Grupotel Orquidea

Before I start, I just want to say that I think we were just unlucky with our holiday here and that the problems we did encounter were treated seriously by the hotel staff. We arrived around 11pm ish on a Friday night. The flight and transfer from the hotel has been fine. The hotel had left a very simple cold buffet out for late arrivals. Our room was on the fifth floor and had a beautiful view of the coast. Unfortunately my daughter had an accident in the bed and the following morning, we informed the reception team who said they'd fix it straight away. The first day was very windy and the pool was cold. We went down to dinner on either the first or second night of our stay and the dining room was chaos. It was exceptionally busy, I'd never seen anything so manic in my life. We tried to find a table and eventually did. I went into the buffet area and struggled to get any food. Queues were being ignored, kids just wandering aimlessly dropping food and pushing in front of people. Even some of the adults did not have any common sense or manners. The kitchen and waiting staff were understaffed and stressed. I managed to get two slices of pizza and took them back to the table but by that point the pizza was cold and I was very reluctant to 'go back into' the bedlam in the restaurant. My son, aged 9, has autism and the noise, atmosphere and chaos were quickly having an effect on him. So we left the cold pizza and went to a restaurant in the square across the road. When we complained to the reception staff we were told that it was peak season and it was a crossover evening between guests leaving and arriving. Either way, it was utter bedlam, bordering on dangerous. My husband spoke to Ulrica the following day and she offered for us to eat in the à la carte restaurant next door, which was far quieter. We still ate from the buffet restaurant but carried our food through. It was much better and far quieter. To be honest, the restaurant was never quite that busy again but mealtimes were causing a lot of anxiety for my son so we stuck to the alternative plan. The restaurant staff worked hard but just couldn't keep up with cleaning the tables to make space. The following day we noticed a leak from the ceiling of the area just outside the shower. Water was just streaming down the ceiling, past the fuse box, creating a puddle on the floor. While I took the kids to eat in the restaurant, my husband spoke to the reception team. Naomi, the TUI rep did a fab job of getting us moved. David, the hotel manager was happy for us to move the following morning but we did not think it was safe. When we returned to the room to pack up our things, there was a maintenance guy fixing the issue. Apparently the air conditioning unit had leaked. He wasn't too worried about the safety but we were. We were moved to a junior suite which was a nice upgrade, now with a view over the main part of the hotel. It was a little noisy when the show was on but we weren't that fussed. W

Where to begin with this “4 * hotel” Very short transfer from the airport, which was amazing considering having such a long day! Upon arrival late in the evening the hotel seemed very pleasant from the outside. Checked in quickly and with no hassle, provided our room key, quick change and a wash and we headed down for a quick bite to eat. Imagine the horror when the first experience of food was cutting into some grilled chicken, and finding it raw in the middle. Not a brilliant start…. Food choice throughout the two weeks wasn’t brilliant, I wasn’t expecting much, but something far more better. If any one of our guests had any form of poultry we would have to cut into it and check if it was cooked. Few occasions where there was raw poultry, and from seeing other mentions on the Tui blue app pin board from the hotel, this seemed to be quite a normal thing to happen.?! Never in my life have I had to check if meat is cooked in a 4* hotel. But alas, we didn’t go hungry whilst staying here, but that might have been down to the fact we ate out a lot in the amazing restaurants across the road in the square. The la plaza grill was amazing by the way!!! Not really much to say else on the food. Unfortunately we had seen more than a few cockroaches at this hotel.. more than we would like to have seen. After speaking to family and friends who have visited Gran Canaria - they hadn’t seen any cockroaches in their hotels.. which now has me second guessing that this is normal.. I think cleanliness might be a problem here. Sun bed wars are abhorrent in this hotel, seeing as people from the sister hotels seem to all want to use the same facilities. Seeing people making a mad dash for their sun beds from our balcony at 8am was the highlight of our holiday . Cleanliness around the pool was dire, a lolly pop that was stuck to the floor for days on end. Broken pool tiles. The pool was closed on more than one occasion because of bodily fluids being found in the pools (not the hotels fault I get that). The evening entertainment bar was awful, sweat box, reminded me of something along the lines of facilities used by military forces whilst on detachment in desert like areas. (Although I believe their facilities are much better). There were two toilets for women near the entertainment bar, which for the amount of guests that use the orquidea is atrocious. The hallways leading the to bedrooms seemed as if the cleaners just swept all the dirt out, and left for over a week and a half whilst we were there, mentioned to Tui reps, and hotel reception staff but nothing seemed to have been done about it. The cielings are paper thin. We had noisy upstairs neighbours, I think scaffolders make less noise than they did (again not the hotels fault), we did speak to reception after night three of it, and it did seem to work of sorts.. the area is absolutely beautiful and I feel blessed to have visited Gran Canaria, and will eventually return. But just not to this hotel. Standing joke b

Hotel rooms are ok, love the split level its gives the feeling of being separate rooms but the air conditioning, although cool, doesn't hit the beds & can cause a difficult nights sleep. The restaurants are okay if a little repetitive, I was fine but some members of my family were hoping for a bit more variety. They had an Italian night & an Asian night in the main dining room. I had a prawn cracker that almost choked me! It had a piece of what appeared to be plastic around 2.5cm round embedded inside it. My wife found a chef to complain to but he seemed to just shrug his shoulders & point her to reception. They were of little help too. A TUI rep was nearby & said that she'd sort it out. Sadly that came to nothing too. The morale of the incident is just your food in the main restaurant, just in case you have a child who likes prawn crackers! Le Tavern restaurant should only be eaten at if you're starving. The Sultan restaurant is well worth a visit with goid service & excellent food. There are always plenty of sunbeds around the pool, even if the water is a bit cool for my liking! The entertainment staff are highly talented & energetic. The evening shows are quite good. On the whole its a nice hotel but we felt let down by our treatment over the prawn cracker!

