Grupotel Orquidea

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

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. (

Hotel good although food repetitive and mostly cold. Room ok. Staff good. BUT!! The beach to the water is absolutely rubbish and as this hotel was not my choice but was changed by TUI I was left very disappointed. The hotel I originally booked had a totally child friendly beach next door which is why I choose it. Very angry with TUI !!