Hotel Deloix Review - Large Groups, Small Dupes, Stray Poop

For our family holiday this year, we stayed at the Hotel Deloix Aqua Center in Benidorm. The hotel is about a mile from the beach, situated in a pleasant area that isn't noisy or busy but does benefit from a few shops and entertainment venues a short walk away. I had not intended to write a review, however, when I got home, I realised that I had quite a lot to say and an unsponsored review might be of benefit to anyone thinking of booking a break in Benidorm. This is why the photos are a bit more haphazard than I'd like, but I hope you can still get a feel of what you get for your money here. The hotel was booked as part of a package holiday, so I can't tell you the exact cost of our stay, but the hotel advertises rates of £157.49 per night for full board in June at the time of writing. 

We arrived, somewhat delayed, in the early morning hours and were pleased to find a warm welcome awaited us, alongside a table with a well-presented selection of cold cuts and salad. We felt this represented an excellent start to our stay. The reception area was large, bright and inviting, with lots of sofas and coffee tables and an adjacent bar with additional seating. Despite the antisocial hour, the staff were warm and friendly and spoke excellent English, not that I consider this essential. Once we had checked in, we were given directions to our room and left to our own devices. We were really tired by this point and the layout of the hotel was a little complicated, involving a system of four 'blocks' each one with its own lift, but we managed to find our way to our room with all our luggage. 

The room was lovely and cool, thanks to some very efficient air conditioning, and well presented. It is described on the website as a Family Room, which consists of two single beds pushed together and a folded-out sofa bed. I imagine for two people, when you don't need to use the sofa bed, it's a comfortable size, but it felt cramped with the sofa bed mere inches from the other beds without enough room to walk around properly. However, the room contained plenty of storage for three people and even had a decent amount of hangers. The balcony was a perfect size too, although it only had two chairs, so we had to drag out the upholstered chair from the room if we wanted to sit out together. I find this happens often with hotels, there's never quite enough of anything. The hotel room was booked for three people, but there were two outside chairs, two glasses and not even enough tiny soaps for one each, even though everyone knows that's the best part of staying in a hotel! In the room literature, it did state that we could request some extra items if we needed them, but it took three days and four attempts to secure an extra pillow, so we gave that up fairly quickly. 

We opted for full-board and overall the food was very good. The buffet was well stocked, particularly if you got there early and there was a good variety of options, including pastries, fruit and salads. We found this got a little repetitive over our ten-day stay and the pastries were sometimes stale, but I appreciated the salads and fruit a lot, as someone who isn't keen on 'heavy' meals, particularly during hot weather. I was also thrilled with the inclusion of two different fresh soups each day, as these provided a delightful hot meal if the main meal options weren't to our liking. The soups were accompanied by a plentiful supply of various types of bread rolls and the most delicious croutons. There were also some wonderful hot meals, freshly cooked each day, and clearly, a lot of care had gone into their creation. The website states that there is a "kids corner with a large selection of dishes prepared especially for our youngest guests", but we did not find this. On one side of the hot food station, there were sometimes chicken nuggets and chips, but the majority of the food was heavily favoured and would probably illicit a firm 'no' from our picky little eaters. 

One issue I had with the food, was that it was often not labelled and occasionally labelled incorrectly. This is a real problem if you have a food intolerance and it also produces a lot of food waste from people, particularly children, trying things, then realising it's a flavour they don't like. Another problem with the restaurant, in general, was the large delegations of patrons who half-filled the venue on their own and put an enormous strain on the facilities. It really felt as if large groups such as weddings and conference events were where the hotel saw its main priority, this is something they allude to on their website, but, without additional staff, this presents a myriad of problems for the rest of the paying guests. For example, a large group of young lads arrived and remained for a few days. They descended on the restaurant, as growing boys will, like a hoard of locusts and there simply wasn't the staff available, or the space, to deal with the extra numbers. When seating ran out, guests were expected to take their meals in an adjacent room, some way from the food stations and the queues were also much longer at this time. Inevitably food would also run out quicker, even the vending machine was exhausted! They were also bored, so during the evening entertainment, they amused themselves by chatting and wandering about, making it impossible to see or hear what was going on. 

This brings me to my next thought. I don't know if this is standard in Spanish hotels, due to the evening meal happening a lot later, or an issue with the hotel itself, but the entertainment consisted of a 45-minute act beginning at 10.30pm. This may just be a drawback of being full-board, but when everything in the hotel (pools, gym, etc) closes at 8pm, that's a lot of time to fill, even factoring in an evening meal, before there's anything else to do. Some of the entertainment was good, but it did feel at times as if the priority was on providing something in the way of entertainment, more so than a quality performance. Fortunately, we found a lovely bar nearby, called Tropical, which was family-friendly and provided outstanding entertainment from 8pm until long past midnight. I highly recommend this establishment if you do find yourself in this area of Benidorm. 

