TUI BLUE Orquidea

Please beware! The good reviews oversell this hotel and I don't want anyone to end up in our awful situation. We booked the TUI BLUE Orquídea expecting the standard described by TUI BLUE: “best-in-class service”, personal service, quality food and activities tailored to guests. Unfortunately, our experience fell well short of those expectations. We were travelling with a baby, which made some of the problems particularly difficult. Our original room had a balcony door that was almost impossible to open. The air conditioning was extremely poor and was also leaking. We reported the problems and, after two nights, we were moved to another room in an attempt to resolve them. Unfortunately, the problems continued. The air conditioning in the new room was still inadequate and made a loud rattling noise. There were also numerous other issues during our stay: • Poor quality lunch and dinner, to the point that we chose to eat dinner outside the hotel and incurred additional expense. • Cleanliness concerns, including finding hair and dirt in drinks. • A cockroach in the drinking area near the restaurant. • The hotel was extremely hot, particularly the restaurant. • Only two working lifts for a hotel with hundreds of guests, resulting in significant queues (the third lift remained permanently on floor 10 and was not in use). • Very loud music around the pool and at night, which carried to our room. • Significant queues for pool sunbeds and, when we went out, no suitable shaded loungers available. This was particularly difficult with a baby. • The baby pool was so overcrowded that we couldn't properly use it. After raising our concerns and trying to resolve the room problems, TUI ultimately moved us to the Lopesan Baobab. We are very pleased with the Baobab and it has been a completely different experience — it is an excellent hotel and much more in line with what we expected from our holiday. However, we had to pay a significant additional amount to move hotels. We are now raising a formal complaint with TUI about our experience at the Orquídea and the fact that, in our view, the actual experience did not match the standards and description associated with the TUI BLUE brand. I am posting this review because I think prospective guests should be aware of our experience before booking. The hotel may suit some people, and experiences can obviously vary, but based on our stay, I would not recommend the TUI BLUE Orquídea to families with babies who are expecting the level of quality and service suggested by the TUI BLUE branding. There is a baby room, which is a nice touch, but this does not make up for the problems we experienced. Our experience at the Lopesan Baobab has been excellent, but unfortunately the problems at the Orquídea significantly affected the first half of our holiday.

We booked a 2 week holiday here as a family of 4 during August. I can honestly say we all had a great time. My kids are aged 3 and 7 and there is so much to do. Staff are fantastic and always willing to help, from reception staff, cleaners, chefs and TUI staff. Pools were good but can get very busy being August. Good variety of food each night and they catered for my kids who are dairy free. The kids clubs are great and all staff were super friendly, welcoming and full of energy. We were on floor 11 so our room had a great view, very clean and perfect for the 4 of us. Location is good, local little beaches and a bus or taxi ride away from the bigger towns and beaches. Good value for money considering we went in august during the school holidays. You get plenty for your money and TUI staff really made our visit. Would recommend as a great atmosphere with plenty to do at the hotel and locally. Thank you to everyone that made our stay so good.

After staying in another Tui Blue hotel last year we opted for this one as the standard was good in all aspects and was definitely a 4 star. Unfortunately we were disappointed with our stay. I think this hotel is more 3 star. Air conditioning in the room was non existent. The room was like a black hole due to lack of lighting. Food was repetitive. The cocktails were supposed to contain alcohol, so was the beer. Not sure they actually did. There was extremely loud music until around 23:00 which isn’t great when you have young children. Communal areas inside had clumps of hair and possibly animal droppings around them. Booked a Tui trip which was shown as pick up at the hotel. But it wasn’t a hotel pick up at all - it was at a bus stop just up from the hotel. We managed to get a service bus to where we needed to be though luckily. Children enjoyed the entertainment and the Kids Club staff were brilliant. We like Gran Caneria and have stayed nearby before. I wouldn’t recommend or come back to this hotel though.

Spent 2 weeks at this hotel with our boys, 3 and 5. The rooms are suitable for families, clean and tidy, the reception is always available and helpful, so any issues you just have to ask. Cleaning is more bedmaking than changing but if you want your sheets and towels changed daily just chuck them on the floor in a pile. The pools are good, the pool staff usually don't bother people and are friendly enough when they need to blow the whistle. Annoying you cant take food outside, and, you cant take drinks near the pool which is just silly. The bars are decent, cocktails are better in the evenings but generally better than other all inclusives. Drinks variety is good and bars are open 10am to 12pm. As a parent with kids it would be great to be able to get drinks in bulk (can only order 4 at once) or have a room service to take drinks to parents watching kids as it is a pain to have to keep going down to the bar. The lifts are a bit annoying, 3 total, 1 was broken so often took a while to get up and down, could do with installing some more lifts on the outside of the building to increase the capacity. Music went on until 11am which was very loud, I love music as much as the next person but for a hotel full of families with small kids it would be better to generally lower the volume and finish earlier. The food was good, nice variety and most importantly none of us were in anyway ill over the 2 weeks so the health and safety must have been to standard. Our kids loved the constant ice cream and we made millshakes in cups with hotmilk, sauce, and icecream which they loved, there were also alot of good cakes and other treats. The hotels location is great really close to the airport but without any aircraft noise, very close to sioux city which was great. We also went to Palomas park which wad great. The entertainment at the hotel is good, the staff are running something throughout the day and are really friendly with the kids. Our boys fell in love with TUI robot and Bamse making it almost like a Disney trip. They got teddies of these charachters by attending evening clubs and they were so happy. It really made it magical for the kids. For families with small or young children this hotel is excellent. Many people we spoke to had been back multiple times.

We stayed at the Las pitas apartments big problem where the room was situated, we were right at the top which made my access to the room very difficult as I had a hip replacement done in November. We went straight down to reception to see if we could change rooms, the staff were lovely and did acomedate us with the lower level apartment at a cost of £120 which I was not happy about but if I did not pay i would of been in the room all day. The both rooms were exactly the same. There was one bedroom and there was a large corner settee in the kitchen which in my opinion were not beds as the pool beds were more comfy we did not sleep much at all. When we arrived the instructions on finding your room was not well explained you was given one bottle of water and you were not told that you had to keep that bottle to refill it which our empty one was taken by the maid, so we had to buy more. Having said all that the transfer was quick, the food was amazing plenty of choice, grounds were spotless and so was the toilets which was cleaned constantly. The drinks were ok my husband drunk the local vodka which he said was fine, I did not like the vodka and found the cocktails sweet. On the last but one day we found out that the premium drinks were in the package after 5.