Parador De Las Canadas Del Teide

We had booked three nights and had a family issue. The hotel refused all changes. The site is fabulous but .... The agent who guards the site and prevents us from entering by car is unbearable - the bar is run by an employee who speaks only Spanish - and there is a cafeteria like in a campsite!! The Paradore has changed quite a bit. We just had two mediocre experiences. What a shame.

We went with a gift box, and truly, it is one of those experiences you remember forever. The treatment from the staff was truly appreciated; thank you for making us feel so comfortable, it makes the place much better. The food was very good, the desserts were amazing, very, very good, and the buffet was excellent, all with unique views of a place with a special energy, due to the landscape, the stars, ...

The Parador de Las Canadas del Teide is the fourth Parador hotel we've visited in the Canaries. Safe to say we won't be back. We 'd wanted to go for a very long time, and this May was going to be that time. Driving up we were bowled over by the scenery and the flowers, so we arrived in an excellent frame of mind ready to continue our experience of this unique site in comfort. Sadly, it was not to be. Not only because I didn't take to the altitude, but chiefly because just about everything about the hotel was depressing and/or didn't work. We paid a lot for a remarkably poor stay. Now - having stayed at Paradors we are familiar with the little particularities of the brand, such as poor bar service (except in the El Hierro Parador, where bar service was excellent!) and long waiting times for dinner (particularly developed in the La Gomera Parador). But at the Las Canadas Parador, these eccentricities were taken to a new level, because the hotel itself was so very poor. The welcome was cold, the decor was beyond vintage and shabby (and so not chic...). The carpets everywhere were especially noteworthy for a collection of stains and frayings I've not seen in a 'good' hotel charging the rates Las Canadas charges. There was a strange smell pervading the place of dust, old gravy and dodgy chemicals. We booked the hotel in January, hoping to get a good room with a view (seemed a rational expectation to us anyhow), and instead we were given a room with a view all right - just not of any landscape features. All I can say is, if you are majorly into air-conditioning, go and ask for room 128. You'll be able to survey a whole collection of the things right across your room, working tirelessly through the night to make somebody else's night cool. You meanwhile will be lying sleepless, unable to enjoy the cool mountain air, not only because of the noise of the machines (including your own), but also because the kitchen ventilation system vents right into the courtyard outside your window, and you will be breathing yesterday's dinner. Other problems (not necessarily in the order they happened in): The kettle didn't work. We ordered dinner at 7.30 pm and finally got our starters at 8.30. In between there was one solitary piece of bread, given us with great ceremony but with no compassionate follow-up of another piece of bread to make the waiting a little less depressing. The dining room desperately needs a complete make-over. Scrap that - the whole hotel desperately needs a complete make-over (That smell...?). The chairs were so uncomfortable my legs swelled to the size of mortadella sausages. When my hubby approached the bar for our complimentary local wine (it wasn't local...) the person behind the bar informed him cuttingly that she wasn't the bar staff and walked away. That wine took a long time to arrive after that. The lounge seating is abysmally old, dusty and uncomfortable. The outside seating, with a view to die for, will also kill your back along the way because it is hard and unyielding (also spectacularly ugly). Glasses and bottles remain uncleared for hours and hours. The windows are dirty everywhere. The food was stodgy, very old-fashioned and in places actively unpleasant (the menu needs an overhaul, too). The service was (shall we say) brisk, partly because the dining room is so large and the staff so few, they have to be international athletes to cover the ground from kitchen to table. We didn't try the swimming pool because calling it a pool is giving it a name it doesn't deserve. On arriving in the room and seeing our non-view and the machines outside, we turned tail and walked back to reception to request a move. None was possible because the hotel (which is large) was apparently full to the brim. We were told we might be able to change the room the next day, but without any guarantees this might actually happen. But we didn't wait to see whether this wishy-washy promise might be fulfilled. We left sharpish after breakfast and hot-footed it to a better, much, much better hotel down the mountain. PS: and at breakfast WHY were the margarine tubs in the bowl marked 'butter' and vice versa?!