Hotel Deloix is described as a 'four-star superior' rated establishment. This is a fairly new rating and appears to be awarded when a hotel exceeds the four-star requirement in terms of quality and provides additional facilities, such as a sauna or workout room. If I had to describe the establishment in one word, that word would be 'exaggerated'. The facilities described on the website are all there, but I felt they were embellished considerably. Allow me to provide a few examples from the hotel's own website, alongside my personal experience: 

"Let our tropical gardens captivate you" - It's a planted courtyard. I agree, it's very pretty and many people were using it as a backdrop for lovely photographs, but if you are expecting gardens, plural, as in a space where you can walk around and smell the flowers in relative tranquillity, you will be disappointed. It's basically an outdoor corridor between the hotel and the restaurant so it also gets quite a bit of footfall and is unavailable to guests in the event of a wedding or function anyway.  

"The hotel’s stunning infinity pool is strategically located so that the sun is always shining on it and is directly connected with the indoor Aqua Center" - As you will see from the website's own photography, the outside pool patently has four edges, except a small channel which leads to the indoor pool. There is no connection from any angle of the pool to the horizon, therefore it is not, by definition, an infinity pool. It was beautifully sunny though. 

At least they have changed the wording of the description for the rooftop pool. Before we left for our stay, it mentioned enjoying a view of the sunset from this vantage point, however, this particular pool is only open in the summer months until 7.30 and the sun does not set until gone 9pm, so I'm glad they've put that right, anyway. 

Some of the room descriptions were also inaccurate: 

Bath with shower - There was no bath. I was fine with this because I have mobility issues, but if you have little ones, or are just expecting a soak, this could be an issue. 

Hairdryer - The power was so weak that it genuinely would have been quicker to blow on it. There was absolutely no drying happening here. 

Toiletries - Woefully inadequate for three adults for ten days. The only useful item was the hand soap dispenser, which was placed close enough to the shower to use as shower gel. 

One of the most important aspects of a hotel for me is the standard of cleaning, I really think this tells you a lot about standards in the hotel as a whole. We saw a lot of the cleaning staff during our stay and they clearly worked extremely hard. The speed with which they travelled up and down the corridors suggested they were trying to cover an awful lot of rooms in a short space of time and unfortunately this was reflected in the standard of cleaning delivered. On arrival, the room looked lovely, neat, shiny, and with a reassuring smell of furniture polish, however, when I went to rinse the sink after brushing my teeth, I could feel the unmistakable bumps on the enamel of previous grime which had not been removed, but merely wiped over. There was also a black smudge on the soap dispenser and, although this in itself is not a big deal, it did leave me wondering if they were forced to cut any more corners during their visit. By far the worst part about the cleaning experience for us, though, was that they never swept the balcony. When you stay in a hotel like this one, you have no access to cleaning supplies yourself, so you are reliant on the service provided unless you want to waste money on buying your own, which you would inevitably have to leave behind at the end of your stay, for want of a larger suitcase. 

Our problem with the balcony remaining persistently unswept was that it was our only seating area (the sofa in the room was our third bed and the staff did a sterling job of making it up each day). This meant that every time we went outside to sit and enjoy the view, despite our best efforts, we walked sand back into the room, and then we were plagued by it until the room was swept the next day. It got everywhere, all the time, and was a real pain, particularly when you'd just got out of the shower. The cleaning staff were lovely when we saw them and very much up against the clock, so I feel strongly that they did their best. Any discrepancies were down to understaffing or unrealistic time constraints from the management. I believe little details make all the difference on holiday and this is where a hotel can shine if they get it right. For example, we had the loveliest view from our balcony, but the lack of cleaning standards meant that, as well as all the sand, it was somewhat marred by the unfortunate stains on the balcony divider, which remained throughout our stay and looked very much like gifts from a local seagull. 

During the day, we didn't spend much time in the hotel because, despite its many claims to the contrary, there wasn't an awful lot to do. This was largely down to the omission of some very helpful information on the hotel's website. It turns out that, in Spain, they take pool hygiene pretty seriously. We found this out when we ventured into one of the many pools which form such a big part of the hotel's sales pitch (it's even in the name) and were promptly barked at by a lifeguard 'HATS!' 'HATS!!' 'HATS!!!!' Unusually for this hotel, his grasp of English appeared to be limited to about three words, but I eventually managed to ascertain that we were not allowed in the pool without swimming caps. He gestured towards a vending machine, which was useless to me because it's an unfortunate fact that I have... an enormous head. I mean, it is absolutely massive. I have to buy hats from outsize-head websites and if you add my thick, very long hair as well, it just will not fit in a standard swimming cap. When I swam regularly I looked into getting a cap and the only one that would fit was a Soul Cap, which would not arrive in time, even if I had been able to order one. Obviously, this was hugely disappointing for us as a family, since we were very keen on activities we could do together, and this lack of information knocked out, not just the two indoor pools, but also the jacuzzi in the spa, the entire "indoor aqua center" if you will. I felt it was spectacularly unhelpful of the hotel to neglect to mention this rule, particularly when the pools are the main draw of this establishment. There could be any number of reasons why patrons may benefit from this information, a latex allergy, lack of additional funds to buy a whole family new swimming hats, giant heads, I could go on. It has the potential to ruin a family holiday, especially if you've paid for all-inclusive expecting to be able to take full advantage of the pools and avoid paying out for additional off-site entertainment. The worst part about it was that, despite the outdoor pool being pretty busy, the indoor pool never had more than one family in, illustrating that we weren't the only ones who were unwilling or unable to purchase swimming hats at short notice. 

