. Great. But then the fun really starter. It was chaos. One day we order dishes only for no food to arrive from the kitchen for what seemed like hours. Then they forget my dish entirely, which was another 30 mins. In the meantime a waiter poured us a glass of 'complimentary' wine only for us to then be charged for it. We asked what was happening in the kitchen and apparently there was only one chef on duty as the hotel had trimmed its staff in preparation for a quiet period. This is simply not good enough for a hotel of this quality, Whoever made the decisions to close these restaurants and operate with a skeleton staff should be held to account as it is not acceptable. I would add that there was a big conference or event being held at hotel at the same time, and this seemed to have priority in terms of catering over the needs of regular guests. It is also worth noting that drinks are very expensive. 7 euros for a bottle of water at dinner, which was the same a glass of wine. Come on...this isn't necessary. The problems with food really put a dent in our stay at the hotel and in the end we chose to eat locally at our own cost. One other thing: there is a free shuttle bus in Puerto de la Cruz, but it doesn't operate in afternoon at weekends. This is bonkers as this is one time that you might like to use it. So, in sum, this hotel really is a mixed bag. If it could sort out its issues with catering to regular guests, I would say it would be worth visiting and we would return, but otherwise I would give it a miss.