Firstly we come home last night and we couldn’t have been happier to be home sadly. My son is autistic and has quite a lot of struggles, he was in the swimming pool with a very small rubber ring as that’s what makes him comfortable when I’m swimming pools and 2/3 days in there was no problem with that, life guard was happy said he was fine etc to them be approached by who I believe was another guy in grey uniform no idea his role in hotel (I believe possibly towel guy) but please some quote me on that and my son was told no and to get out to which I told him he was told by the lifeguard he’s fine and has been for the past few days howver he stood his ground upset my son due to the situation was rude and not remorseful at all. My son being autistic got extremely upset and panicked and ended up wanting to spend the last of his holiday in his room, we spoke to what we was told was the hotel manager however recently found out she was just the assistant about the situation and after trying to push us to another hotel sister pool and other places around the hotel however after standing our ground she said the ring would be fine for my son in this pool. My son however was completely heartbroken at this point and felt horrible due to the treatment he recieved and myself also very angry and upset due to the discrimination against sons special needs. After returning to our room for a few hours we went for Lunch and I managed to change his mind in regards to the pool so we went back and as a family of 3 myself my son and his grandmother we continued to play and my son continued to try get comfortable practimg swimming and just in general being okay in the water as for him that’s a big step To them once again have the hotel manager assistant approach us at the pool while playing as a family to ask us to remove our review on the hotel which is wrong on many levels and to approach us in front of my son again I had to leave his grandmother to deal with it due to upset on my son. Thankfully we have witness who also had a child with special needs and spoke to me personally after and expressed how what she saw made her furious. Personally avoid this hotel it’s not 4 stars, some of the restaurant staff were rude, the food was extremely mediocre, the reception desk there was maybe 1 person who was nice however on the day of leaving they couldn’t find our passports and put them in the wrong place. I spoke to a tui rep in regards to the pool situation (I have names of all these people) to which she was also rude and showed zero care and interest to my son’s needs. There’s no signs around the hotel pools aswell as on the website which states inflatables etc are fine. The pool my son was in with his tiny inflatable also had giant inflatables which was shrugged off and fine (I have photos) many people playing ball games diving in etc however my autistic sons tiny inflatable to stop him panicking was NOT okay but the giant pink flamingo and rings was. (

Overall great hotel. We bought booked as 2 adults and one 5 year old child. The reason for booking was for all the reviews raving about the kids club and all the activities for kids, and they did not disappoint. My child loved the kids club, the staff were amazing. He enjoyed every time he went, the activities were well planned, the staff knew his name by the third visit and the way you have to create an account on the app, add pictures of the parents so they can check it’s the correct person collecting them, and sign them in and out every time makes you feel like they are really safe. Cannot praise the kids club and staff enough. They don’t let you put towels on sunbeds before 8 when they open the entrances to the pools, but there’s are quite a lot of people queuing up from 7:15! There are plenty of sunbeds as there are a lot on the grass near the sea, but not enough parasols in general. The kids pool was great, perfect size, depth and slide and our 5 year old could play by himself while we watched. The pool that allowed floats got very busy in the afternoons. The deeper pool was mostly ok, few occasions of not being able to move much due to the amount of people. The rooms are clean and kept nice. The floors mopped every day. We didn’t have enough towels on arrival for the three of us, but by the end of the holiday we had an abundance of towels! For some reason our shower would run ok at some points in the day, but most of the time it would go through a cycle of being ok, getting cold, then boiling hot and repeat this every minute or so. Not worth complaining about though. Overall cleanliness is ok in the public areas. We stayed on the top floor, as we had requested, and the music from the evening entertainment didn’t bother us at night. Yes you could hear it a bit on occasion, but we could sleep through it. The food… this was mainly the only let down. Breakfast was great, best meal of the day. We mainly had lunch from the snack bar and the selection was fine for a quick lunch which is all we wanted. Dinner however, we thought it started off alright as there was always something that our child would eat, but this then became very repetitive. There is always a spaghetti, a pasta and two sauces. Chips and then two meats such as chicken drumsticks and pork. Pizza in the middle and then a few veggie dishes, rice, salad and meats and cheeses. It got very same-y and even our little boy got bored of having similar things every night. In busy times the food wasn’t getting replenished quick enough which meant people started queuing and when something was brought out, it was quickly empty again. My pet peeve was the desserts section though… large selection which was great and always plenty of selections, but no idea what each item was as there was just a collection of name cards at the top that didn’t correspond to the dessert below. Not great for anyone with allergies. You wouldn’t know which one contains what, which isn’t very safe. On one n

After waiting 40 minutes at the airport, the TUI Blue bus never arrived to pick us up, and the agents had no tracking information available. Having already had a long day, we decided to take a taxi, which charged us 60 EUR for a 20-minute drive. Once at the hotel, simply glancing at the showerhead (which might as well be nonexistent given its poor quality) made it clear that this hotel didn’t live up to its supposed 4-star rating. Additionally, there were no shampoo or conditioner amenities in the room, which was disappointing. Despite placing the “please clean” sign outside, our room was never cleaned. We were there for only 3 days, but it would have been nice to have it cleaned, especially since it wasn’t particularly clean upon arrival. With 255 rooms in the hotel, it was frustrating that we couldn’t extend our stay in ours until 3 PM on checkout day, even for an extra fee.