A lot of the patrons in the hotel were Spanish, so I strongly suspect the few people who did get to enjoy the pools were Spanish families who were aware of the rule already. When I asked at reception why it wasn't mentioned on the website, considering the amount of emphasis that is made about the 'six pools' on site, I was told it was because it wasn't the hotel's rule, but I feel this lack of interest in the comfort of foreign guests fits with my theory that this hotel is more interested in large groups, who would presumably be mostly local and wouldn't need informing of country-specific laws. Here's a picture of one of the perpetually empty pools. Doesn't it look lovely? 

It took a surprising amount of digging online to find the reason for the rule and it turns out it's a law in Spain that any pool over a certain temperature (hence why the outdoor pool was unaffected) requires all patrons to wear swimming hats. For what it's worth, I'm entirely onboard with this. Having been fairly disgusted by our local pool here in the UK, the idea that there is so much emphasis on pool hygiene, to keep everyone safe from germs is brilliant, I was secretly very impressed. Until that is, we spent an afternoon in the outdoor pool and this actual turd remained by the side of the water, in full view of the lifeguards walking past and at risk of being trodden on by an unsuspecting child, the entire time. Oh, the irony. By the way, I realise I should probably have alerted someone to this health hazard, but the pool area was busy. There were many Spanish people around who could see it and would have found it much easier to convey; "Perhaps you should remove this actual human poo from the thoroughfare before someone gets an unpleasant surprise" much better than my GCSE Spanish would allow. Also, contrary to the rest of the hotel staff, who were absolutely lovely, I did not find the lifeguards all that friendly or approachable. 

Our departure day was fast approaching and I was becoming very concerned about the logistics of our final day. Our departure time was 11.30pm, so we weren't being collected for the airport until very late evening, but the hotel check-out time was unrelentingly 10.30am. I asked the receptionists about this several times and was consistently told to ask again nearer the check-out day. The evening before, I was finally able to persuade someone to check availability and was informed that they were fully booked, but if I came down in the morning at 8am, the same individual would be on shift and he would see what he could do. I could not establish exactly what he would be able to do, since it was unlikely space would suddenly become available overnight due to the language barrier, but desperation meant I would give it a try. I wouldn't normally baulk at showing up anywhere at 8am. By our British 9-5 standards, it's not even that early, but several factors meant I was really, really tired. Spanish time works differently for a start, the heat during the day means that meals are taken later, so the evening begins and ends later, leading to us getting back from the entertainment venue at gone midnight. Add to that, the very, very hard beds and the worry of having 11 hours to fill on our last day, and the early start was not ideal. However, I dutifully trooped down to reception at exactly 8am, to see the same gentleman I'd spoken to the night before, who told me that, as I'd anticipated, nothing had changed and they couldn't offer anything in the way of help. What a monumental waste of everyone's time that was. I tried to appeal, but he was adamant there was no way they could delay our check out at all. Not even by a couple of hours. I don't know if I just expect too much, but it surprised me that they weren't prepared to offer anything in the way of assistance. He kept saying that we were welcome to use the public showers by the pool as if this was a special concession but we were aware we could do that anyway. I just felt this would be very awkward with our cases being in storage and public showers tending to be very wet and lacking in much space to get properly dried and dressed for a journey with a lot of potential for delays. In the end, we walked to the local shop, bought ourselves a picnic for lunch, which we ate in reception, so as not to be in the sun too long, and then headed off to a local zoo for the day, Terra Natura, which was an excellent choice, since it had a lot of covered walkways for shade and benches to rest since I use a walking stick and my mobility is not great. 

In conclusion, there was a lot to like about Hotel Deloix, the staff were lovely, the facade was pretty and the location was ideal for families who don't like a lot of noise and fuss. However, there were too many occasions where I felt that the well-being and comfort of holidaymakers was not a priority and the venue was more focused on corporate events and weddings. I also feel that considering how busy it was during school time I think the facilities would become very quickly overwhelmed during the summer holidays, leading to even more queueing and crowding, especially since the outdoor pool, which isn't huge, will be favoured by a lot of people who didn't know about the hat rule. Despite being very keen to revisit the area of Benidorm where the hotel is based. I don't think I would stay at this particular establishment again.